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September
8, 2006
This internal publication contains information about recent coverage
of Carnegie Mellon that appeared primarily in national newspapers, magazines
and online publications. Please note that some sources may require registration
or a subscription in order to access their information online.
Please send comments and suggestions to thomas@cmu.edu
The media coverage archive is available at www.cmu.edu/clips
From September 1 to September 7,
Carnegie Mellon Media Relations counted 186 references to the university in worldwide
publications. Here is a sample.
National News Stories
The New York Times | September 7
MSN | September 3
Science | September 1
Arts and Humanities
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette | September 5
Information Technology
ScienCentral | September 6
United Press International | September 5
FCW | September 4
Star-Telegram (AP) | August 31
Electronic Musician | August 1
Environment
GreenBiz | September 1
Regional Impact
Pittsburgh Tribune-Review | September 4
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette | September 2
Local News Stories
Pittsburgh Tribune-Review | September 3
International News Stories
Gulf Times | September 6
Engineer Live | September 5
Macworld | September 5
Electronic Engineering Times | September 1
ElectronicsWeekly | September 1
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National News Stories
The New York Times | September 7
Contrary to popular opinion, China may be good for our trade balance. American consumers seem determined to spend money, and Chinese businessmen have made the bill cheaper. It is not the case that China is simply draining the United States of money. Most of the growth in Chinese exports to the United States has come from switching manufacturing and assembly from other, more expensive, Asian countries. In 1985, China, Japan, Hong Kong, Taiwan and South Korea accounted for 52.3 percent of America's trade deficit. By 2005, this percentage had fallen to 40.9 percent, in part because of cost savings from buying Chinese. From 1986 to 1988, Taiwan and South Korea accounted for 60 percent of American footwear imports; China was only 2 percent. By 2001, market positions had reversed; China produced about 60 percent of the total and Taiwan and South Korea about 2 percent. Toys and sporting goods show similar gains by the Chinese, again driven by lower prices. (For these and related figures, see "China's Embrace of Globalization" by Lee Branstetter, professor of economics at Carnegie Mellon University, and Nicholas R. Lardy, senior research associate at the Institute for International Economics, at http://www.nber.org/papers/w12373.)
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/09/07/business/
worldbusiness/07scene.html?_r=1&oref=slogin | back to top
MSN | September 3
Her Highness Sheikha Mozah Bint Nasser Al-Misnad, the consort of H.H. the Emir, is working to raise educational standards and create new learning opportunities for all members of society. She is committed to building a modern, world-class educational system in Qatar. Through the Qatar Foundation, Her Highness has developed pilot educational projects which make Qatar a center of excellence in higher education and research, in addition to an important contributor to world knowledge. Parts of these projects are: Education City. Being developed by the Qatar Foundation for Education, Science, and Community Development, as non-profit organization specialized on educational and cultural development in Qatar, housing some of the world's finest academic institutions, and aimed at positioning Doha as a key center for the advancement of the people of Qatar and other Gulf states. Scheduled for completion in 2008, Education City is already flourishing and providing world-class educational facilities from kindergarten through junior and secondary levels to internationally recognized graduate and post-graduate studies and research programs. Education City hosts branch campuses of some of the world's leading universities, as well as numerous other educational and research institutions such as: Carnegie Mellon, George Town University, Texas A& M, Virginia Commonwealth, and Weill Cornell Medical School.
http://mdn.mainichi-msn.co.jp/specials/nationalday/
news/20060901p2g00m0dm032000c.html | back to top
Science | September 1
International students come to the United States to study, and often they stay on after earning a Ph.D. This influx has always contributed to the strength of U.S. research, but it creates a problem—"brain drain"—that leaves a technical vacuum overseas, especially in developing countries. ... Taiwan's Industrial Technology Research Institute has been involved in partnerships with the University of California, Berkeley since 2004 and with Carnegie Mellon University since 2003. The Berkeley program includes an unrestricted grant of $500,000 per year over 5 years to support about 15 graduate students and postdocs. The program at Carnegie Mellon pays the university $1.5 million per year through 2008 for research in visual computing technologies, micro-electro-mechanical systems , and system-on-a-chip design and methodology. In 2006, Carnegie Mellon and Taiwan's government-sponsored International Collaboration for Advancing Security Technology inked a follow-up deal that will provide an additional $1 million for each of the next 3 years. Twenty Taiwanese researchers will visit Carnegie Mellon to work on a variety of security-related projects designed to improve both U.S. and Asian advanced security technologies.
