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December
17 - 22, 2005
This internal publication contains information about recent coverage
of Carnegie Mellon that appeared primarily in national newspapers, magazines
and online publications.
Please send comments and suggestions to thomas@cmu.edu
The media coverage archive is available at www.cmu.edu/clips
From December 17 - 22,
Carnegie Mellon Media Relations counted 75
references to the university in worldwide publications. Here is a sample.
Please
note: The news clips will not be published during the week of December
27. The next publication will occur on Friday, January 7, 2005. Happy
holidays!
National News Stories
The Boston Globe | December 21
Philadelphia Inquirer (Associated Press) |
December 19
The Wall Street Journal | December 17
Student Experience
Post-Gazette | December 17
Post-Gazette | December 18
Post-Gazette | December 17
Arts and Humanities
Tribune-Review | December 22
Tribune-Review | December 21
Pittsburgh City Paper | December 16
Information Technology
Investor's Business Daily | December 20
Scientific American | December 20
Seattle Times | December 20
The Boston Globe | December 19
Biotechnology
The Wall Street Journal | December 17
Local News Stories
Tribune-Review | December 22
Tribune-Review | December 22
Post-Gazette | December 19
Post-Gazette | December 19
Pittsburgh Business Times | December 17
International News Stories
Information World Review, UK | December 21
Business Line, India | December 21
The Financial Times, UK | December 20
The Finacial Times, UK | December 18
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National News Stories
The Boston Globe | December 21
At Worcester Polytechnic Institute, all-night gaming sessions may soon
be required to complete crucial academic assignments. Next year, the
university will launch a four-year undergraduate program in computer
game design, aimed at giving students the technical and creative skills
essential in an industry that's become almost as lucrative -- and competitive
-- as the movie business...A number of major universities and technical
schools have launched game design programs. Carnegie Mellon
University in Pittsburgh and Southern Methodist University in Dallas,
for example, have offered master's degrees in the subject for years.
But Worcester Polytechnic officials say theirs will be the first program
to require humanities course work...Jesse Schell, professor
of entertainment technology at Carnegie Mellon and chairman of the International
Game Developers Association, has his doubts about Worcester Polytechnic's
approach. Carnegie Mellon students earn bachelor's degrees in other
subjects before entering the gaming program. Schell questioned the wisdom
of combining humanities and technical training at the undergraduate
level. ''You run the risk of graduating people who are too broad and
not deep enough," he said.
http://www.boston.com/business/technology/articles
/2004/12/21/tenets_of_academic_rigor_spread_
to_computer_games?pg=2 | back to top
Philadelphia Inquirer (Associated Press) | December
19
Lt. Gov. Catherine Baker Knoll made history as the first woman to be
elected as Pennsylvania's second-highest executive officer. But recently,
Democratic Senate leaders have criticized her management of Senate floor
debates, and last month a published report said Gov. Ed Rendell was
considering replacing her as his running mate in 2006...Jon
Delano, a Carnegie Mellon University professor
and political editor for KDKA-TV in Pittsburgh, said he believes many
complaints about Knoll are "insider baseball," and she still
enjoys statewide popularity. "It would take an incredible effort
to unseat her as the Democratic nominee in 2006," Delano said.
"I don't think at this stage that Gov. Rendell wants to engage
in a public Democratic party brawl for a position that most people think
is fairly inconsequential."
http://www.philly.com/mld/philly/news/10454789.htm
| back to top
The Wall Street Journal | December 17
If there is one thing about science that educators and scientists wish
students would learn, it isn't the difference between an isotope and
an isomer or any of the hundreds of other facts that pepper textbooks
and tests. It is how to think critically about scientific data and concepts,
and be able to synthesize and apply them...Let David Klahr
of Carnegie Mellon University explain. "Studies
of classrooms where teachers use discovery-based learning show that
the kids do a little better" learning science, he says. "But
to run a discovery-learning class, you need a teacher who really knows
the material, who's creative and knowledgeable. If you had that same
teacher do traditional instruction, might the kids do just as well?"
http://online.wsj.com/article/0,,SB11032
2729667502382-search,00.html | back to top
Student Experience
Post-Gazette | December 17
Ad contest for local students focuses on messages that will lure and
keep young people in region. To Melissa Cook, a St. Vincent College
communications instructor, the billboard message was perfect: a folded
chair, stuck between two cars, with the tag line, "We've saved
a spot for you in Pittsburgh." Unfortunately, Cook was not one
of the judges in this year's first annual C2 Student Creative Competition,
a project launched by the Pittsburgh Council of the American Association
of Advertising Agencies and the Pittsburgh AdFed, two professional advertising
groups trying to be more nurturing of local talent...Carnegie
Mellon University students Chris Chyu and Janice Lau won the
print category. They described a beautiful day in a Pittsburgh park
and promise there will always be a patch of grass for the reader to
escape to. The tag line: "Pittsburgh, yeah, I could live here."
