university of illinois
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Amazon, Apple, Microsoft, Meta and Google to improve speech recognition for people with disabilities
The University of Illinois (UIUC) has partnered with Amazon, Apple, Google, Meta, Microsoft and nonprofits on the Speech Accessibility Project.
Meta's newest AI discovers stronger and greener concrete formulas
A team from Meta AI, working with researchers at The University of Illinois, Urban-Champaign, have created an AI that can devise and refine formulas for increasingly high-strength, low-carbon concrete.
Supercomputer simulation looks inside of 2011's deadliest tornado
In may of 2011, a sequence of tornadoes roared across the midwestern United States. The incident became a focal point for scientists eager to learn what it is about supercell storms that allow them to form such devastating tornados. It's an important field of study, but a challenging one -- these storms are so enormous there's simply too much data for typical methods to work through. So, what's a atmospheric scientist to do? Use a supercomputer, of course.
Study says what you play can affect who you are
Does playing an evil character influence gamers to be less than nice in real life? A recent study conducted at University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign suggests just that. Gunwoo Yoon, lead author on the project, told Reuters Health, "The biggest finding of the paper is that virtual representation of your avatar can profoundly affect real world behavior [...] And the fascinating thing is that the participants did not perceive these effects." The experiment involved a group of college students that played for five minutes as one of three avatars in a game: Superman (hero), Voldemort (villain), or a circle (neutral). After the gaming session, participants then had to decide how much chocolate sauce or chili sauce to give to other participants in a supposedly unrelated taste test. As it turns out, those who used the Superman avatar poured twice as much chocolate sauce (symbolizing a "good" deed) than chili sauce (a "bad" deed), whereas those who played as Voldemort did exactly the opposite. The study authors suggest a possible explanation for these effects might be related to the lasting influence of total immersion in a virtual environment. [Thanks to Jose for the tip!]
You can draw circuit boards onto paper with this pen (video)
When dreaming up that world-changing invention, wouldn't it be great if you could just sketch out the circuits and have them magically work? That's the idea behind Circuit Scribe, a ballpoint pen that's full of quick-drying ink that'll help you doodle your circuits on notebook paper. Emerging out of research from the University of Illinois, the team is now accepting your cash through Kickstarter to help bring it into the real world. $20 will get you a pen and an LED component, while $30 will buy you a basic kit, complete with plenty of accessories to help you test the systems to their fullest. We imagine it'll be a big hit with STEM educators as well as hobbyists, but if you're not yet convinced, check out the video to watch it in action.
SpiderSense ultrasonic radar suit lets you know when danger is near
Know that feeling when someone wanders too far into your personal space? The University of Illinois' Victor Mateevitsi does, which is why he'd built a suit that does the job to a far greater degree of accuracy. SpiderSense is a onesie that uses a series of microphones to rend and receive ultrasonic signals from the space around you, like high frequency radar. When the outfit senses something approaching, a robotic arm corresponding to the microphone exerts pressure on your skin, pointing you in the direction of the danger. Mateevitsi tested the gear by blindfolding researchers and asking them to throw a cardboard ninja star whenever (and wherever) they sensed a threat -- with positive results 95 percent of the time. SpiderSense will get its first public showing at Stuttgart's Augmented Human conference in March and it's hoped that the hardware will eventually help Blind people get around easier. [Image Credit: Lance Long]
John Rogers returns with a silicon-silk circuit that dissolves inside your body
While you'd be forgiven for not knowing who John Rogers is, he's certainly graced these pages more than once. He's the research chief at the University of Illinois that's previously broken new ground in the world of invisibility cloaks and wearable technology. This time, his team has cooked up a silicon, magnesium, magnesium oxide and silk circuit that's designed to dissolve in the body in the same way that absorbable sutures are used in minor surgeries. It's thought that the tech could eventually be used to implant monitors that never need removal, reducing invasive medical procedures, or even build devices that eventually turn into compost rather than E-waste -- although we're not sure we'd appreciate our smartphone doing the same thing when we're making calls in the rain. [Image Credit: Fiorenzo Omenetto / Science]
Supercomputer gets a memory boost with 380 petabytes of magnetic tape
Remember the Cray XK6 at the University of Illinois that drives the National Science Foundation's Blue Waters project? Well, it looks like it's getting a little memory upgrade, sorta. We're not talking a slick new SSD here, or even a sweet NAS, all that computational power requires nothing less than... tape. Okay, so it's actually a full storage infrastructure, and some of it -- 25 petabytes no less -- will be disk-based. The rest -- a not insignificant 380 petabytes -- will be the good old magnetic stuff. The idea is that the disk part will be used for instant access, with the tape section serving as "nearline" storage -- something between an archive and online solution. Spectra Logic is providing the tape, and says it'll take a couple of years to implement the whole lot. Once complete, the system will support the supercomputer's lofty tasks, such as understanding how the cosmos evolved after the Big Bang and, y'know designing new materials at the atomic level. And we thought we were excited about out next desktop.