http://sciencecareers.sciencemag.org/career_development
/previous_issues/articles/2006_09_01/
reversing_the_brain_drain/(parent)/68 | back to top
Arts and Humanities
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette | September 5
To filch from an old Kurt Weill tune, the days are dwindling down until our precious few reading series begin their seasons later this month. We'll be running a comprehensive schedule Sept. 17. This year, two new series are joining the veteran quartet of the Heinz Lectures, Pittsburgh Contemporary Writers at the University of Pittsburgh, Carnegie Mellon's Adamson Visiting Writers and Pittsburgh Speakers series. Here's a brief rundown of the new guys on the block with more details to follow in two weeks: Carnegie Mellon's All-Alumni Reading Series. The university's creative writing program stages homecoming appearances by its graduates beginning Sept. 14 with Lisa Zeidner. She's published four novels and teaches at Rutgers University.
http://www.post-gazette.com/
pg/06248/719022-44.stm | back to top
Information Technology
ScienCentral | September 6
Researchers at the National Robotics Engineering Center, a part of Carnegie Mellon University, have developed an autonomous off-road military vehicle they've dubbed Crusher. It can travel over extreme terrain, like a 4-foot vertical wall, and can carry up to 8,000 pounds of supplies. All this without any human interaction, using a combination of sensors and artificial intelligence. John Bares and his team at Carnegie Mellon developed Crusher for the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency. While some details of its design have not been released, its basic hardware consists of cameras, a GPS receiver, and sensors for motion, balance and monitoring the environment. An on-board computer combines all this information. "In time actually the vehicle will learn things, like it will learn when it's spinning wheels, it will learn when it's losing stability, and can slowly adapt to try to do better as it moves," says Bares.
http://www.sciencentral.com/articles/
view.php3?article_id=218392846&cat=3_4 | back to top
United Press International | September 5
U.S. scientists have developed an anti-phishing device to protect users from completing online transactions at fraudulent Web sites. Researchers at Carnegie Mellon University's CyLab, led by Professor Adrian Perrig, have created the Phoolproof Phishing Prevention system that protects users against all network-based attacks. Perrig and engineering Ph.D. students Bryan Parno and Cynthia Kuo say their system makes the user's cell phone part of the authentication process to securely communicate with a particular Internet site. "Our new anti-phishing system, which operates with the standard secure Web protocol, ensures that the user accesses the Web site they intend to visit, instead of a phishing site posing as a legitimate business," said Perrig. "The mobile device acts like an electronic assistant, storing a secure bookmark and a cryptographic key for each of the user's online accounts."
http://www.upi.com/NewsTrack/view.php?
StoryID=20060905-122305-8121r | back to top
FCW | September 4
Today's chief information officer must be a technological innovator, a business manager, an acquisitions expert, a strategic thinker and a politician, according to those who have made it to the top ranks of their profession. Increasingly, federal agencies and leading companies want information executives with a broad range of skills. Certifications help prospective employers verify those skills, and they give aspiring CIOs the training and social contacts they will need when they become CIOs. ... In the past 10 years, CIO certification programs have emerged from academic institutions, commercial educational organizations, technology corporations and professional societies. Depending on a person's level of experience, ambition and focus, the following five programs offer some of the best IT management certifications. 1. Carnegie Mellon University's Federal CIO Certificate program: Carnegie Mellon University is one of the top IT educational institutions in the world, and its Federal CIO Certificate program is among the most prestigious and competitive. The program is designed for senior IT managers and CIOs. "We're targeting a more senior audience than many of the other schools," said Janet Cohen, executive director of Carnegie Mellon's CIO Institute.
http://www.fcw.com/article
95883-09-04-06-Print | back to top
Star-Telegram (AP) | August 31
Carnegie Mellon University announced Thursday it will work with General Motors Corp. to enter a robotic truck in a multimillion-dollar race organized by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency. Scheduled for November 2007, the race will require vehicles to drive 60 miles in a mock urban setting using only computers, lasers, sensors and other advanced technologies. No human drivers or remote controls are permitted. The location of the race has not been disclosed. The first to the finish will receive $2 million from DARPA. The runner up will get $500,000, and the third-place finisher $250,000. Vehicles not finishing within six hours will be disqualified. The university's team, headed by robotics professor William "Red" Whittaker, will equip a Chevy Tahoe for the task. Automated driving technologies developed for the race could be used to improve highway safety, researchers said.
