To Mobility and Beyond

New Research Center Launched

From handheld devices to navigation systems to the infrastructures of new buildings, mobility is becoming a requirement when it comes to cutting-edge technology. That's why Carnegie Mellon CyLab recently launched a new research center to study business, organizational and technical issues related to mobility.

The Mobility Research Center, which involves students and faculty at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh and in Silicon Valley , will develop underlying technologies that will ensure the privacy, security and reliability of sensitive and valuable information.

To complement this new research center, the university's Information Networking Institute (INI) has launched a new master's degree program in mobility that will educate and train students in this important, emerging field.

Because handheld devices are so ubiquitous that these new technologies have exploded into a $70 billion industry. Owing to this need are the demand for the growth and adoption of devices and methods for managing data and streamlining connections, making sharing things like photos and videos easier.

Carnegie Mellon's Mobility Research Center will conduct research to improve hardware and software technology for mobile devices, including studies of how people work, play, shop and collaborate, and how new applications and services can change their lives, according to University Professor Pradeep K. Khosla, the founding director of Carnegie Mellon CyLab and dean of Carnegie Mellon's College of Engineering.

"Several hand-held manufacturers, including Motorola and Nokia, are on board to work with us, and we will continue to work with industry to improve mobile applications," Khosla said. "The new center is part of our strategy to integrate our work in Silicon Valley with Pittsburgh."

In addition to Carnegie Mellon Cylab, Carnegie Mellon in Silicon Valley and the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, the new Mobile Research Center will collaborate with the university's Human-Computer Interaction Institute and the School of Computer Science.

"This anywhere-anytime computing capability has prompted a need for increased emphasis on how all this novel mobile technology will benefit consumers," said Martin Griss, a co-director of the new Mobility Research Center and associate dean for research at Carnegie Mellon in Silicon Valley.

"We are moving from the plain old mobile phone to the truly mobile companion."

Griss said the center will link existing research, education and entrepreneurship programs at Carnegie Mellon in Silicon Valley to the university's ongoing research in Pittsburgh.

"Our innovative research here in Pittsburgh continues to highlight the revolution now under way in mobile computing," said Priya Narasimhan, a co-director of the Mobility Research Center and an associate professor of electrical and computer engineering at Carnegie Mellon.

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