Engineer Guy shows how a phone accelerometer works, knows what's up and sideways (video)
We love finding out how things work, and arguably one of the most important parts of the smartphones and tablets we thrive on is the accelerometer gauging our device's orientation. Imagine our delight, then, when we see the University of Illinois' Bill Hammack (i.e. The Engineer Guy) giving a visual rundown of how accelerometers work. Although it's certainly the Cliff's Notes version of what's going on in your Android phone or iPhone, the video does a great job of explaining the basic concepts behind three-axis motion sensing and goes on to illustrate how MEMS chips boil the idea down to the silicon form that's needed for our mobile hardware. Hammack contends that it's one of the coolest (and unsung) parts of a smartphone, and we'd definitely agree; you can see why in the clip after the break.
A bird in the hand thanks to a robot that can perch
Land-bound robots? Been there, done that. Researchers at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign are taking things up a notch with a bird-style bot capable of autonomous flight. By replicating the features that enable birds to make a soft landing -- including the flapping wings that help them change direction -- the researchers developed the first micro aerial vehicle (MAV) capable of swooping down to perch on a human hand. The craft forgoes a vertical tail, which birds also lack, to allow for enough agility to land on a small surface. Articulated wings help the robo-bird complete the maneuver successfully, by first gliding into position and then pitching up and slowing down. Who knew perching was so complicated? Besides just providing a super-nifty party trick for these lucky researchers, the autonomous aircraft could be used in urban surveillance, where a small size would come in handy. Check out the MAV in action, along with the press release, after the break.
Researchers develop self-healing electronics, adamantium sadly not included
In today's feature-laden electronics devices, the failure of one little electronic component can scuttle the entire package. To make matters worse, if the damage happens to strike something like a multilayer integrated circuit, then you pretty much need to replace the whole computer chip. But what if the chip could repair itself like a certain vertically challenged Canadian mutant? That's exactly what researchers at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign managed to do after placing self-healing polymers on top of a gold circuit. Once a break occurred, microcapsules with liquid metal filled the crack and restored 99 percent of conductivity in mere microseconds. Self-healing electronics would especially be helpful on things like aircraft, where miles of conductive wires can make finding a break difficult, researchers said. The research is just the latest in a field that also has seen self-healing sensors and shape-memory polymers, but sadly, there's still no word on using this stuff to self-heal a broken heart....
University gets $188 million AMD-based supercomputer, free copy of Norton
It used to be that you only needed a bachelor's degree and elbow patches to be taken seriously as an academic, but now it's all about that 50-petaflop supercomputer with 500 petabytes of storage whirring away in the basement. The University of Illinois used to shop with IBM, but it's just about to have a brand new Cray XK6 installed instead, so it can continue providing computing power to the National Science Foundation's Blue Waters project. It's not all about inciting gadget envy, of course: the machine's unlikely truce of AMD Opteron 6200 16-core processors and NVIDIA Tesla GPUs will help more than 25 teams of scientists to model and understand real-world phenomena, from the damage caused by earthquakes to the way viruses to break into cells. Breakthroughs from these projects will -- hopefully, one day -- make the $188 million total cost of Cray's products and services seem like a bargain. Full details in the PR after the break.
IBM and NCSA end their Blue Waters affair, go back to just being supercomputing friends
It seems that IBM and the National Center for Supercomputing Applications at the University of Illinois have hit a snag in their once fruitful relationship. After nearly four years of partnering for the Blue Waters petascale supercomputer, the NCSA's recently released a joint statement explaining that IBM's "terminated" its involvement with the project. If you'll recall, IBM was supplying its latest Power7 rigs to get all that data flowing, but the company's now decided that Ol' Blue will require more resources than initially anticipated. Apparently, there were talks to try and keep the spark alive, but since those fell through both have decided to return each others CDs and hoodies assets involved with the project (per contract terms): IBM gives back the money, while the NCSA returns any hardware supplied. The two plan on remaining in touch for future endeavours, and the NCSA doesn't appear to be too down either as it'll be consulting with the National Science Foundation to keep Blue Waters afloat. You'll find the official statement in the source link below, but we've included a video rendition of how we'd like to imagine it past the break. [Photo credit: kosheahan]
Metamaterial printing method inches us closer to invisibility cloaks
In theory, metamaterials are all kinds of awesome -- they can boost antenna strength, focus lasers, and create invisibility cloaks. But, they've been limited to day dreams lab experiments because producing the light-interfering materials in any practical quantity has been difficult and time consuming. John Rogers, a professor at the University of Illinois has figured out a way to print a layered, nano-scale mesh that bends near-infrared light in much larger amounts than previously possible. The new method, based around a plastic stamp, has been used to create sheets of metamaterial measuring a few square inches, but Rogers is confident he can scale it up to several feet. Who knows, by the time the second installment of The Deathly Hallows hits theaters in July you could get the best Harry Potter costume -- one that lets you sneak in without shelling out $13. [Thanks, Plum G.]
