Monthly Archives: February 2019

Teaching self-driving cars to predict pedestrian movement

By | February 14, 2019

By zeroing in on humans’ gait, body symmetry and foot placement, U-M researchers are teaching self-driving cars to recognize and predict pedestrian movements with greater precision than current technologies. Data collected by vehicles allow the researchers to capture video snippets of humans in motion and then recreate them in 3D computer simulation. With that, they’ve created a system… Read More »

Changes coming to Google Hangouts Chat this spring

By | February 13, 2019

In 2017, Google announced Hangouts Chat and Hangouts Meet for team communication. Later this year, Google will transition classic Hangouts to Chat and Meet on the UMICH domain. As a first step, some changes are coming on April 16, 2019. Key dates to note: Starting April 16, 2019 – Chat will begin to gradually roll out to U-M Google accounts on… Read More »

Why fears of fake news are overhyped

By | February 13, 2019

A study conducted by U-M professor of public policy Brendan Nyhan suggests that the effect of fake news on the 2016 election has been overestimated. Using laptop/desktop web traffic data from a nationally representative online panel allowed Nyhan and his colleagues to measure who visited fake news sites before the 2016 election with unprecedented precision. “Relatively few people consumed this form… Read More »

Data for Public Good Symposium Feb. 19

By | February 13, 2019

From understanding the influence of congressional members’ Twitter accounts to discussing why the global crude oil price rose again after 2016, the second annual Data for Public Good Symposium will showcase the unique ways in which students, faculty, staff and community members have analyzed and assessed data to benefit others. The conference takes place 10 a.m.-4:30 p.m. Feb.… Read More »

AWS training @ UMSI Feb. 28

The U-M School of Information, in partnership with the Amazon Web Services at U-M team, is pleased to announce a free hands-on cloud computing workshop. Join us on February 28 at the School of Information, 3100 North Quad, Ehrlicher room. Computers will not be provided, so please bring a laptop to this event. If you are interested in… Read More »

Michigan Medicine employees get new cybersecurity reminders

Starting in January, the Information Assurance Michigan Medicine Education & Awareness Program began publishing monthly IT security awareness reminders titled “Cyber Safety — Review in 2.” The campaign’s goal is to increase awareness of key cybersecurity topics by presenting important information that can be reviewed in two minutes or less. To encourage the Michigan Medicine workforce to learn more about… Read More »

Cryptocurrency innovation: U-M to establish FinTech Collaboratory

By | February 8, 2019

Financial technology research and education at U-M will get a boost with $1 million from Ripple’s University Blockchain Research Initiative. The funding will support academic research, technical development, and innovation in blockchain, cryptocurrency, and digital payments. Ripple enables global money transfers using blockchain. With the funds, U-M will establish the FinTech Collaboratory to build curricula in the booming… Read More »

Online censorship detector aims to make the internet a freer place

By | February 7, 2019

In an advance that could one day provide a comprehensive, publicly available window into worldwide internet censorship, a team of researchers at U-M has turned public internet servers across the globe into automated sentries that can monitor and report when access to websites is being blocked. Censored Planet, a first-of-its-kind system, has begun collecting data on three different… Read More »

Built by humans. Ruled by computers.

By | February 7, 2019

MiDAS, an algorithm-based administration and fraud collection system implemented by the state of Michigan, ran without human intervention between 2013 and 2015. During that time, it accused about 50,000 Michiganders of unemployment fraud. A 2017 review by the state found that more than 90 percent of those accusations were false. A growing number of people have been harmed… Read More »

LSA research museums go digital

By | February 7, 2019

In September, 2018, the university completed the move of more than 20 million museum specimens from its zoology, paleontology, and anthropology collections to a state-of-the-art collections and research facility on Varsity Drive. Not as well known, however, is that a second large move was occurring at the same time—this one digital. LSA Technology Services team members John Torgersen… Read More »

The social justice case for computing: a language for all

By | February 6, 2019

As a researcher of computing education at the College of Engineering, Mark Guzdial sees the growing role computing plays in every layer of people’s lives. “I suggest that programming is a literacy,” he writes in a recent essay on the goals of his field. “It’s a way of expressing thought, communicating with others, and testing and exploring new ideas.” Computing… Read More »

Gallery Tool unlocks peer feedback possibilities for MOOC learners

By | February 5, 2019

As part of its work supporting faculty member Anita Gonzalez with an  online course, Academic Innovation has developed a tool that allows learners to share their text- or image-based work with other learners in an easy and open manner, and to also receive robust feedback from other learners. “Because of the nature of our learners’ work in the course,… Read More »

H.V. Jagadish appointed director of MIDAS

By | February 5, 2019

H.V. Jagadish has been appointed director of the Michigan Institute for Data Science (MIDAS), effective February 15, 2019. Jagadish, professor of electrical engineering and computer science, was one of the initiators of an earlier concept of a data science initiative on campus. “I have a longstanding passion for data science, and I understand its importance in addressing a… Read More »

More light needed on medical ‘shadow’ records

By | February 5, 2019

Official medical records are protected by strict privacy laws. But everyone who wears a fitness tracker, uses a health app, shops online, searches the internet for health information, or posts about their health creates a “shadow record” of that data. A team led by U-M researchers Nicholson Price and Kayte Spector-Bagdady reviewed current laws and regulations surrounding these… Read More »