News Staff

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Author Archives: News Staff

ARC-TS supports NIH pilot

By | December 15, 2016

The National Institutes of Health (NIH) recently announced the Commons Credit Pilot, which provides biomedical researchers support for access to cloud-based computing resources as part of the its Commons program. Researchers interested in requesting resources from the program can get support for their submissions from Advanced Research Computing – Technology Services (ARC-TS). NOTE: Researchers must hold an NIH… Read More »

How to hack a human

By | December 15, 2016

A recent article published in Communications of the ACM examines the chronology of medical device security. The paper is the result of an interdisciplinary project, known as Trustworthy Health and Wellness, which is funded by the National Science Foundation. Peter Honeyman, U-M research professor of computer science and engineering, collaborated on the article. Learn more.

VR training for future engineers

By | December 15, 2016

Sherif El-Tawil, professor and associate chair of civil and environmental engineering, was quoted in an article published by U.S. News about the effects of virtual reality technology in engineering education. Professor El-Tawil’s MIDEN virtual reality cave gives Michigan Engineers unprecedented insight into the way structures come together, buckle, and collapse.

Lighting the past

By | December 15, 2016

Archaeologists in northern Michigan have used pulses of light shot from airplanes to double their discoveries. This remote sensing technology is called light detection and ranging, or lidar. Lidar sends out a pulse of light that returns a measure of distance from the object it strikes. It can greatly improve the efficiency of archaeological searches particularly when scanning… Read More »

Health apps #fail

By | December 15, 2016

A study published this month in the journal Health Affairs found problems with many smartphone health apps. Most concerning was what happened (or didn’t happen) with information that should have drawn warnings from the app—like selecting “yes” when the app asked if the user was feeling suicidal, or entering extremely abnormal levels for blood sugar levels. Only 28… Read More »

IQ to host data conference

By | December 15, 2016

The Higher Education Data Warehouse (HEDW) selected Information Quest (IQ) to host their April 2019 Conference in Ann Arbor. “This is a huge honor and will allow us to showcase the University of Michigan and our work here in IQ,” said Shelly Turner, application developer lead for IQ who will also serve on the HEDW board from 2017… Read More »

U-M, Unizin pilot dashboard tool

By | December 15, 2016

U-M and Unizin, a consortium of leading research institutions, recently launched a beta pilot of a new learning dashboard tool. Snapshot lets faculty view student engagement trends, monitor outcomes, and identify students at risk of failure. Students can view their own dashboard and compare it with their peers. John Johnston (ITS Teaching & Learning) partnered with Meg Bakewell… Read More »

Rise of the fembots

By | December 15, 2016

Amazon’s Alexa, Apple’s Siri, and Microsoft’s Cortana are some of today’s most well-known virtual assistants. All are female, and all elicit an image of an assistant who is not just a woman, but a woman people can boss around, flirt with, and act inappropriately toward. Compound that with portrayals in the media and it all starts to feel… Read More »

New VR Community of Practice

By | December 15, 2016

A new Michigan IT Community of Practice is taking shape around augmented reality (AR) and virtual reality (VR) systems. Areas of interest include the use of these systems for visualization, teaching, content development, and performance. Meetings will begin in January (specific date TBA). Join the MCommunity group, AR and VR CoP, and the new Google+ community for more… Read More »

New year, new IT news

By | December 15, 2016

The New Year will bring more than just snow and fitness resolutions. In the first part of 2017, you can expect improvements to how the Michigan Newsletter is published and distributed. Take our reader survey to weigh in. Your feedback will inform the direction of Michigan IT news to better serve the community. We’ve already made some changes:… Read More »

Shumaker moves to UM-Dearborn

By | December 15, 2016

Carrie Shumaker, formerly ITS assistant director for human capital management and student administration systems, accepted a position as the interim director of information technology, strategy, and operations at UM-Dearborn. Effective December 1, Shumaker will lead all Dearborn IT efforts, including applications, network, storage, architecture, and cybersecurity.

Exploiting vehicle electronics

By | December 15, 2016

The networked electronics found in modern vehicles provide many useful and cool benefits, such as fuel savings, parking assist, and collision avoidance. Most of these features involve passing data among vehicle systems and human drivers. This connectivity also offers hackers new potential exploits. According to research presented last month by U-M researchers Kyong-Tak Cho and Kang Shin at… Read More »

Photonic chips skirt physics

By | December 15, 2016

In the tech world, one of the biggest questions of the 21st century is: How small can we make transistors? Today’s transistors, at about 70 silicon atoms wide, are getting very close to the limits of current technology. Arnab Hazari, doctoral student in electrical engineering, explains how “photonic chips” that use light, made up of photons, could solve… Read More »

Tweet no more

By | December 15, 2016

Twitter suspended the accounts of several high-profile leaders of the so-called alternative right last month, raising new questions about the largely online movement’s potential for influencing national debate. While the suspensions could damage the movement by limiting its ability to spread its ideology, others believe it could make the alt-right stronger by feeding into its narrative of liberal… Read More »

Fighting fake news

By | December 15, 2016

Experts say Facebook’s recent move to ban phony news sites from its advertising network will do little to stop the spread of such articles on its platform. That’s because fake news sites rely heavily on Facebook to steer traffic to their stories to generate ad revenue through other ad services, like Google AdSense. Gautam Hans, a clinical fellow… Read More »

Smart homes vulnerable

By | December 15, 2016

An interview exploring the technology underlying home device security and the Internet of Things (IoT) was recently broadcasted by CBC Radio. Atul Prakash, professor of electrical engineering and computer science, spoke about why many IoT devices are vulnerable. “The technology is relatively new,” said Prakash. “Hardware is probably a little bit ahead of the software at this point,… Read More »

Diversity, equity and inclusion courses

By | December 15, 2016

UHR Learning & Professional Development has partnered with UMHS Office of Health Equity and Inclusion, Student Life, and UHR Office for Institutional Equity to offer training opportunities and other resources related to Diversity, Equity and Inclusion at no cost to departments. Learn more and sign up for courses at Diversity, Equity and Inclusion. See the complete list of… Read More »