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October
14, 2005
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 October 7-13,
Carnegie Mellon Media Relations counted 951
references to the university in worldwide publications. Here is a sample.
Special Coverage: DARPA Grand Challenge II
Pittsburgh Tribune-Review | October 10
The Chronicle of Higher Education | October
10
The New York Times (CNET News) | October 10
The New York Times (CNET News) | October 10
Taipei Times | October 9
National News Stories
Bloomberg News | October 11
Newhouse News Service | October 11
Honolulu Advertiser | October 11
The New York Times | October 8
Arts and Humanities
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette | October 12
Pittsburgh Tribune-Review | October 11
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette | October 10
Information Technology
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette | October 10
Local News Stories
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette | October 10
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette | October 8
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette | October 8
Pittsburgh Tribune-Review | October 7
International News Stories
Gulf Times | October 12
Web India 123 (UPI) | October 8
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Special Coverage: DARPA Grand Challenge II
Pittsburgh Tribune-Review | October 10
Having two unmanned, robotic vehicles cross 131.6 miles of Mojave Desert
in just over seven hours will have to be feat enough. A team from Carnegie
Mellon University came up 11 minutes short of winning the Grand
Challenge, a $2 million Pentagon-sponsored race in Arizona. Stanford
University's "Stanley" won by finishing in a time of 6 hours,
53 minutes and 58 seconds, race organizers said Sunday. Carnegie Mellon
took second and third, with "Sandstorm" finishing 11 minutes
behind Stanley, and "H1ghlander" coming in 10 minutes after
that. Although Sandstorm and H1ghlander came up short in the competition,
Carnegie Mellon can still lay some claim to the winner. Former Carnegie
Mellon professor Sebastian Thrun and former doctoral student Michael
Montemerlo were members of Stanford's team.
http://pittsburghlive.com/x/tribune-review/
trib/regional/s_382563.html | back to top
The Chronicle of Higher Education | October 10
At dawn, a fleet of 23 computer-operated cars, trucks, Hummers, and
dune buggies queued up near a casino parking lot in this community southwest
of Las Vegas, preparing to set off on the grueling 132-mile race through
the Mojave Desert. ... One of two robots built by Carnegie Mellon
University's Red Team were also contenders for the top prize. Both of
those vehicles, named Sandstorm and Highlander, finished minutes after
Stanley. ... One by one, though, the other robots began to falter. ...
That left Highlander, Sandstorm, and Stanley -- the competition's best-financed
robots -- as the main competitors. The three stayed close to one another
for over 100 miles, with Highlander clinging to a small lead, before
they reached a flat stretch of land and Stanley pulled away. As the
SUV reached the winner's circle, Stanford team members celebrated by
hoisting Sebastian Thrun and Michael Montemerlo, the professors who
led the squad, on their shoulders. ... But even in victory, Mr. Thrun
and Mr. Montemerlo may have helped prove that Carnegie Mellon's vaunted
robotics program remains the one to beat: Both studied under the Red
Team's chief, William L. (Red) Whittaker.
http://chronicle.com/daily/2005/
10/2005101002t.htm | back to top
The New York Times (CNET News) | October 10
In a stretch of Burning Man-like camps of trucks, tents and modified
cars of all shapes and sizes, clusters of computer science students
are making last-minute tweaks to their vehicles and strategizing for
Saturday's race, which starts at 6:30 a.m. PDT. Granted, the teams won't
know exactly the course they're running until two hours before start
time. So the first team taking off, Carnegie Mellon
University's H1ghlander, will be given course details at 4 a.m. The
computer software engineers from Carnegie Mellon's robotics department
have a mandatory in-bed time at 7 p.m. Friday so they can wake up at
3 a.m., have breakfast, get the GPS byways from DARPA, and then lock
themselves in the team trailer to create exact maps and speeds for the
10-hour race. Indeed, Carnegie Mellon is like the Microsoft of the competition,
a role even one of the team's professors admits. Team leader
Red Whittaker is widely thought of as an industry leader in
the field of robotics. The team has two vehicles, Sandstorm and H1ghlander,
in the race. One will take off in first position as the fastest car
of the lot, and the other, Sandstorm, will begin in third position,
approximately 20 minutes later.