http://www.dfw.com/mld/dfw/business/15409204
.htm?template_contentModules/printstory.jsp | back to top
Electronic Musician | August 1
Data compression is a huge boon to the audio industry. MP3, for example, revolutionized music distribution, and Dolby Digital and DTS allowed 5.1-channel soundtracks to be included on DVDs. The point of these lossy compression schemes (also called perceptual coders) is to discard elements of the audio signal that humans would not perceive anyway. For instance, MP3 throws away a whopping 90 percent of the audio data, resulting in a compression ratio of 10:1. Still, who wouldn't want to fit more audio in a given amount of storage space or hear the same sound quality at lower bit rates? Researchers at Carnegie Mellon University are developing new audio coding algorithms that promise much greater efficiency than is possible today. ... The potential applications for spike coding are myriad. For example, it could lead to much better cochlear implants, giving the deaf a far more accurate aural experience of the world thanks to the code's striking similarity to auditory nerve impulses. According to Michael Lewicki, associate professor of computer science at Carnegie Mellon and a member of the Center for the Neural Basis of Cognition, "If we could use a cochlear implant to 'talk' to the auditory nerve in a more natural way via our coding, we could quite possibly design implants that would convey sounds to the brain that are much more intelligible."
http://emusician.com/mag/
emusic_spiked_punch/index.html | back to top
Environment
GreenBiz | September 1
In the song by Harold Arlen and Johnny Mercer, that old black magic is, of course, love--powerful and unpredictable, common yet mysterious, and completely transformative. Thus, it is frequently overlooked until it happens to pounce on one. Technology is not dissimilar. This song has crossed my mind a number of times recently as I have followed scientists discussing how the Colorado River watershed, and thus water resources in the American West, will likely be affected by global climate change. One of their major points is that under most scientific scenarios Phoenix, Las Vegas, and other desert cities will inevitably run out of water. ... But such projections are far more speculative than they appear and than their adherents frequently claim because they systemically underestimate the unpredictability and power of technological evolution. For one thing, the focus on emissions presupposes a technological stasis that is historically questionable. For example, recent work at Carnegie Mellon University and elsewhere, including development of pilot scale technology, suggests that extracting carbon dioxide from the ambient atmosphere, liquefying it, and injecting it into geologic formations, is both economically and energetically feasible.
http://www.greenbiz.com/news/
columns_third.cfm?NewsID=33447&pic=2 | back to top
Regional Impact
Pittsburgh Tribune-Review | September 4
Federal bankruptcy filings have plummeted to 20-year lows across the country, including Western Pennsylvania, but that doesn't mean the economic fortunes of the broke have improved one cent, observers say. The No. 1 factor affecting the record-low filings is a law enacted by Congress in October that requires people seeking bankruptcy to use future income to repay a larger percentage of their debts--compared with none in many cases before the law changed. That caused filings to increase sharply in the last quarter of 2005, then drop off dramatically this year. ... Consumer spending, mostly backed by household debt, has driven a strong U.S. economy. And out-of-control spending can put people in financial trouble quickly after an illness, layoff or other unexpected event, Gerdano said. "There is an economic saying: 'If something can't go on forever, it won't,' " he said. Consumer spending might decline soon, said Carnegie Mellon University economics professor Stephen Spear. Although a hot housing market has driven the economy without an increase in personal disposable income, the housing market decline and a recession--here or approaching--will force people to spend less, he predicted. But that might not keep bankruptcy filing rates down. "It could tend to push it up," Spear said.
http://www.pittsburghlive.com/x/pittsburghtrib
/search/s_469001.html | back to top
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette | September 2
The identities of Pittsburgh tech startups that have secured investment dollars, both from private "angels" and venture capitalists, is slowly trickling out. ... Credit card and bank account numbers, Social Security numbers and who knows what other closely guarded information floating in the ether for anyone to grab makes security--the digital kind--more important than ever. And Pittsburgh has the makings of a cluster of data security companies buttressed by talent and technology flowing out of cybersecurity hub Carnegie Mellon University. ... Robotics startup co-founder Hagen Schempf and his team of roboticists at the National Robotics Engineering Center in Carnegie Mellon University's Robotics Institute will receive R&D Magazine's "100 Award" for outstanding innovation.
http://www.post-gazette.com/
pg/06245/718393-96.stm | back to top
Local News Stories
Pittsburgh Tribune-Review | September 3
Nadine Aubry. Residence: Franklin Park Age: 46 Family: Husband, John; daughters, Gabrielle, 17, and Sophie, 13; son, Stephane, 14. ... Noteworthy: Was named head of Carnegie Mellon University's Mechanical Engineering Department. Her appointment began July 1. Quote: "Mechanical engineering at Carnegie Mellon is widely recognized as one of the top 10 departments the country. I'm looking forward to taking the department to the next level."