http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/04352/428020.stm
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Post-Gazette | December 18
First there was the nude calendar produced by that lady's garden club
in England (eventually a major motion picture), then many a similar
fund-raising and eyebrow-raising project at associations, fraternities
and volunteer fire departments. So it was only a matter of time before
the senior class at Carnegie Mellon's nationally prominent
drama school took a similar plunge, but they've done it with a difference,
following an older tradition. In pursuit of the $30,000 that Carnegie
Mellon '05 needs to help fund its "Senior Showcase" spring
audition in Los Angeles, the seniors have produced a classy, slightly
risque pinup calendar based on the comic calendar kitsch of the 1950s.
And the Carnegie Mellon administration couldn't be more pleased. Elizabeth
Bradley, drama head, admires the "real sweetness and whimsicality"
of the resulting 13-month calendar which features 13 Carnegie Mellon
senior women ("the drama girls" the calendar calls them).
http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/04353/428602.stm
| back to top
Post-Gazette | December 17
There's excitement surrounding the Carnegie Mellon University
men's basketball team. And for good reason. "This is the most talented
team I've had here in 15 years," said Carnegie Mellon coach Tony
Wingen, a Mt. Lebanon resident. The Tartans have four of five starters
back from last season's 14-11 team. But it's the new fifth starter --
Nate Maurer, a 6-6 transfer from Grove City -- who might provide the
final piece of the puzzle...Carnegie Mellon is currently 7-2 and riding
a five-game win streak. In its only UAA contest, the Tartans upset defending
league champion Rochester, 78-71.
http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/04352/427843.stm
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Arts and Humanities
Tribune-Review | December 22
The mosaic mural -- assembled on Monday -- is a permanent reflection
of youth in the community who spent part of their summer studying nutrition
and conservation and ultimately expressed it in thousands of bits and
pieces of dishes and glassware donated by neighbors and Whole Foods
patrons. "Dishing Out Science" is the latest project of Explanatoids,
a collaboration among Carnegie Mellon University School
of Design; the University of Pittsburgh Learning and Research Development
Center; Family Communications Inc.; and the Girls, Math & Science
Partnership. Explanatoids is a model for enhancing math and science
literacy among girls in Pittsburgh. Funding was from the National Science
Foundation and The Heinz Endowments. Kristin Hughes,
assistant professor in the School of Design at Carnegie Mellon, collaborated
with science teacher Steve Scoville of Brashear High School in Beechview
and Laura Jean McLaughlin, a ceramist and owner of Clay Penn studio
in East Liberty, to educate the students and generate concepts that
could be visualized into artwork. The children -- from Garfield and
Bloomfield -- made sketches that were worked into a design by McLaughlin,
Hughes says.
http://pittsburghlive.com/x/tribune-review
/entertainment/arts/s_285868.html | back to top
Tribune-Review | December 21
The excitement of Christmas Day is enough to keep children occupied.
But a few days later, households are likely to be full of played-with
toys, and a string of unstructured vacation days looming. Those antsy
children will be itching for things to do. Meanwhile, many parents have
to return to work, further complicating matters. "Some children
expect that it's the parents' job to entertain them," says Sharon
Carver, a Carnegie Mellon University psychology
professor who specializes in early childhood development. "Children
need to understand that parents have other things to do."
http://pittsburghlive.com/x/tribune-review
/trib/newssummary/s_285454.html | back to top
Pittsburgh City Paper | December 16
“What’s a French curve?” my friend the writer asked
as I [Charles Rosenblum] tried to explain the 30-foot-long
flat thing in the middle of the Krause Campo. Situated on the roof of
the one-story Posner Center, the new garden space and permanent art
installation is located behind the College of Fine Arts at Carnegie
Mellon University (where I am an adjunct faculty member). A
French curve is either an irregular “S” with one lobe too
many, or perhaps a very stylish amoeba: Much smaller versions are used
to draw curved lines the way a ruler is used for straight ones. They’ve
fallen out of frequent use today, but in the days before computer drafting,
designers and artists used them routinely. You just have to go back
a few years to find them. Then again, reversing time, as well as entrenched
expectations, is a consistent theme of this piece, created by conceptual
artist Mel Bochner and landscape architect Michael Van Valkenberg. To
reinforce this notion, a quotation about the nature of time on the north
wall of the space, from Ludwig Wittgenstein, is actually written backward.