http://www.nytimes.com/cnet/
CNET_2100-11394_3-5891656.html | back to top
The New York Times (CNET News) | October 10
Roughly 10 minutes after Stanley crossed the finish line, Carnegie
Mellon University's H1ghlander came through second. A bright
red Hummer with a giant-looking eyeball on top, which encases laser
sensors, H1ghlander completed the course in eight hours and 19 minutes.
Carnegie Mellon's Sandstorm followed minutes later, finishing in roughly
eight hours 12 minutes, according to the site. Carnegie Mellon had predicted
the odds of finishing the course for both H1ghlander and Sandstorm were
about 29 percent and 40 percent, respectively. ... Onlookers were wide-eyed
watching the vehicles work their way through the extremely tricky course
even though much of the race they could see only by wide-screen TVs
in the spectator tent or by a real-time mapping tent.
http://www.nytimes.com/cnet/
CNET_2100-11394_3-5891793.html | back to top
Taipei Times | October 9
When the Pentagon's research arm held a million-dollar race last year
for autonomously controlled robot vehicles, the results were not exactly
a US military success. None of the computer-controlled vehicles made
it far past the desert starting line, bumping into obstacles, breaking
down or careening madly out of control. What a difference a year makes.
... The Pentagon hopes the competition will yield far more than merely
expensive new toys. It's part of the Pentagon's efforts to have a third
of the military's ground vehicles unmanned by 2015 to fulfill a mandate
by the US Congress. ... Computer scientist William Whittaker,
who heads [Carnegie Mellon's] team, says the technology
has advanced so much over the past year that the prize will definitely
be won. "There's a sea change," Whittaker told the Pittsburgh
Post. "Now, it's just a matter of which team's machines will be
durable enough, smart enough and, frankly, lucky enough to win the prize.
There's nothing shabby about any team that's in this thing." Whittaker
believes that the implications of the technologies being developed for
the race go far beyond military uses. "It will shift the world's
view of what's viable," he said. "It's not just military vehicles
that will take advantage of these technologies, but a wide variety of
consumer and industrial products."
http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/biz/
archives/2005/10/09/2003275119 | back to top
National News Stories
Bloomberg News | October 11
Harvard University economist Martin Feldstein may have the best credentials
to succeed Alan Greenspan as Federal Reserve chairman. He may also have
the biggest liabilities. The 65-year-old Feldstein, a free-market Republican
who served as President Ronald Reagan's top White House economist from
1982 to 1984, is one of a handful of economists Wall Street considers
suitable to replace Greenspan, 79, whose term at the Fed expires Jan.
31. ... "He's very knowledgeable about fiscal areas and has worldwide
contacts," says Allan H. Meltzer, professor of
political economy at Carnegie Mellon University in
Pittsburgh and author of a book on the history of the Fed.
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid
=10000103&sid=ac5.6hQ73WME&refer=us | back
to top
Newhouse News Service | October 11
It's the human condition: The future looms, and we grapple with how
to plan. Whether the issue is pollution, retirement savings or the state
of education in America, politicians, scholars, interest groups and
even Mom and Dad talk about leaving new generations a better world,
one unencumbered by mistakes adults make today. Sounds good. But what
determines our responsibility to the future? The question has no clear
answer, yet purportedly guides how we live. ... "There are certain
fundamental building blocks that have to be in place in order for people
to pursue the kind of life they want to live," said Alex
John London, associate professor of philosophy at Carnegie
Mellon University in Pittsburgh. "We're moral equals.
