Rensselaer will receive the Watson system thanks to a grant that allows the university to invest more resources to research and development of big data, analytics, and cognitive computing. However, in return, IBM is asking the university to send its findings their way so that they can improve Watson even more.

Rensselaer’s private Watson supercomputer will have 15 terabytes of storage, which is actually more than even the Jeopardy! version had. Plus, the room that Watson will be stored in will allow 20 people at a time to work inside, including faculty, graduate students, and a few undergraduate students.

So what will the supercomputer be used for at the university? Artificial intelligence researchers at Rensselaer want to improve Watson’s mathematical ability and help it figure out the meaning of newer words. They also want to improve the computer’s ability to analyze all of the images, videos, and emails floating around on the internet, something that will prove to be no easy task for the folks at the university.

Sinofsky announced his return to Harvard via Twitter where he threw in some key words dealing with new experiences that he’ll be facing, and he even hashtagged “sabbatical.” In a reply to someone asking what exactly he’ll be teaching, Sinofsky said that it’ll deal with product development.

He also said he’ll be writing journal articles about the topic of product development, and he mentioned that his title will be “Executive in Residence.” Overall, it seems he’s really excited about what lies ahead, and we can tell that he’s glad he got out of Microsoft, where it seems he was clashing with co-workers and management.

It’s not clear yet if this is a single-semester deal or if Sinofsky plans to stick around Harvard for the long haul, but his extensive experience at Microsoft developing Windows 8 among other Windows products should make for an interesting class, to say the least. Harvard Business students sure are lucky.

Why the Lumia 900 and Windows Phone? The university relies heavily on Microsoft’s ecosystem right now, so David Middleton, Executive Director of the Center for Mobile Research and Innovation at Seton Hall, believes that Nokia’s smartphone makes the most sense. Most notably, the phone integrates with Office and has some key social features such as Social Hub. The university also wanted hardware that could take some abuse from students, and apparently the Lumia 900’s unibody polycarbonate is up to the task.

On top of the phone, new students will be provided with a SHUMobile app, which will provide access to campus maps in addition to news. Freshmen will be able to connect with existing students and roommates using the app at Freshmen orientation. The LTE network on campus isn’t up and running just yet, but AT&T is working hard to make sure it’ll be ready soon. When it is, students will get pre-paid access to AT&T and the LTE network during the first semester for free.

[via Nokia Conversations]

Partnering up with PolitiFact, MIT media lab graduate student Dan Schultz hopes and expects to “bridge the gap between the corpus of facts and the actual media consumption experience.” Basically, if you’re full of BS, or not. The project is utilizing fact-verifying natural language processing techniques, against the information in PolitiFact’s API. In English, it means that “it’s not able to tell a lie from the truth on its own, but rather it does so by pulling in data on phrases that are in a system.” Schultz has plans to open-source it next year, when the project is successfully completed.

If all goes to plan, Schultz’s work could gradually end up being integrated into software that can scan and check websites such as Snopes, allowing internet users a more potent way to debunk claims that so often float around on the Internet as facts, instead of fiction. The MIT graduate student states that “I’m very interested in looking at ways to trigger people’s critical abilities so they think a little bit harder about what they’re reading…before adopting it into their worldview.” Let’s hope that this project gets the time and attention it deserves.

[via The Next Web]

You can access the original write-up of the project on PLoS One, a repository for “accelerating the publication of peer-reviewed science.” Open access, everyone! The write-up is a documentation of some tests performed to show the accuracy of the system. User attached the apparatus to their cranium and were asked to navigate a helicopter through three dimensional space. According to the results, users were able to reach targets with the helicopter 85% of the time. So probably we won’t be controlling REAL helicopters with this system any time soon, but maybe someday!

Dr. He had the following to say about the project thus far:

“this work demonstrates for the first time that one can accomplish real-time, continuous 3-dimensional control of a flying object in a virtual world from noninvasive EEG-based brain-computer interface. Such ability used to be limited in cases where invasive recordings are used, thus the work opens avenues to noninvasive bio-navigation, or neuroprosthetics.” – Dr. He

What you’re about to see below is a video of what the user sees on the screen as they control the helicopter with their mind. The user has simply to place the testing device’s hat on, have their sesorimotor rythem brain waves monitored, and these waves are characterized and calibrated into controls which move the helicopter. Have a look here and give the U of M a high five. That’s hometown pride for me, folks, maroon and gold forever!

