Author Archives: News Staff
An ongoing battle between New York City and Uber over rider data points to a broader struggle between ride-sharing services and local governments hungry for more information about the movement of their citizens. Companies like Uber and Lyft say requirements to release rider data is an invasion of privacy, while government regulators say it’s an issue of ensuring passenger safety. Gautam Hans, a fellow at… Read More »
Given the concern with electronic hacking this past election, old-fashioned paper ballots might seem more reliable. But after listening to computer science Professor J. Alex Halderman and doctoral student Matt Bernhard discuss the recent US election at the Chaos Communications Congress, even paper ballots might not provide much reassurance about election outcomes. Although their analysis of recounts in Michigan… Read More »
Researchers at U-M and Peking University analyzed 427 million messages from nearly 4 million smartphone users in 212 countries and regions to see if emoji use was universal or differed based on user location and culture. They discovered the most popular emoji worldwide is… face with tears of joy, which accounted for over 15% of total symbols seen in the study.… Read More »
Although rare, armed robberies and violent incidents have occurred during the exchange of online transactions. While the overwhelming majority of online transactions occur without incident, the Division of Public Safety and Security is committed to providing a secure environment for U-M community members and recently established a “Safe Exchange Zone” in the front lobby of the U-M Police Department… Read More »
A U-M alum is striving to take the turbulence out of getting passengers to their planes on time. Caryn Seidman-Becker is CEO of CLEAR, which helps airline passengers at participating airports confirm their identity through biometric scanning of either their fingertip or iris. Customers sign up with CLEAR in advance and have their identification digitally authenticated. Then they… Read More »
Friday, February 3; 8 a.m.–5 p.m.; Michigan League Vandenburg room and Rackham Amphitheater. In partnership with Stanford University, the Michigan Institute for Data Science (MIDAS) will participate in the 2017 Women in Data Science Conference, with live speakers on campus and a simulcast of the conference proceeding from Stanford. More info and registration.
There is a transformation happening in U.S. television as more companies distribute content over the internet and more viewers move away from live, network-scheduled viewing. Internets streaming services offer many popular channels currently available from cable and satellite services. Bundled channel packages streamed over the internet “are meant to compete with cable or satellite, and some have called them ‘skinny… Read More »
Thursday, March 2, 8 a.m.–5 p.m. & Friday, March 3, 8 a.m.–4 p.m.; Ross School of Business. Hacks with Friends is a spirited, two-day hacking event where you can break out of your normal routine and have some fun. Form a team, build a project (a.k.a. “hack”) from beginning to end, and show it off in a fun, friendly… Read More »
Wednesday, January 25, 9–9:45 a.m.; online. Google Sites has a new look and feel. Monica Hickson (ITS) shows how to create pages, add new stylish themes, drag and drop content, and collaborate in real time. Level: Intermediate. Register in My LINC. If you missed last month’s IT4U, Collaborate with Box & Google Shared Accounts, here’s the 41-minute YouTube… Read More »
Monday, January 16; 10 a.m., Hill Auditorium. The theme for this year’s annual Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Symposium keynote lecture is “The Sounds of Change.” The lecture will be streaming online at mlksymposium.umich.edu. A special thank you to the ITS Infrastructure team who will create a direct network connection between the Ann Arbor campus and the U-M Detroit Center. Their efforts… Read More »
Computer science and engineering students at U-M partnered with visually impaired high school student India West to develop technologies that may help other blind and visually impaired people navigate the world around them. David Chesney, a lecturer in electrical engineering and computer science, leads the effort, which is featured in this video. Read more about the project.
Melissa Levine, the lead copyright officer at the U-M Library and ex officio member of the library’s open access committee, co-authored an article advocating open access publishing as a way to speed up scientific discoveries and advances in technology. “If published research and data were freely accessible and reusable by researchers of diverse interests, urgently needed solutions could be… Read More »
A group of researchers including Josh Ackerman, an assistant professor of psychology at U-M, believe you might be “accidentally” breaking your phone, on purpose, to justify getting a new one. It’s a phenomenon called the “upgrade effect” and according to the study, that’s exactly what we’re doing.The study found that even when people think they aren’t being careless or deliberate… Read More »
Facebook, with 1.79 billion monthly active users, has emerged as the main engine for “fake news.” Researchers say they’d like to help Facebook get to grips with its problem. But if you want to work with Facebook’s data, you usually have to become a contractor, work at its campus in Menlo Park, and agree to the company’s terms on what… Read More »
Students and faculty from the School of Education are working with students at Scarlett Middle School in Ann Arbor to help them become good digital citizens, and so they can become ambassadors for others in their school. Watch the video below to learn how the program hopes to foster civility and respect online.
“Fake” news is not limited to politics or celebrity gossip. A study by Ceren Budak, an assistant professor at the School of Information, shows that the most popular health stories on social media may also be the least accurate. For example, four out of five popular posts on Facebook about Zika contained accurate information, but the ones containing… Read More »
A team of researchers on the Ann Arbor and Flint campuses have developed a new Android app to help Flint residents during the ongoing water crisis. MyWater-Flint is an interactive guide that lets people pinpoint homes with a greater risk for lead, and also shows where lead has been found in city water. Users can see where pipes… Read More »
As part of this year’s Academic Innovation Initiative, the Office of Academic Innovation has challenged the U-M community to contribute more than 2,017 ideas about how we should transform education at Michigan. Visit the Ideas2017 Challenge website and enter a tweet-sized idea (or bigger). While you’re there, browse through ideas that have been submitted.
Kelli Trosvig, U-M’s new vice president for IT and chief information officer (VPIT-CIO) as of November 14, has named Sol Bermann as the university’s interim chief information security officer (CISO). Bermann served as interim CISO prior to Don Welch’s arrival and continues to serve as U-M’s privacy officer.
When Canvas API calls began to bog down Student Explorer—an application that serves as an early warning system for academic advisors—Information and Technology Services (ITS) and the Digital Innovation Greenhouse (DIG) worked with Unizin to reduce data processing time by half with the Unizin Data Warehouse. Read the case study (PDF) to learn about their solution to provide reliable data… Read More »