You're free to do what you want as long as you afford me access"
to necessities, including clean water, food, even dignity. "We
don't owe (future generations) wealth," London said. "We owe
them a just society and a safe living environment."
http://www.newhousenews.com/archive/
melendez101105.html | back to top
Honolulu Advertiser | October 11
The value of property stolen on O'ahu last year jumped 14 percent from
the previous year, final 2004 crime statistics from Honolulu police
show, a sign that burglaries and theft continue to plague local neighborhoods.
The increase, to $45,339,476 from $39,701,626, occurred at the same
time that the number of property crime arrests and the number of reported
offenses fell. ... As to why the value of stolen property increased,
"It is difficult to say without reviewing all the cases, but it
could be that suspects are taking more expensive items,"[Police
Chief Paul] Putzulu said. Alfred Blumstein, a criminal
justice expert at the Heinz School at Carnegie Mellon University,
agreed. "More valuable stuff is out there now. Instead of a $200
TV, you now have HDTV's worth $1,400. The fact that the number (of offenses)
are coming down even though the arrests per crime are coming down is
encouraging," he said in a telephone interview from Pittsburgh
yesterday. It could be more sophisticated crooks finding the good stuff."He
also cautioned that property crimes are not traditionally the "highest
priority" of a police department. Blumstein did acknowledge that
Honolulu police do respond to more property crime calls than departments
in comparable jurisdictions on the Mainland. Typically property crimes
are among the hardest to solve since most don't leave any witnesses,
he said.
http://www.honoluluadvertiser.com/apps/pbcs.dll/
article?AID=/20051011/NEWS06/510110343/1001/NEWS | back
to top
The New York Times | October 8
One could argue that financial fashions come and go, but the fact that
thrift seems out of style strikes me as a reflection of something strange
and backward going on in people's attitudes and behaviors toward money.
It's not just that the personal savings rate (apart from retirement)
is low - it is the lowest it has been in 60 years, near zero by some
calculations. At the same time, individual debt is at a record high.
While some people are wealthier thanks to the rise in property values,
more Americans have tapped out that equity than ever before. ... In
the abstract, it does seem that the plethora of financial options available
might have made thrift expendable, irrelevant, but at what cost? George
Lowenstein, a professor of economics at Carnegie Mellon
University who studies frugality, thinks that underneath all this getting
and spending is a growing financial anxiety. "People are worried
about money, they are worried about not saving enough, about making
ends meet," he said, "so they try to persuade themselves they
don't have a problem - by spending, which only makes the problem worse."
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/10/08/
business/08instincts.html | back to top
Arts and Humanities
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette | October 12
The art in "Five Plus" at James Gallery in the West End may
be appreciated without awareness of the artists' gender, but knowing
that they are all women adds another dimension to the experience of
this fine exhibition. Featured are Judy Barie, Patricia Bellan-Gillen,
Michelle Illuminato, Carol Kumata
and Kathleen Mulcahy. That they are all proven artists and well-established
in their professions explains the maturity, confidence and relevance
reflected in their two- and three-dimensional works. ... For the remaining
artists, each of whom teach at Carnegie Mellon University,
the balance appears to be reversed, with more emphasis on conceptual
aspects. Kumata has created a fountain in two parts for the gallery's
sculpture garden, using identical functional clay vessels. Water flows
from one grouping, while plants trail from the other. Appealing, even
decorative, they may also inspire thoughts about the symbolism of the
vessel developed through history, and its relationship to the body.
