Computing

Video showing how vision correction technology works

Vision-correcting display makes reading glasses so yesterday

07/29/14 — Researchers at UC Berkeley are developing vision-correcting displays that can compensate for a viewer's visual impairments to create sharp images without the need for glasses or contact lenses.

Researcher Michael Jordan wins $100,000 Rumelhart Prize for cognitive science

07/28/14 — EECS and statistics professor Michael Jordan is the 2015 recipient of the prestigious David E. Rumelhart Prize for his contributions to computational models of human learning.

Password managers hacked: Researchers find ‘critical’ vulnerabilities

07/15/14 siliconANGLE — Berkeley Engineering researchers have discovered several quickly-patched vulnerabilities in popular password managers that could allow attackers to gain access.

Blind lead the way in brave new world of tactile technology

07/01/14 — Imagine feeling a slimy jellyfish, a prickly cactus or map directions on your iPad display. Virtual textured touchscreens are where tactile technology is headed. New research has found that people are faster at navigating tactile technology when using both hands and several fingers. Moreover, blind people in the study outmaneuvered their sighted counterparts.

Databricks Spark plans: Big data Q&A

07/01/14 Information Week — Ian Stoica, computer science professor and CEO of Databricks, talks about his company's bold vision to make Databricks and its Apache Spark core, developed in UC Berkeley's AMPLab in 2009, into big data's epicenter of analysis.

The games genes play: Algorithm helps explain sex in evolution

06/16/14 — What do you get when you mix theorists in computer science with evolutionary biologists? You get an algorithm to explain sex, say researchers at UC Berkeley's Simons Institute for the Theory of Computing.

New laser sensing technology for self-driving cars, smartphones and 3-D video games

05/29/14 Science Codex — A new twist on 3-D imaging technology, being developed at Berkeley Engineering, could one day enable your self-driving car to spot a child in the street half a block away, let you answer your Smartphone from across the room with a wave of your hand, or play "virtual tennis" on your driveway. EECS Ph.D. candidate Behnam Behroozpour will present the team's work at the CLEO: 2014 conference in San Jose in June.

The last firewall

05/01/14 — Implantable medical devices, brain-machine interfaces and wearable technology all present intensifying privacy and security challenges. Better to build security into such devices rather than trying to layer it over them later.

Out for a spin

05/01/14 — New work by Berkeley researchers could transform modern electronics by making nanomagnetic switches a viable replacement for the conventional transistors found in all computers.

Neuroengineers bring science cred, Berkeley feel to ‘Transcendence’ film

04/18/14 — When Hollywood knocked on the doors of UC Berkeley engineering professors Michel Maharbiz and Jose Carmena, the researchers answered. Director Wally Pfister tapped the researchers' expertise in neural engineering and brain-machine interfaces during the filming of his movie, “Transcendence.”

Students show off design projects from TI lab

04/15/14 Texas Instruments — As the first anniversary of the Texas Instrument-funded Electronics Design Lab approaches, TI highlights some of the cool student projects -- from a tic-tac-toe board to an autonomous quadcopter -- that were made possible through this $2.2 million teaching lab and adjoining "maker lounge."

Email innovator Eric Allman named to Internet Hall of Fame

04/09/14 Internet Society — Software pioneer Eric Allman (B.S.'77 EECS, M.S.'80 CS), whose creation of the sendmail program in the 1980s made possible email as we know it today, has been inducted into the Internet Hall of Fame. Joining him as a member of the class of 2014 is the late Douglas Engelbart (Ph.D.'55 EE), father of the computer mouse.

Be the change, Code the Change

04/04/14 — Christine Loh first heard of “Code the Change” in a Facebook post as a junior electrical engineering and computer science major in 2012. Shortly after, she and classmate Brian Tseng (Class of 2016) launched a Berkeley chapter of the national organization, began hosting a student-run course, and connected eager classmates with more than a dozen nonprofit organizations in need of technical help.

Making sense of big data

03/12/14 Berkeley Research — Ben Recht is looking for problems. Recht, an assistant professor with dual appointments in EECS and statistics, develops mathematical strategies that help researchers cut through blizzards of data to find what they're after, be they urban planners or online retailers.

Women missing out on lucrative careers in computer science

02/27/14 SiliconValley.com — A special report on women in computing profiles Ayushi Samaddar (B.S.'13 EECS), having a "marvelous" time in her first post-graduation job as an associate software engineer, and talks to EECS chair David Culler about the need to involve more women in shaping information technology, "something that is so important to our future."

Revamped computer science classes attracting more women

02/18/14 San Francisco Chronicle — A gender flip in computer science classes -- with more women than men enrolled in an introductory course -- shows UC Berkeley at the vanguard of a tech world shift, beginning to see a payoff in efforts to attract more women to a field where they have always been vastly underrepresented.

Undergrads tackle security projects to battle cyber criminals

01/16/14 USA Today College — In an era when billions are stolen by hackers every year, UC Berkeley and other universities are training students to be the next generation of cyber warriors.

Under observation

11/01/13 — Scientists have discovered a better way to study integrins experimentally, by creating a computer model.

Segment of Proto-Austonesian language wheel

Say what?

11/01/13 — A Berkeley research team has created a computer program that can rebuild protolanguages - the ancestral languages from which modern languages evolved - in days or even hours.

With Melt app, Shane Wey rediscovers the power of voice

09/11/13 — For some, the explosion of visual media and the Internet's transformation as a space dominated by images feels inevitable. But Shane Wey (B.S. '10 EECS) sees things differently. Bucking the digital visual trend, Wey cofounded Melt, an audio-based micro-blogging app that underscores the power of voice. Have a listen.