http://www.pittsburghlive.com/x/
pittsburghtrib/search/s_468945.html | back to top
International News Stories
Gulf Times | September 6
Much of the research and development conducted by the tenant companies in Qatar Science & Technology Park, and their joint projects with the universities of Education City, will find their way to the national economy in the form of spin-off companies, Qatar Foundation's vice-president for education, Dr. Abdulla al-Thani has said. ... Carnegie Mellon University in Qatar's dean Dr. Chuck Thorpe, in his presentation titled "From Classroom to Community," highlighted some key research work he spearheaded in the field of robotic vehicles and their applications in day-to-day life. "Commercialization of research results is a key step," he stated, citing the example of Assistware, a lane drift and drowsy driving warning system, which has been acquired by a company recently for commercial production. Later, answering questions from students present in the audience, Dr. Thorpe urged them to study math very well if they wanted to pursue technical or business administration courses.
http://www.gulf-times.com/site/topics/article.
aspx?cu_no=2&item_no=106327&
version=1&template_id=36&parent_id=16 | back to top
Engineer Live | September 5
An introduction to gesture recognition technology and how it could improve automotive safety Carl Pickering explains the concept of gesture recognition technology and how it has the potential to reduce drivers' eyes-off-the-road and hands-off-the-wheel time, thereby significantly improving road safety. ... Carnegie Mellon University is developing the iWave gesture recognition system in collaboration with, and funded by, General Motors. ... The gesture recognition system should be user- and device-independent, so that different users are able to operate it without special training or wearing special colors or devices. From this, Tsuhan Chen, professor of electrical and computer engineering at Carnegie Mellon University, says that the best solution may be a combination of voice control and hand gestures. Meanwhile, General Motors has stated its intention to extend development funding to Carnegie Mellon University until 2008.
http://www.engineerlive.com/features/16323/
an-introduction-to-gesture-recognition-technology-
and-how-it-could-improve-automotive-safety.thtml | back to top
Macworld | September 5
Google is asking surfers with time on their hands to help it categorize and label the images indexed by its search engine, building a database of knowledge about the contents of the images. The company launched a new online game on Friday, Google Image Labeler, which it describes as "a fun way to help us organize all the images on the Web." In the game, two randomly selected players are each shown the same image, plucked at random from Google's search index, and given 90 seconds to suggest as many keywords or phrases as they can to describe it. They score points if any of their descriptions match. Google's image search engine currently returns results based on captions and other text adjacent to images on Web pages, without reference to the content of the images themselves. The game will allow it to improve the performance of the search engine by returning results based on the players' descriptions of the images. The game is not the first attempt to use volunteer labor to create a database of knowledge: The Wikipedia online encyclopedia and the DMoz search directory are two of the better known examples. Google's game, based in part on technology developed at Carnegie Mellon University, is not even the first to use volunteer labor to categorize images: The ESP Game developed by Luis von Ahn and other researchers at Carnegie Mellon first put players to work tagging its image database in October 2003.
http://www.macworld.com/news/
2006/09/04/google/index.php | back to top
Electronic Engineering Times | September 1
July's Design Automation Conference made it clear that the EDA industry is counting on design-for-manufacturability (DFM) for a much-needed boost. But the restricted design rules (RDRs) that are quietly emerging for 45nm and smaller geometries may reduce the need for some DFM tools and techniques, some observers say. The RDR concept is surfacing from universities and IDM research labs, and appears headed for a prominent role at 45nm and below. ... The future did not always look so bright for RDRs and related methodologies that emphasize regular structures. Larry Pileggi, Tanoto professor of electrical and computer engineering at Carnegie Mellon University and director of the school's Center for Silicon System Implementation, has been conducting research on chip design using regular features since 1997 as part of a project for the university-based Microelectronics Advanced Research Corp. Back then, Pileggi said, some of the research group's member companies were perplexed about the point of the research. But times have changed. Pileggi said he and his team have done research that proves the concept of regular design features at 65nm with no area or performance penalty by changing the way synthesis is done and the way logic circuits are configured.
http://www.eetasia.com/ART_8800432099
_480100_1c740551200609.HTM | back to top
ElectronicsWeekly | September 1
A chip architecture claimed to speed up speech recognition by ten times over general purpose PC processors has been developed by Carnegie Mellon University. "Whether running an enterprise-class voice call-in Centrex or decoding individual words on a cell phone, all of today's serious speech recognizers exist as software running on some processor. That's terribly limiting," said Professor Rob A. Rutenbar, who leads the In Silico Vox project at Carnegie Mellon. "Moving these computations directly into silicon means we can perform recognition dramatically faster, cheaper, and better for both commercial and homeland security tasks," he said.
http://www.electronicsweekly.com/Articles/
2006/09/01/39597/Chip+speeds+up+voice
+recognition+by+factor+of+10.htm | back to top
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