***This was the cover story for the December 16 issue. An image of the
cover is available at http://www.cmu.edu/clips/citypaper04.htm.
http://www.pghcitypaper.com/
| back to top
Information Technology
Investor's Business Daily | December 20
The Department of Defense is pushing for more robots in all its branches.
It's part of its Future Combat Systems program, a major overhaul of
the military in which robots will play a central role. "The past
four years we've done a lot of military robotics work simply because
the military is investing a lot of money in that technology," said
Stephen DiAntonio, director of strategic business development
for the National Robotics Engineering Consortium. The consortium is
part of the Robotics Institute at Carnegie Mellon University.
Its mission is the commercialization of robotic technology; it's developing
three robots for the military: the Spinner, Gladiator and Dragon Runner...William
"Red" Whittaker, a major figure in robotics and a
professor at Carnegie Mellon's Robotics Institute, heads the Red Team,
which had been one of the favorites to win [The DARPA Grand Challenge
in 2004]. He says he expects several teams to complete the next Grand
Challenge that will be held in October 2005. Technology improves quickly
in robotics, he says. DARPA is aware of this and has upped the ante.
"In 2004, finishing the race would have been enough. This time
it's a race calling for speed and technical performance," Whittaker
said.
http://www.investors.com
| back to top
Scientific American | December 20
When word got around that Hans Moravec had founded
an honest-to-goodness robotics firm, more than a few eyebrows were raised.
Wasn't this the same Carnegie Mellon University scientist
who had predicted that we would someday routinely download our minds
into robots? And that exponential advances in computing power would
cause the human race to invent itself out of a job as robots supplanted
us as the planet's most adept and adaptive species? Somehow, creating
a company seemed ... uncharacteristically pragmatic. But Moravec doesn't
see it that way. He says he didn't start Seegrid Corporation because
he was backing off his predictions. He founded the company because he
was planning to help fulfill them. "It was time," he says,
slowly rubbing his hand across his bristle-short hair. "The computing
power is here."
http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?chanID=sa006&
articleID=00078A55-0CE7-11BF-AD0683414B7F00
00&colID=30 | back to top
Seattle Times | December 20
It's up to Dean Hachamovitch, general manager of Internet Explorer development
at Microsoft, to keep IE competitive and keep upstarts such as Firefox
at bay. For those who remember the browser wars, Microsoft seems to
be missing in action from the latest battle...IE's vulnerabilities were
severe enough that in June the federal Internet-security monitoring
agency suggested that switching browsers was one way to reduce the risk
of attack. The advisory was issued because there was a hole in IE, for
which Microsoft has since issued a patch, said Marty Lindner,
a team leader at the U.S. Computer Emergency Readiness Team at
Carnegie Mellon University. Lindner would not recommend a particular
browser or say what he's using personally. "Our role is to point
out what the technical risks are in a particular product," he said.
With IE, Lindner said, "there are known vulnerabilities that there
are patches for. If people haven't applied the patches they are at risk."
He said the biggest computer-security vulnerability is the person using
the computer, so people should exercise caution and make sure their
systems are patched and kept up to date.
http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html
/businesstechnology/2002124782_ie20.html | back to
top
The Boston Globe | December 19
Nattie and Clem, who work in separate offices of the same company, strike
up a banter that becomes flirtatious. Between deadlines, they tease
each other, laugh at the misunderstandings that result from their virtual
friendship -- and wonder uneasily what the other is really like. But
when they meet, they're so tongue-tied that they quickly go back to
their faceless chatter. Sound familiar? Nattie and Clem could be your
cubicle neighbors..."It's substantially harder to build and maintain
social relations electronically than it is in person," says Robert
Kraut, professor of human-computer interaction at Carnegie
Mellon University in Pittsburgh. For instance, rates of communication
fall sharply as distance increases, even within the same building. When
Kraut studied scientists, all heavy e-mail users, at a large research
and development company, he found that they were 27 times more likely
to publish research together if they had offices on the same hallway
than if they were working on different floors.
http://www.boston.com/jobs/articles/2004/12/19/
after_125_years_of_electronic_relations_workplaces
_face_a_growing_disconnect/ | back to top
Biotechnology
The Wall Street Journal | December 17
On a crisp October day last year, Carnegie Mellon University's
Robotics Institute kicked off its 25th-anniversary celebration, as the
world's robotics experts came to Pittsburgh to see C-3PO, Shakey the
robot, Honda's Asimo, and Astro Boy inducted into the Robot Hall of
Fame...On the third day, it was Mitsuo Kawato's turn to speak...On Mr.
