Electrical engineering

March of the ‘zombie vortices’

09/11/13 — A team led by Philip Marcus, a mechanical engineering professor and computational physicist, shows how variations in gas density lead to instability, which then generates the whirlpool-like vortices needed for stars to form. According to the researchers' models, the change in density is what triggers the violent birth of a new star, upending an otherwise stable dead zone of gas-or what Marcus calls ‘zombie vortices'

Berkeley’s computer science major places first in new ranking

09/06/13 Daily Californian — UC Berkeley won the top spot for computer science majors' return on investment in a new ranking compiled by Affordable Colleges Online, surpassing second-place Stanford in the comparison pitting lifetime earnings against educational costs.

8 Berkeley Engineers among 2014 Siebel Scholars

09/06/13 Siebel Foundation — The Siebel Scholars Foundation has named 85 talented graduate students to its Siebel Scholars class of 2014, including five bioengineering students and three computer science students from UC Berkeley.

New technique analyzes shadows to spot photo fakes

08/15/13 Inside Science — A new algorithm, developed by Berkeley computer science professor James O'Brien and colleagues at Dartmouth, can spot fake photos by looking for inconsistent shadows that are not always obvious to the naked eye.

Berkeley and Stanford launch nanofabrication partnership with TSI Semiconductors

08/15/13 — The College of Engineering at the University of California, Berkeley announced that its Marvell Nanofabrication Laboratory, along with Stanford University's Nanofabrication Facility, has initiated a virtual technology transfer exercise with TSI Semiconductors, LLC, a specialty foundry offering flexible technology development and advanced manufacturing solutions for projects ranging from the smallest to very large lot sizes.

Using citizen videos, Rashomon Project seeks to protect activists

07/23/13 New Hampshire Public Radio — As citizen-generated media grows increasingly integrated into protest coverage, software developed by UC Berkeley researchers could help protect activists against unjust persecution. Berkeley Engineering professor Ken Goldberg talks about the CITRIS Data and Democracy Initiative's Rashomon Project, which he leads.

Researchers propose ‘neural dust’ to monitor brain from inside

07/17/13 ExtremeTech — Berkeley Engineering researchers have proposed a network of tiny implantable sensors that could function like an MRI inside the brain, recording data on nearby neurons and transmitting it back out. This long-lasting "neural dust," envisioned by graduate student Dongjin Seo and colleagues in EECS, would solve the problems of size and invasiveness posed by current brain imaging technologies.

Douglas C. Engelbart, inventor of the computer mouse, dies at 88

07/03/13 New York Times — Douglas C. Engelbart, 88, a visionary scientist and Berkeley electrical engineering Ph.D. whose host of inventions - among them the computer mouse - became the basis for both the Internet and the modern personal computer, died July 2 at his home in Atherton, Calif.

The hidden cost of free apps: Mobile ads drain batteries

06/26/13 Information Week — The advertisements in a typical mobile app consume almost a quarter of the energy used by the app, according to research by Berkeley computer science graduate student Prashanth Mohan and his colleagues at Microsoft Research.

Student hacker wins award for wearing a ‘white hat’

06/19/13 Los Angeles Times — Berkeley computer science junior Skyler Rojas has been awarded $2000 by the Information Systems Security Association at the Cornerstones of Trust conference for choosing a career in cybersecurity. Rojas, who is interning this summer at Symantec, says his dream job would be "penetration tester" - someone who works from the inside to find network vulnerabilities.

Yablonovitch elected to membership in Royal Society

06/19/13 Royal Society — Eli Yablonovitch, professor of electrical engineering and computer science, is one of two Berkeley scientists elected as 2013 foreign members of the United Kingdom's distinguished Royal Society, a fellowship of eminent scientists, engineers and technologists.

Cal EECS professor receives prestigious international award

06/13/13 Contra Costa Times — Electrical engineering and computer science professor Eli Yablonovitch is one of two recipients of the 2012 Harvey Prize, a prestigious international award for his "pioneering discoveries in photonics, optoelectronics, and semiconductors."

Academic-industrial team to uncover innovations in systems engineering

05/30/13 iCyPhy — UC Berkeley has partnered with Caltech, IBM and United Technologies Corp. to launch Industrial Cyber Physical Systems (iCyPhy), a Berkeley-based research consortium that will identify and develop new engineering techniques to make it easier to successfully build products and services that combine complex software, hardware and mechanical components.

How password strength meters can improve security

05/20/13 Information Week — Password strength meters aren't just window dressing, but can result in stronger passwords when users are forced to change "important" accounts, according to a new study by UC Berkeley researcher Serge Egelman and colleagues at the University of British Columbia and Microsoft Research.

Molding the next generation of computer scientists

05/14/13 CNN Tech — Kevin Wang always had the teaching bug in him. Now the 2002 EECS alumnus and Microsoft developer is combining his passion and his profession through Technology Education and Literacy in Schools (TEALS), an initiative founded by Wang and supported by Microsoft that places high-tech professionals as part-time teachers in high schools.

Oxford-bound

05/13/13 — Graduating senior Daniel A. Price, a double major in bioengineering and electrical engineering and computer sciences with a minor in physics, was selected as one of this year's Rhodes Scholars. Next fall at Oxford University, Price will pursue research in medical diagnostic equipment. Here he tells us more about his studies, his research and future plans.

EECS offers online master’s program

05/01/13 — The college launches an EECS online master's program in integrated circuits.

Q+A: Oxford-bound

05/01/13 — Alum Daniel A. Price, selected as a 2013 Rhodes Scholar, shares his future plans for Oxford and beyond.

Mind readers

05/01/13 — Researchers were able to infer sensitive information—such as credit card PINs, birth months and home locations—from participants wearing brainwave-reading headsets that are typically used for hands-free gaming.

Critical making comes to campus

05/01/13 — “Students are going to understand how to collaborate across disciplines while respecting and appreciating the viewpoints, values and concerns of others about a design,” Eric Paulos says. “I fundamentally believe that this is the future of the practitioner. They will have to know how to co-create things.”