UW News

Technology


January 25, 2012

USDOT awards $3.5 million for UW-based regional transportation center

The U.S. Department of Transportation has awarded a grant of $3.5 million to a multi-university, regional transportation center led by the University of Washington. The newly established Pacific Northwest Transportation Consortium, or PacTrans, will focus on safe and sustainable transportation systems.


January 12, 2012

Surgical robots to provide open-source platform for medical robotics research

Seven identical robots created and built at the UW will be flown to campuses across the country, where they will provide the first common research platform to develop the future of surgical robotics. The robots will be display Friday at an open house.


December 7, 2011

Device promises nutrition diagnosis in minutes

A new plasma pencil promises to give nutrition status in minutes that used to take 24 hours, and could improve health in developing world.


November 22, 2011

Big step forward for safety of bionic contact lenses

Bionic eye steps closer to reality.


October 13, 2011

Improving the physics of grocery store display cases to save energy

Aeronautical engineers are devising ways to boost the efficiency of open-air refrigerated cases, which are increasingly common in supermarkets. Results could lower the energy use of existing cases by up to 15 percent — potentially saving $100 million in electricity costs each year.


October 12, 2011

New software licensing agreements bring more products for use on UW-owned computers

Faculty and staff can now take advantage of new software licensing agreements that provide even more products for use on UW-owned computers at no additional cost.


September 20, 2011

Proton-based transistor could let machines communicate with living things

Materials scientists at the University of Washington have built a novel transistor that uses protons, creating a key piece for devices that can communicate directly with living things.


August 31, 2011

Boeing 787’s certification puts spotlight on UW materials lab (with slide show)

Mark Tuttle and Senator Maria Cantwell

On the eve of the certification of the Boeing 787 Dreamliner by the Federal Aviation Administration, Washington Senator Maria Cantwell held a press conference on the UW campus highlighting the work of a federally funded research center that helped realize that goal.


August 3, 2011

Web search is ready for a shakeup, says UW computer scientist

On the 20-year anniversary of the World Wide Web, computer scientist Oren Etzioni has written a two-page commentary in the journal Nature that calls on the international academic and business communities to take a bolder approach when designing how people find information online.


August 2, 2011

Digital photos can animate a face so it ages and moves before your eyes

Computer scientists have created a way to take images from the web or personal photos collections and in seconds create an animation of a persons face. The tool can make a face appear to age over time, or gradually change the expression from a smile to a frown.


July 27, 2011

Microgravity team conducts experiments on NASA's 'vomit comet'

Eight students lurched, tumbled and floated through an unforgettable final lab project last month. Participants in NASAs Microgravity University in Houston spent the last week of their undergraduate careers carrying out an experiment they designed for testing in a reduced-gravity environment.


July 25, 2011

Materials scientist John Cahn awarded international Kyoto Prize

John Cahn, a UW affiliate professor in the departments of physics and materials science & engineering, has won an international Kyoto Prize, sometimes described as Japan’s equivalent to the Nobel Prize. Cahn is recognized for his work describing and predicting the behavior of mixtures of materials.


July 22, 2011

The cable has landed: Ocean science history in the making — with slideshow

Submarine cables for the nations first regional cabled ocean observatory, a project led by the University of Washington, made landfall last week on the Oregon coast.


July 19, 2011

Race matters when recruiting, retaining undergraduate women engineers

A new study of female engineering students perceived challenges finds significant differences between black, Hispanic, Native American, Asian-American and white women. The findings could help institutions better attract and retain particular underrepresented student populations.


July 14, 2011

UW will lead $18.5 million effort to create mind-machine interface

The National Science Foundation today announced an $18.5 million grant to establish an Engineering Research Center for Sensorimotor Neural Engineering based at the UW. The interdisciplinary center will combine neuroscience and robotics to develop new rehabilitation technologies.


July 12, 2011

Wireless power could cut cord for patients with implanted heart pumps

A new system to send electricity over short distances has been shown to reliably power a mechanical heart pump. The system could free patients from being tethered to a battery or external power source, lowering their chance of infection and improving their quality of life.


May 31, 2011

Code green: Energy-efficient programming to curb computers power use

A new system called EnerJ helps computer programmers go green, allowing them to cut a program’s energy consumption by as much as 50 percent.


May 16, 2011

Digital imaging software creates a ‘Google Earth view of the bladder

A more automated approach to bladder exams could be cheaper, more comfortable and more convenient. The system would use the UWs ultrathin laser endoscope, which is like a thin piece of cooked spaghetti, in combination with software that automatically creates a 3-D panorama of the bladder interior.


May 2, 2011

College students use of Kindle DX points to e-readers role in academia

A nine-month study of how University of Washington graduate students did or did not use the large-format Amazon Kindle DX in their course reading provides information on the potential future for e-readers in academia.


April 13, 2011

Computer Science and Engineering students win National Collegiate Cyber Defense Competition

This weekend in San Antonio, eight students from the UW’s Department of Computer Science and Engineering won the trophy in the National Collegiate Cyber Defense Competition.


March 15, 2011

Controlling a single molecules reaction with light could improve solar cells

In new research published in “Science,” engineers at UW and UCLA used nanotechnology to control and observe how molecules react. They plan to use their method to develop more efficient solar molecules.


February 23, 2011

Dimmable windows with solar panels could power zero-energy buildings

UW engineers and architects are collaborating on smart windows that can change transparency depending on conditions and actually harvest energy from the suns rays.


February 14, 2011

Carbon Leadership Forum will devise standards to limit carbon footprints in building products

University of Washington researchers, along with design and construction professionals, will devise standards that will help limit carbon footprints of building products and systems.


February 8, 2011

UW's Hank Levy elected to National Academy of Engineering

Henry “Hank” Levy, professor and chair of the UW’s Department of Computer Science and Engineering, has been elected to the National Academy of Engineering.


February 1, 2011

New center aims to dramatically lower barrier to making silicon photonic chips

The University of Washington has launched a new program, co-funded by Intel Corp., to make it easier and cheaper to build silicon photonic circuits. Sending information using light, instead of electrons, will allow for faster, lower-power and more versatile microchips.


January 3, 2011

Engineering students hack Kinect for surgical robotics research

Students in the Biorobotics Laboratory hacked the Kinect, a motion-based controller for Microsoft’s Xbox 360 gaming system, for research on telerobotic surgery.


December 20, 2010

Students water-testing tool wins $40,000, launches nonprofit

UW engineering students won an international contest for designing a way to monitor water disinfection by solar rays. The students will share a $40,000 prize from the Rockefeller Foundation and are now working with nonprofits to turn their concept into a reality.


December 13, 2010

Assessing the environmental effects of tidal turbines

UW scientists are helping to prepare for a tidal energy project in Puget Sound. Researchers say this pilot project will have the most comprehensive environmental monitoring of any tidal energy installation to date.


Calculating tidal energy turbines effects on sediments and fish

Engineers are developing computer models to study how changes in water pressure and current speed around tidal turbines affect sediment buildup and fish health.


November 1, 2010

Molecular imaging and therapy center to develop, commercialize technologies

Ultrasound could soon be a way for spotting cancerous cells before a tumor develops, precisely monitoring how a person responds to treatment or delivering genetic therapies.


August 19, 2010

Surf your way to a deep-ocean research expedition

Journey 300 miles off the Washington-Oregon coast and dive nearly a mile deep into the ocean as scientists and 20 students use underwater robots to explore, map and sample methane ice deposits, an underwater volcano and seafloor hot springs spewing water up to 570 degrees F.



Previous page