The inspiration for Illuminato's deceptively simple "games"
-- resembling the enclosed hand-held toys that challenge participants
to roll free-flowing balls into depressed spaces -- is a social dynamic
born of the oppression and war experienced by Eastern Europeans in modern
times. ... Finally, there are Bellan-Gillen's paintings, which are show-stoppers
wherever they're exhibited: enigmatic and speaking to the intellect
and to emotion, formally and through a file of iconic imagery that she
regularly employs.
http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/
05285/586665.stm | back to top
Pittsburgh Tribune-Review | October 11
Live webcast of concerts at Carnegie Mellon University's
Kresge Hall, offered to students beginning last March, are now available
generally by logging on to destination.cfa.Carnegie Mellon.edu. After
clicking to enter, one encounters the next concert set for webcast,
as well as future and previous events. ... "The sound is nearly
CD quality now, although the picture is a bit grainy," says Riccardo
Schulz, associate teaching professor in the School of Music.
"We're looking to upgrade soon." The performances are being
archived and past performances may become available on a continuing
basis when performers consent. Schulz designed the program with Carnegie
Mellon graduate Alex Geis, co-founder of "21 Productions,"
a company based in Manhasset, N.Y.
http://pittsburghlive.com/x/tribune-review/
entertainment/events/s_382796.html | back to top
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette | October 10
Two conferences this weekend at Carnegie Mellon
University will require some tough choices by those interested in the
arts and in ideas. "[Im]Permanence: Cultures In/Out of Time,"
sponsored by Carnegie Mellon's Center for the Arts in Society, opens
at 2 p.m. Thursday with a performance by Srishti Dances of India in
McConomy Auditorium University Center. ... The interdisciplinary, international
conference will feature visual and performing arts practitioners, humanities
scholars, and curation and preservation experts who will discuss past
and present relationships between art and time. ... "Shifting the
Paradigm: The Groundworks Monongahela Conference" begins at 9:15
a.m. Saturday with a keynote address by Tom Finkelpearl, author of "Dialogues
in Public Art" and director of the Queens Museum of Art. The conference,
sponsored by Carnegie Mellon's STUDIO for Creative Inquiry and the Regina
Gouger Miller Gallery, will address the artist's role in contemporary
society, including involvement in "creating or manifesting social
change."
http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/
05283/585659.stm | back to top
Information Technology
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette | October 10
Take one of those ubiquitous white plastic lawn chairs. Pound it. Twist
it. Toss it against the wall. Sure, it will bend, but no matter what
you do short of breaking it, the thing still looks like a chair. ...
It's a simple enough observation but, for Dr. Doug L. James,
it turned out to be particularly keen. An assistant professor of computer
science and robotics at Carnegie Mellon University,
he used it to develop ways to make computers simulate collisions that
is a thousand times faster than previous methods. ... That he could
do this simulation in a few hours, rather than a couple of months, has
drawn attention to the 33-year-old scientist from such groups as Pixar,
the computer animation house. This month, Popular Science magazine named
him one of its "Brilliant 10," a list of largely unknown but
innovative young researchers. Though these methods have obvious applications
to computer-generated animation and video games, they also could address
a wide variety of problems.
http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/
05283/585695.stm | back to top
Local News Stories
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette | October 10
Researchers at Carnegie Mellon University and campuses
in Texas and Arizona on Wednesday jointly announced creation of the
Center for Sustainable Engineering. The center will be staffed by 15
to 20 researchers from Carnegie Mellon, Arizona State University and
the University of Texas at Austin. It is receiving $1.7 million from
the National Science Foundation and $350,000 from the Environmental
Protection Agency. The center is intended to help future engineers better
manage increased stress on the world's limited resources, according
to a statement from Carnegie Mellon announcing the center. Its leaders
include Carnegie Mellon's Cliff Davidson, a professor
in civil and environmental engineering; David Allen, chemical engineering
professor at the University of Texas at Austin and Brad Allenby, civil
and environmental engineering professor at Arizona State.
http://www.post-gazette.com/
pg/05283/585818.stm | back to top
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette | October 8
Traditional supermarkets have generally not instilled much loyalty in
customers who carry their loyalty cards, but they have collected a stockpile
of data that can help battle competition from discounters and high-end
grocers, a Carnegie Mellon University researcher says.
