Author Archives: News Staff
When queued up for an event, to buy a latte or waiting for a bus, most people whip out their phones to pass the time—most often within seconds of arriving. Daniel Kruger of the Institute for Social Research was curious about how quickly people used their phones while passing the time waiting. So he set out to determine… Read More »
Most Americans have some concerns that self-driving cars can be hacked to cause crashes, disable the vehicle in some way, or even be used as weapons by terrorists, according to researchers Michael Sivak and Brandon Schoettle of the U-M Transportation Research Institute. And large percentages of people are at least slightly concerned that these kinds of vehicles can be… Read More »
A panel on AI ethics and education in San Francisco hosted by the Future of Life Institute warned about unforeseen consequences if researchers ignore the inherent ethical dilemmas in the emerging technology. Benjamin Kuipers, a computer science professor and AI researcher at U-M, explained that although humans program AI-powered robots to accomplish a particular goal, these robots will typically… Read More »
Data dashboards and performance feedback can motivate middle-range students to work a little harder to earn a desired grade, a new study found. The study, conducted by researchers at the School of Information and the educational technology company Blackboard, explores a growing trend in higher education—that of collecting data about students and presenting it to them at important… Read More »
Tuesday, March 14, 2017; Noon–1 p.m.; RM 2001 LSA. This semester’s Mobile Developer Community meeting is seeking presenters. If you are interested in presenting on a topic related to mobile app development, or in performing a demo of an app you have developed, please complete this form.
Symptoms that patients describe to doctors may not always be documented in electronic medical records, a small study suggests. To test out how well the records match reality, researchers compared symptoms that 162 patients checked off on paper-based questionnaires with the information entered in patients’ electronic charts at eye clinics. Roughly one-third of the time, data on blurry… Read More »
U-M collects video games. Lots of them. The university’s Computer and Video Game Archive features more than 7,000 titles—everything from time-honored favorites such as “Pac-Man” and “Frogger” to newer fare, including “Call of Duty” and “Halo”—on dozens of gaming systems. Now in its 10th year, the CVGA collects video games in the same way that other archives pursue books,… Read More »
Hacks and data breaches continue to make headlines—including during the presidential election—but that hasn’t seemed to worry consumers, or even many policymakers. M.S. Krishnan, the Accenture Professor of Computer Information at the Ross School of Business, says that while security breaches haven’t changed consumer behavior, it’s time for a cybersecurity summit. Krishnan, who is also professor of technology and… Read More »
During the US election, many fake news stories were written, not by politically motivated supporters, but by people looking to make some quick cash. So one way to stop fake news would be to eliminate the financial incentives that make it profitable. “To make any decent money, and a lot of the fake news sites do make decent… Read More »
Does your digital assistant know who it’s talking to? A wearable device prototype could let voice-controlled assistants like Apple’s Siri or Amazon’s Alexa recognize their owner so they don’t take orders from anyone else. The VAuth device, developed by U-M computer scientists Huan Feng and Kassem Fawaz, uses an accelerometer hidden in a pair of glasses or earphones… Read More »
More than 275 volunteers from U-M and around the community converged on Shapiro Library on January 27 and 28 in an emergency effort to preserve scientific data that is at risk of disappearing from government websites. The effort, called Ann Arbor Data Rescue, was organized by librarians and students at U-M and is part of the national Data Refuge project… Read More »
If you’ve fallen victim to “phantom phone alerts,” the mysterious phenomenon where you think your phone is buzzing but it isn’t, it may be time to take a tech break. Experiencing the nonexistent vibrations could be an indicator that you are too reliant on your cell phone. According to a new study headed by Daniel Kruger, a scientist at U-M’s… Read More »
The loss of her father in 2009 drew a sharp focus on the need for accurate and timely medical records for Patricia Abbott, associate professor of nursing. The experience gave her renewed purpose to continue her research, which explores how massive amounts of data can improve care for patients. Abbott is exploring a variety of innovative Big Data… Read More »
U-M Box By The Numbers New Box Notes Functionality in the Webapp and on the Desktop Box Names Synced with Preferred Name Have You Tried the New Box? See all updates
Streamlining Group Chat Creation in Google Hangouts Gmail Phishing Scam Save Time With New Custom Templates Custom URLs Not Available in New Google Sites Cite Your Sources With Explore in Google Docs See all updates
The annual convention of the Modern Language Association (MLA) is the greatest show on earth for the humanities and for some years now, digital humanities—using computer technology to understand literature and the arts—have been all the rage. They present new ways to approach the work of humanities scholarship, and they’ve already delivered not just new results but new… Read More »
February is right around the corner, and that means so is Enriching Scholarship 2017! The 20th Annual Enriching Scholarship will be held May 1–5. Enriching Scholarship is a great opportunity for Michigan IT staff to share their work and expertise with the greater U-M community. This year’s event is particularly meaningful as it marks not only the 20th anniversary… Read More »
The Skoll Global Threats Fund pioneered the EpiHack, or “epidemiology hackathon,” which design digital tools that allow communities to detect, report, and verify disease outbreaks in real time. Annie Maxwell, the group’s president and an alumna of the Gerald R. Ford School of Public Policy, says one particular EpiHack, focusing on avian flu in Thailand, was special. “It was… Read More »
In a recent Educause blog post, Sol Bermann (privacy officer and interim CISO at U-M) examines the concept of autonomy privacy and argues for its importance in higher education. Higher education, Bermann writes, rightfully prides itself as being a place where freedom of expression, intellectual discourse, dissenting views, and social experimentation are not just the norm but expected. The ability… Read More »
Researchers at U-M will use Big Data and mobile technology to learn how to predict when individuals will get diseases, and to unlock the potential of single-cell gene sequencing under three recently funded projects. The Michigan Institute for Data Science awarded the three interdisciplinary projects a combined $3 million under the second round of its Challenge Initiative program. “These… Read More »