Kawato's lapel is a button that reads "I [love] Robots!" But
there is a difference between him and other attendees. Mr. Kawato loves
robots not because they are cool, but because he believes they can teach
him how the human brain works..."This is very different from the
usual justification for building humanoid robots -- that they are economically
useful or will help take care of the elderly," says Christopher
Atkeson, a robotics expert at Carnegie Mellon. Rather, Mr.
Kawato's motivation lies in using robots to gain insights into how people
think, make decisions, and interact with the world. That information
could help doctors design therapies for patients with brain injuries,
strokes, and neurological disorders -- even cognitive and behavior problems.
http://online.wsj.com/article/0,,SB1103
31039070903464-search,00.html | back to top
Local News Stories
Tribune-Review | December 22
Photos of items up for bid on the Internet auction site eBay.com don't
always tell the whole story. The antique porcelain doll that appears
perfect from the front could be irreparably flawed in the back. Or the
used Chevy truck with a price tag that's too-good-to-be-true could have
an undisclosed dent in its rear bumper. A 3-D camera being developed
by Tsuhan Chen, a Carnegie Mellon
University engineering professor, could solve consumer confidence problems
such as these -- and revolutionize photography in the process. Together
with Carnegie Mellon engineering graduate researcher Kate Hyanjung Shim
and former student Cha Zhang, Chen has designed a computer-powered camera
array that can record from many viewpoints to generate a 3-D optical
image on a flat surface. By adjusting the angle the image is viewed
or by moving the photograph itself, a highly realistic 3-D scene becomes
visible. The result is much like a hologram, which is a 3-D picture
created using laser beams.
http://pittsburghlive.com/x/tribune-review
/trib/regional/s_285799.html | back to top
Tribune-Review | December 22
Pittsburgh Mayor Tom Murphy's legacy is a tale of two cities. Not a
mile from the glittering sports stadiums in a formerly underdeveloped
area Murphy rechristened the "North Shore" languish the boarded-up
buildings of the once-bustling Fifth-Forbes commerce center. A city
that boasts impressive corporate and foundation wealth is run by a government
too poor to pay its bills. Despite the gleaming new buildings and stadiums,
Pittsburgh didn't attract enough new taxpayers to pay for a city government
that grew in the good times and wasn't forced to shrink in the lean.
"There's a mountain of debt that reflects the 'pyramids,' "
said Robert Strauss, a Carnegie Mellon
University public policy professor, referring to the mayor's development
projects. "Whether the pyramids were a good idea or not remains
to be seen. Right now, we see a lot of debt to pay."
http://pittsburghlive.com/x/tribune-review
/trib/pittsburgh/s_285897.html | back to top
Post-Gazette | December 19
Workers broke through the wall of a forgotten vault Dec. 6 and stepped
into the Allegheny County of the 1920s and '30s. Undisturbed by light,
air and touch for 70 years, the cache of trolley records discovered
at Epic Metals Corp., in Rankin, offers a previously unavailable snapshot
of Pittsburgh Railways Co. operations. "This is a huge find,"
said Scott Becker, executive director of Pennsylvania Trolley Museum
in Chartiers, of thousands of documents chronicling daily life at Pittsburgh
Railways' busy Rankin Car Barn. Edward K. Muller, professor of history
at the University of Pittsburgh, and Joel A. Tarr,
professor of history and policy at Carnegie Mellon
University, called the records an exciting find. [Museum archivist Edward
H.] Lybarger said the museum recovered enough material for a book. Indeed,
Tarr said, there's a need for additional research on Pittsburgh Railways
and other trolley companies. "Records like this could be very helpful,"
Tarr said, suggesting they be mined for insights into the trolley company's
corporate affairs, employees' pay and working conditions and how passenger
flow changed over time.
http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/04354/427822.stm
| back to top
Post-Gazette | December 19
By John Robertson. The Bush administration has decided
that the Iraq war will not have its own Ben Falls. Falls is the soldier
most often mentioned by historians as the exemplar of the heroic self-sacrifice
exhibited by Union soldiers in the American Civil War. Look in almost
any history of that war and you will hear how when the re-enlistment
push came in December 1863, only 25 of the original 100 men remained
in company A of the 19th Massachusetts Volunteer Infantry. Despite that
high attrition rate, its color sergeant said laconically, "Well,
if new men won't finish the job, old men must, and as long as Uncle
Sam wants a man, here is Ben Falls." The Bush administration has
replaced voluntary self-sacrifice with a "stop loss" policy
of forced continued service. Now some soldiers are suing the army for
permission to return home at the end of their term of service. ***John
Robertson is director of undergraduate programs at the Carnegie
Mellon University campus in Qatar. He also is a Ph.D. student
in the university's social history program, writing a dissertation on
the social ramifications of Civil War re-enlistment.
