Media Coverage
A digest of Illinois Computer Science faculty, alumni, and students who are featured in the media.
Want To Lose Weight? Give Public Transit A Try
January 30, 2019Mobility Lab -- A new study by the University of Illinois and Georgia Tech attaches solid numbers to what seems like common sense. “The results indicate that when more people opt to use public transit ... obesity rate tends to drop,” said Sheldon H. Jacobson, a co-author and professor at Illinois. Also covered by the New York Post.
How Scientists Can Team Up With Big Tech
January 29, 2019Nature -- Thousands of academics are looking to the technology industry for research funding and collaboration. “The industry funding does help a lot in the early days,” says Ranjitha Kumar, a computer scientist at the University of Illinois.
High School CS Initiative Offers Certification
January 24, 2019Daily Illini -- The College of Education and the Department of Computer Science created the Illinois Secondary Teacher Education and Computer Science Initiative to endorse current high school computer science teachers and certify future teachers. “It’s increasingly clear that people that have computing skills have an advantage in the job market,” said CS Associate Professor Craig Zilles.
Tipping The Scales: Could Unit-e Finally Break Blockchain’s Scalability Impasse?
January 24, 2019Coin Telegraph -- “Bitcoin is the equivalent of Marconi's historic wireless transmission: Bitcoin demonstrated that secure distributed trust is possible. But it came at the cost of poor performance. We are redesigning the full stack of cryptocurrencies in our quest (for) global scalability.” -- ECE Professor Pramod Viswanath, who has an appointment in CS.
Coursera Opens Its Data Science Academy
January 22, 2019IBL News -- Coursera has launched a new vertical called Data Science Academy to help professionals find data science-related courses. Beyond short programs, Coursera hosts two Master’s degrees: the Master in Computer Science in Data Science from the University of Illinois or the Master of Applied Data Science from the University of Michigan.
Wired In: Wade Fagen-Ulmschneider
January 20, 2019The News-Gazette -- "I am able to spend the majority of my time working with (primarily undergraduate) students as a result of joining a very new and non-traditional track of the faculty. ... This frees me up to work with students on large, impactful projects, focus on teaching new and innovative courses, and sharing the work we do at Illinois with the broader community."
How Artificial Intelligence Can Diagnose Some Genetic Disorders Better Than Doctors
January 18, 2019Deseret News -- New artificial intelligence technology can identify genetic disorders using just a photo of a patient's face, potentially bringing peace of mind to parents of children with rare disorders. "It’s using existing AI technologies on a problem they haven’t been used for before," said David Forsyth, professor of computer science at University of Illinois.
Students Fall Off Mainstream Paths To Success
January 14, 2019The Daily Illini -- “It’s probably no big secret that there are a lot of opportunities for jobs in (computer science), and some of those jobs could be pretty well paid. A student may not be intuitively interested in (CS), but they may think ‘this is my straight line to a good job..." -- Steve Herzog, Illinois CS Coordinator of Undergraduate Programs.
Why U of I Is Insuring Itself -- Literally -- Against A Drop In Chinese Students
January 11, 2019Crain's Chicago Business -- Rijn Bian, who graduated from UIUC with a computer science degree last month, notes the Chinese government's recent decision to stop funding graduate student scholarships and says, "I believe the number of Chinese students (in the U.S.) will decrease as a result."
Weed-Plucking Robot Roams Fields
January 10, 2019The Western Producer -- The weed machine started life as a plant-breeding tool to help researchers in their high throughput phenotyping projects in corn and soybeans. The robot was initially designed to prowl up and down the rows in trial plots of experimental corn and soybean varieties, said University of Illinois researcher Girish Chowdhary.
Bill Gropp On The Government Shutdown, And More
January 8, 2019WDWS Radio -- "The real issue is not so much the current projects. It's the impact this is going to have on those (federal) agencies to review projects, to make awards, to keep things going." -- National Center for Supercomputing Applications Director and Illinois CS Professor Bill Gropp.
Whatever Happened To Netscape? Catching Up With The Biggest Dot-Com Players From The '90s
January 7, 2019AdWeek -- Silicon Valley has always had sky-high ambitions—and the flameouts to match. Below, we examine the fate of three of the original dot-com boom’s most prominent companies: Netscape (the creation, in part, of Marc Andreessen), Pixelon and theglobe.com (subscription required).
Smashing Through Barriers To Set Up A $2B Tech Firm
January 7, 2019BBC -- The BBC's weekly The Boss series profiles a different business leader from around the world. This week, it's Therese Tucker, CEO and founder of BlackLine and an Illinois CS graduate (BS Math & CS '84).
Software: It Is All In The Details
January 6, 2019HACKADAY -- "We were excited to see Jeff Erickson is publishing his algorithms book distilled from teaching at the University of Illinois. ... There are worse places to learn about algorithms than UIUC; they have a long history in both real and fictional computing."
Marc Andreessen: VR Will Be “1000 Times Bigger” Than AR
January 6, 2019UploadVR -- "I think AR has tons of potential applications, both at work and at home. … I think VR is going to be like 1000 times bigger. In the valley right now this is a very contrarian view."
Meet The Illinois Startup Helping NASA And Boeing Detect Errors In Their Software
January 3, 2019ChicagoInno -- A startup born at the University of Illinois has built technology that identifies problems in a company’s software, and it’s helping some of the biggest players in aerospace, automotive and blockchain with their code. Professor Grigore Rosu's Runtime Verification has developed tools to improve the safety and reliability of software systems.
U. Illinois Embarks On 5-Year Plan To Train Next Generation Of CS Educators
January 3, 2019EdScoop -- The University of Illinois has launched a five-year initiative to address the workforce gap in high school computer science educators. The Illinois Secondary Teacher Education and Computer Science initiative, which includes Associated Department Head Lenny Pitt and Associate Professor Craig Zilles, begins development this year.
The 50 People Who Really Perform for Chicago Theater
January 2, 2019NewscityStage -- No. 6: Michael and Mona Heath see more theater than you—330 shows in 2018 alone. If their name sounds familiar, it’s because you’ve seen it in the back of a program ... or, in their highest-profile project to date, the Den Theatre’s Heath Main Stage. Yes, they are those Heaths.
PLATO Gave Us The First Digital Public Forum -- And The First Time A President Threatened To Censor Online Speech
January 2, 2019Slate -- During Watergate, Illinois graduate students Valarie Lamont and Stuart Umpleby explored ways that PLATO might be used as a digital public commons for civic discussion. It didn’t take long for both the National Science Foundation and the Pentagon to track down and call Don Bitzer, the founder of PLATO, to tell him that its funding had been threatened by the White House.
U Of I Program Aims To Combat Lack Of Computer Science Teachers
December 29, 2018The Associated Press -- The University of Illinois has launched a new initiative to educate and certify high school computer science teachers. The five-year program is aimed at addressing a shortage of high school computer science teachers in Illinois and nationwide.