StripeSpotter turns wild zebras into trackable barcodes
We've heard plenty of stories over the past few years about tagging animals with RFID chips, but we've never been particularly keen on the idea. Well, now a team of researchers has come up with a much less invasive way of tracking individual animals -- specifically zebras -- by essentially using their stripes as barcodes. StripeSpotter, as it's known, takes an isolated portion of a photograph of a zebra and slices it into a series of horizontal bands. Each pixel in the selection is then fully converted into black or white, and the bands are in turn encoded into StripeStrings, which eventually make up a StripeCode that resembles a barcode. All this information is stored in a database that allows researchers to directly identify particular animals without ever having to get too close. StripeCode may be a zebra-centric application for now, but its developers see it making a mark across the food chain with the inclusion of other distinctly patterned beasts, like tigers and giraffes. Animal tracking hobbyists can get their own free copy of the application by clicking on the source link below.
Researchers find graphene transistors cool themselves, silicon counterparts seethe with envy
We've seen graphene promise some pretty slick tricks already: budget-minded bendable batteries, superior stain resistance, and upping ultracapacitors' energy density. We can now add self-cooling transistors to the list of awesome, yet unfulfilled possibilities for these microscopic sheets of carbon. Using an atomic force microscope, a team of researchers at the University of Illinois led by Professor William King discovered that graphene transistors have a thermoelectric cooling effect where they make their metal connections. This self-cooling is greater than the resistive heating that normally follows the flow of electrons -- meaning graphene-based electronics from the future could make their silicon competition look decidedly uncool in comparison.
Styrofoam touches electrodes to create incredibly fast-charging wonderbatteries
Elon Musk's heart may have already given up on the humble battery, lusting after capacitors, but researchers at the University of Illinois have think there's life in the 'ol cells yet, creating batteries that charge and discharge in seconds. They've found a way to create electrodes using polystyrene beads as a sort of substrate, tiny spheres helping to set the porosity of either the nickel-metal hydride or lithium-manganese capacitor material. By adjusting the size and density of the bean bag innards the team was able to create an electrode porosity of 94 percent, which is just a few ticks short of theoretically ideal for exposing the maximum surface area of the electrode to the battery material. This results in extremely fast charges and discharges, the NiMH cell hitting 90 percent capacity in just 20 seconds and discharging in as quickly as 2.7 seconds. While we don't know just what kind of charging system the team was using to achieve this, even assuming a high-amperage stream of electrons this is still a remarkable feat. But, like most major advances there's a drawback: similar to Toshiba's SCiB batts the capacity of these cells is only about three quarters what it would be using normal battery construction, meaning you'd need roughly 25 percent more mass to get the same range in your ultra-fast charging EV of the future. That might just be a worthy trade-off.
Nanoparticle inks print 3D antennas 'orders of magnitude' better than your boring 2D antenna
If you want better cellphone reception it's time to go small or go home, with researchers at the University of Illinois coming up with a nanoscale printing technique that allows for the creation of so-called 3D antennas. Of course, unless you're hunting for signal in Flatland all antennas are to some degree three-dimensional, but these suckers are printed using nanoparticle silver ink onto a curved substrate, as shown up yonder. The resulting components "exhibit performance metrics that are an order of magnitude better than those realized by monopole antenna designs." In fact these creations are said to approach the Chu-Harrington Limit of theoretical performance in an antenna. Most important? They look pretty darned cool. Shame they'll likely find themselves tucked away inside of a device's chassis -- whenever they actually go into production.
Northwestern University's curvilinear 'eyeball camera' is squishy, just like yours
We've seen gooey lenses before, the Varioptic variety already having found a home in an honest to gosh retail product. But, this is a little different. It's called the "eyeball camera," a curvilinear lens and sensor system developed by a team at Northwestern University and the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. It uses a similar sort of flexible design, this one actuated by varying the pressure of fluids in the device -- higher pressure for convex, lower pressure for concave. Interestingly here the camera sensor itself flexes right along with the lens, and while the maximum zoom is currently a measly 3.5x, higher power is said to be possible -- eventually. No word was given on when we might see these coming to market, so don't pull a Batou and get rid of your fleshy ones just yet.
NCSA prepares for Blue Waters petascale supercomputer, and we've got the video to prove it
How often do you get to see an unboxing of this magnitude? Our buddy Bill at the NCSA (National Center for Supercomputing Applications at the University of Illinois) has been kind enough to hit us up with a video that shows the arrival and installation of the facility's new IBM 780 hardware at the National Petascale Computing Facility. This hardware will allow scientists to prep code in anticipation of the Blue Waters -- which, as previously reported, will be the largest publicly accessible supercomputer in the world when it goes online in 2011, thanks to its over 16,000 Power7 nodes. Video after the break.