[via Engadget]

Technology pundits such as Rick Doherty (of Envisioneering Group) are thus far seeming to focus on the fact that IBM will be returning the money they’ve recieved from the project up to this point while the NCSA will be returning all IBM equipment, while both groups have promised to work on future petascale computing projects together.

“It’s not often you hear of contract money being returned, especially with government contracts. IBM was putting a lot of resources into the contract [but] It wasn’t a profitable direction for IBM.” – Rick Doherty

If the project’s end-product computer had indeed been built, it would have been one of the top most powerful supercomuters in the world according to top500.org. The University of Illinois and the National Science Foundation funded the project, planning then to allow researchers to use the computer for all manner of advanced simulation, data-crunching, and modeling.

In addition to mounting costs and new complexities in the project, the fact that new techniques with potential for less cost and less complexity in their execution have been cropping up since 2008 may have something to do with the abandonment of the project as it existed up until two days ago.

[via PCworld; Image credit: kosheahan]

The theme of the Purdue’s machine was Time Machine. It chronicled the history of the world from the Big Bang all the way up to the Armageddon and Apocalypse. One of our favorite parts was the jousting during the middle ages piece. No one would think that some of the brightest minds would come together to build machines to accomplish tasks that we could accomplish ourselves much faster and with better efficiency; but some of the brightest minds also brought us the IRS. (Not that we ever cheat on our taxes).

The winning machine watered a plant while putting on a good show. The machine’s process ended in a mock destruction of the world and life as we know it. But not to worry, at the end of the machine’s 244 steps a little flowering plant got watered to start the process over again. Kind of anti-climatic to think that the history of the world can be wrapped up in a two minute video.

Rube Goldberg’s granddaughter Jennifer George was on site for the competition. Zach Umperovitch, captain of a team that has won three national championships and set two world records in the past seven years was quoted as saying, “If Bruce Willis, Will Smith and Charlton Heston joined forces to build a Rube Goldberg machine, this is what it might look like. Of course, those guys wouldn’t be as crazy as we are to invest 3,500 hours to accomplish a task a toddler can do in mere seconds.”

The documents show that from 2006 to 2008 the agency planned to study a range of new anti-terrorism technologies, including “a walk through x-ray screening system that could be deployed at entrances to special events or other points of interest” to “covert inspection of moving subjects” employing the same backscatter imaging technology used for full body scans in airports.

The van project was allocated to Northeastern University and Siemens and would mount backscatter x-ray scanners and video cameras on roving vans, and use cameras on buildings and utility poles to monitor groups of pedestrians. Using the system, it would be possible to assess what people are carrying, and even track their eye movements. Researchers were also asked to develop a system of long range x-ray scanning to determine what metal objects a person has on his or her body from up to thirty feet away.

“This would allow them to take these technologies out of the airport and into other contexts like public streets, special events and ground transit,” says Ginger McCall, an attorney with EPIC. “It’s a clear violation of the fourth amendment that’s very invasive, not necessarily effective, and poses all the same radiation risks as the airport scans.”

After the initial article was published by Andy Greenberg on Forbes.com,, The TSA responded that the “TSA has not tested the advanced imaging technology that is currently used at airports in mass transit environments and does not have plans to do so.”

However, they have spent money on this project and have contracts with Siemens Corporations, Northeastern University, and Rapiscan Systems for this project. EPIC has filed a lawsuit against the DHS fighting the use of scanners in airports, and is arguing its case in a D.C. appellate court next week. It seems likely that there would be quite an outcry if the TSA or the DHS tried to scatter x-rays indiscriminately at pedestrians, but this is a good thing to keep an eye on.
Full TSA documents here.
[via Andy Greenberg]

“Watson’s ability to analyze the meaning and context of human language, and quickly process information to find precise answers can assist decision makers, such as physicians and nurses, unlock important knowledge and facts buried within huge volumes of information, and offer answers they may not have considered to help validate their own ideas or hypotheses.”

An example of how this might work is that a doctor considering a diagnosis could speak questions about the case into the system and then the system would rapidly search through all of the releated texts, reference materials, prior cases, journals, and medical literature, and deliver back to the doctor the most likely diagnosis and treatment options.

If this is effective, it could be a huge change in the way the medical industry operates. It kind of reminds us of the “computer” on Star Trek.

