First Carnegie Mellon Portugal Startup: FeedZai Won European Prize
FeedZai, the first company created within the Carnegie Mellon Portugal program, won the “European Prize for Intelligent Companies”.
Read the Portuguese articles at i Online (July 5th) // Diário de Coimbra (July 6th) // Diário de Viseu (July 6th)
Carnegie Mellon University Gave its Highest Distinction to Fonseca de Moura
Read the Portuguese articles at Jornal do Algarve Online (July 4 th ) // Lusa (July 4 th ) // Briefing Online (July 4 th ) // OJE (July 5 th ) // Primeiro de Janeiro (July 5 th ) // Diário de Notícias (July 5 th ) // Diário de Aveiro (July 6 th ).
The Madeira Interactive-Technologies Institute (MITI) at the Universidade da Madeira (UMa) and the Entertainment Technology Center (ETC) at Carnegie Mellon University (CMU) jointly provide a two-year program offering Masters of Entertainment Technology dual degree (MET), under the Carnegie Mellon | Portugal program, sponsored by the Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia (FCT).
Read the Portuguese article at Ciênciapt (May 28, 2010) / Universia (May 28, 2010) / Canal UP (June 1, 2010).
Logica Launches Service Design Lab in Madeira
On May 24, 2010, the industrial partner of the Carnegie Mellon Portugal program Logica launched the Service Design Lab in Madeira. An innovative Lab that will build new services and instruments related with usability. The Service Design Logica Lab is a partnership between Lab:USE (Laboratory for Usage-centered Software Engineering), of the Mathematics and Engineering Department of the Universidade da Madeira, of the Tecnopolo and the company Logica.
The ceremony was attended by João Cunha e Silva, vice-president of the Regional Government of Madeira Island, Castanheira da Costa, rector of the Universidade da Madeira, Nuno Nunes, president of the Madeira Interactive Tehnologies Institute (Madeira ITI) and scientific director of the Carnegie Mellon Portugal program, and Raul Caires, president of the Madeira Tecnopolo.
Read the Portuguese articles at Diário Cidade (May 25).
Skinput: Appropriating the Body as an Input Surface
Developed as a response to the increasingly uncomfortable miniaturization of modern keypads, the third year Ph.D. student in Carnegie Mellon’s Human-Computer Interaction Institute (HCII) produced Skinput with Microsoft researchers Dan Morris and Desney Tan. Harrison had already developed a way to turn ordinary tabletops into finger input surfaces, but says it wasn’t enough. Skinput is a method that allows the body to be appropriated for finger input using a novel, non-invasive, wearable bio-acoustic sensor.
Read the Portuguese article at Revista Convergence (May 05) // Super Indústria (May 05)
Carnegie Mellon Researchers Show that the USA PATRIOT Act and the Bioterrorism Preparedness Act Have Measurable Impacts on Scientific Research
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Carnegie Mellon researchers found that two post-9/11 U.S. counter-bioterrorism laws, the 2001 USA PATRIOT Act and the Bioterrorism Preparedness Act of 2002, had measurable effects on the study of some of the world’s most dangerous biological agents and toxins. The researchers analyzed the publication record of research on Bacillus anthracis and Ebola virus, before and after the passage of the laws. |
Carnegie Mellon’s Elizabeth A. Casman, M. Beatrice Dias, Leonardo Reyes-Gonzalez and Francisco M. Veloso, report in the May 10 edition of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Science that, in addition to creating restrictions on international collaborations, the laws resulted in a systemic loss of efficiency. “What we found was an approximate two- to –five fold increase in the cost of doing select agent research as measured by the number of research papers published per millions of U.S. research dollars awarded,’’ said Casman, associate research professor in the Department of Engineering and Public Policy at Carnegie Mellon. Dias and Reyes-Gonzalez are Ph.D. students, and Veloso is an associate professor in EPP.
Casman said the research group also found that some predicted negative effects did not materialize. There was no mass exodus of US scientists from the field. Collaboration within US institutions was not inhibited. Also, there is no evidence of the emergence of “gatekeeper” institutions. Interestingly, the US Army became much more collaborative in select agent research after 2002 than it was previously. The team’s analysis is relevant to legislative initiatives currently in congressional committee, as law-makers are still grappling with new standards for laboratories working with weaponizable microorganisms.
May 2010
“The Change that Comes from the Outside”
João Barros, National Director of the Carnegie Mellon Portugal Program, considers that the impact of this partnership with one of the top universities from the USA will be visible within five to ten years.
Read the Portuguese article at Exame Informática (April 1) // Exame Informática Online (March 18)
“DRIVE-IN project will develop an interface to allow the communication between vehicles and the choice of the routes without traffic”
The DIVE-IN project (Distributed Routing and Infotainment through Vehicular Inter-Networking) is being developed by the Faculdade de Ciências da Universidade do Porto, the Instituto de Telecomunicações, the Carnegie Mellon University, and the Portuguese company NDrive (industrial partner), among others. This is the largest project developed under the Carnegie Mellon Portugal program, sponsored by Fundação para a Ciência e Tecnologia (FCT).
Read the Portuguese article at Ciência Hoje Online (April 01).
“Portuguese Students won International Competition in Innovation”
Two Portuguese students, Marina Santana and João Pina, won the first competition in Innovation organized by the Carnegie Mellon University. These students are employees from the company Novabase and they are in the Professional Master of Software Engineering held by the Faculdade de Ciências e Tecnologia da Universidade de Coimbra and by Carnegie Mellon University, in the scope of the Carnegie Mellon Portugal program.
Read the Portuguese articles at Canal UP (April 01) // Wintech (April 04).