http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/04354/428660.stm
| back to top
Pittsburgh Business Times | December 17
In managing One Oxford Centre, Grant Mason noticed more and more patrons
toting laptops into the building's food court and public areas. So,
the assistant vice president and general manager for Oxford Development
Co., the building's owner, sought a way to offer them an amenity that
would bring them back, prompting them to spend more time -- and more
money. Oxford contracted with Shadyside-based Telerama Wireless Corp.
to install wireless fidelity, or wi-fi, Internet access in the public
areas of the 45-story, Downtown multitenant office building, which gets
up to 1,000 daily visitors, in addition to the roughly 2,000 who work
there. Those involved in the project contend it is the largest public
wi-fi deployment in a Pittsburgh office building...Ron Gdovic,
executive director of InSITeS, Carnegie Mellon University's
Institute for the Study of IT in Society, said there's a growing market
for wi-fi service. "Generally, people are becoming more accustomed
to expecting wireless access at more and more public places," Mr.
Gdovic said.
http://pittsburgh.bizjournals.com/pittsburgh
/stories/2004/12/20/story1.html | back to top
International News Stories
Information World Review, UK | December 21
Ten major international libraries have agreed to combine their digitised
book collections into a free text-based archive hosted online by the
not-for-profit Internet Archive. All content digitised and held in the
text archive will be freely available to online users. Two major US
libraries have agreed to join the scheme: Carnegie Mellon
University library and The Library of Congress have committed their
Million Book Project and American Memory Projects, respectively, to
the text archive. The projects both provide access to digitised collections.
The Canadian universities of Toronto, Ottawa and McMaster have agreed
to add their collections, as have China's Zhejiang University, the Indian
Institute of Science, the European Archives and Bibliotheca Alexandrina
in Egypt.
http://www.iwr.co.uk/IWR/1160176
| back to top
Business Line, India | December 21
Dr Raj Reddy, Head of Robotics and Artificial Intelligence
Lab, Carnegie Mellon University, is on a mission to
bridge the digital divide but with a difference — empowering illiterates
to actually use computers! Having started with the design of a low-cost
innovative entertainment-cum-communication device referred to as PCTV,
that builds on open source software, Dr Reddy is now engaged in building
artificial intelligence into speech recognition software and language
process synthesis. These would enable even a person with language barrier
actually access the benefits of a computer, while reaping the advantages
of entertainment. So how has Dr Reddy gone about addressing this task?
Dr Reddy and a team of researchers at the International Institute of
Information Technology, Hyderabad, and the Indian Institute of Science,
have jointly developed Indian language processing software that is available
free with downloads.
http://www.thehindubusinessline.com/2004/12
/21/stories/2004122102610500.htm | back to top
The Financial Times, UK | December 20
The Treasury, custodian of statistics on public finance, economic indicators
and taxation, is branching out into the unlikely area of business school
rankings. This month, it published on its website a list of what it
considers to be the world's 50 top MBA programmes, ranking Harvard Business
School in the US number one. Graduates from the 50 schools will be entitled
to work in the UK for up to 12 months after completing their MBA programmes
by by-passing the usual visa requirements. The aim is to address the
perceived weakness in British management. ***Carnegie Mellon's
MBA program is ranked 29th, and 17th among US schools.
http://news.ft.com/cms/s/e00a5c1a-522b
-11d9-961a-00000e2511c8.html | back to top
The Finacial Times, UK | December 18
This year, the focus of the Federal Reserve Jackson Hole symposium was
the ageing population, and before that it was the monetary policy uncertainty.
Next year, the subject of the world's foremost economic conference -
held against the backdrop of the Grand Teton mountain range in Wyoming
- will be Alan Greenspan...Allan Meltzer, professor
at Carnegie Mellon University and historian of the
Federal Reserve, said the question of rules versus direction in monetary
policymaking, inflation targeting, and the Fed's role as lender of last
resort, were subjects of discussion for the symposium.
http://news.ft.com/cms/s/eb154d00-509a-11d9-
b551-00000e2511c8,ft_aci=,s01=1.html | back to top
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