The problem, said Vishal Singh, is that supermarket
chains really aren't doing that good of job of analyzing all that information
that they are getting from these so-called loyalty cards, such as Giant
Eagle's Advantage Card. If Giant Eagle, Shop 'n Save and other middle-market
grocers are going to survive the squeeze by Wal-Mart and Whole Foods
Market, they should use the information they collect to identify the
customers who spend the most money at their stores and find ways to
keep them coming in. "It's a very small proportion of people that
account for the biggest losses" whenever a bigger competitor or
specialty store comes in, said Singh, an assistant professor of marketing
at Carnegie Mellon's Tepper School of Business who served as lead researcher
for a team that analyzed data from an unnamed East Coast regional supermarket
chain.
http://www.post-gazette.com/
pg/05281/584818.stm | back to top
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette | October 8
Carnegie Mellon along with the Tepper School of Business
have spun out another tech start-up. Industrial Learning Systems is
led by a duo of fresh-faced Tepper School grads, CEO Michael Helman
and Chief Technology Officer Rajeev Kutty, and Dr. Erik Ydstie,
an erudite professor of chemical engineering. The group is developing
software that will help a range of companies better control their chemical
processes, and save time, money and energy. The company, whose technology
is based upon years of research conducted by Dr. Ydstie, recently has
been signed as an Idea Foundry portfolio firm, the Oakland-based economic
development group that helps turn university science into companies.
To boot, Industrial Learning Systems Inc. has two large, undisclosed
corporate partners trying out its software. A hint: one is a locally
based Fortune 500 firm.
http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/
05281/584811.stm | back to top
Pittsburgh Tribune-Review | October 7
A Center for Atmospheric Particle Studies has been established at
Carnegie Mellon University to conduct laboratory and field
test. The tests will investigate the health effects of particulate matter
and will be used to better understand the role of regional transport
of these airborne particles. Carnegie Mellon said the $2 million center,
which will be led by Neil Donahue, professor of chemical
engineering and chemistry, builds on decades of successful research
on air pollution at the university.
http://pittsburghlive.com/x/tribune-review/
trib/newssummary/s_381735.html | back to top
International News Stories
Gulf Times | October 12
The Carnegie Mellon University in Qatar (Carnegie Mellon-Q)
is launching an innovative history course, which will also be taught
simultaneously in Carnegie Mellon’s Pittsburgh campus via web
simulcast, it was announced yesterday. The idea for such a course came
from vice provost for education and professor in Engineering and Public
Policy, Dr. Indira Nair, after she learned of a web-based
discussion forum, offered by the Boston-based company Soliyah, which
was being used by several American and Middle East universities. “This
got me thinking about how we could connect our students on two continents,”
Dr. Nair said. Two faculty members, Dr. Laurie Eisenberg
and Dr. Ben Reilly, then developed the course, which
includes multinational web forum, to bring students together in a direct
dialogue about American and Arab relations.
http://www.gulf-times.com/site/topics/
article.asp?cu_no=2&item_no=56295&version=
1&template_id=36&parent_id=16 | back to
top
Web India 123 (UPI) | October 8
A study by the Tepper School of Business at Carnegie Mellon
University in Pittsburgh says small retail businesses can survive Wal-Mart.
Researchers analyzed customer behavior for a small town supermarket
on the East Coast for a period of 20 months, before and after a Wal-Mart
Supercenter opened two miles away. After Wal-Mart came in, the local
retailer lost more than 17 percent of sales volume, reflecting a $250,000
monthly decline in revenue. However, by analyzing purchase behavior
the researchers found typical defectors tended to be large basket consumers
who were likely to have an infant and pet in the family and favored
lower-priced store brands rather than name brands. We found that roughly
70 percent of the lost revenue was attributed to only 20 percent of
the store's customers, said lead author Vishal Singh.
http://news.webindia123.com/news/showdetails.asp?
id=132959&n_date=20051009&cat=Business | back
to top
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