IBM and Nuance expect the first commercial offerings to be available in 18-24 months.

[via IBM]

The screen measures 10 meters by 2.8 meters (or 32.8 feet by 9.2 feet for those of you who are metrically challenged like me) and can detect up to 100 simultaneous touch inputs. The screen uses infrared LEDs and 6 Optitrack cameras to detect touch.

Here are the specs:

• 6 Optitrack cameras
• 1000 infrared LEDs
• 4900 x 1700 Pixels
• 120 Hz stereo capability
• 50 ms latency

And what you really were waiting for…the video:

[via Earth Times]
from The University of Groningen

Electrowetting, incase you were unaware, is the process of applying (wetting) a hydrophobic surface with a field of electricity within a display – aka, the thing you do when your computer shows you some type, some photographs, some video, everything. It’s the “revealing”, if you will, most recently applied to e-paper.

What Steckl and his researcher pals aim to do is “replicate the look and feel of actual ink on paper, … We have, therefore, investigated the use of paper as the perfect substrate for EW devices to accomplish e-paper on paper.” What would this be good for? Steckl says “We would have something that is very cheap, very fast, full-color and at the end of the day or the end of the week, you could pitch it into the trash.”

What would I use that for instead of a regular piece of paper? Steckl says: “We hope to have something that would actually look like paper but behave like a computer monitor in terms of its ability to store information.” OHHH ok. So maybe I’d be able to brush it off, or save some info to a separate memory chip, say a thumb drive. But what about the fact that you’d totally be destroying the environment by throwing away all that technology day-to-day? Steckl says the impact will be low. This guy seems like a boss. You can get the entire text of the paper “Electrowetting on Paper for Electronic Paper Display” by Duk Young Kim and Andrew J. Steckl from [ACS Publications] for $30 for 48 hours or reading. Whoa!

[Via TGDaily]

According to the report, Google’s experimental run of a 1Gbps broadband network will cover 850 homes on the Stanford University campus’ Residential Subdivision. Google, not wanting to waste any time, plans on starting the installation of the network early in 2011. Interestingly enough, though, Google says that this experiment has nothing to do with the “Fiber for Communities” project that Google announced at the beginning of the year, which would see the same speeds installed across the United States.

As of right now, Google seems to be in the planning stages. With the installation process still a few months out, there’s no need for Google to rush into the experiment. This will be the company’s way of showing what a 1Gbps broadband network can do, so this will be the Betas of all Betas for Google.

[via Google Blog]

Apparently, the University of Florida agrees with one Ph.D candidate, named Nate Poling, that the PC-based video game, called StarCraft can indeed help students with real world experiences. The game itself, mind you, is set in the future, where humans must face a two-sided war against alien species called the Zerg and Protoss. The title is a Real-Time Strategy (RTS) game, and makes the player use methods to manage units, money, and groups with different capabilities.

The course is called EME2040: 21st Century Skills in StarCraft, and it will be open to students with at least a “basic knowledge of and experience playing StarCraft.” So, if you find yourself a newbie to the title, don’t expect to get in. Poling, who will be leading the course, says that his problem solving skills in the real world are much the same as the ones he utilizes in StarCraft, and believes that if a student uses his class, and that of the traditional classroom (meaning, those old boring classes,), that they could potentially think outside of the box, and create a dynamic and innovative business practice. Frankly, we just think it’s awesome. Any students in Florida going to take a shot at this?

[via TG Daily]

In Greensburg, Pennsylvania, Seton Hill University has decided that for all their future (Fall), full-time students, they deserve to have an iPad. The iPad giveaway is part of the school’s Technology Advantage Program, and makes it possible for all of the students to get an iPad of their own. According to the tip that TUAW received, students will be able to download their textbooks directly to their iPad from the iBookstore, and will also be used for file sharing, as well as note-taking. All these things that we knew the iPad would be good at.

Seton Hill University is probably going to be the first of many to offer iPads for students. We imagine that the range of options for students who want an iPad will vary one way or another. Universities that give away iPads may be the exception to the rule. And, we are wondering if the iBookstore is going to have cordoned-off areas, where participating universities will be able to deliver books for their students. Or, will we all be able to see what textbooks the History class of any particular university is using at any time? Be a quick way to clutter up that nice new digital storefront.

[via TUAW]