Click here to receive your FREE subscription to Campus Technology
Featured Interview
Conference Focuses on 'The Mobile Future'
4/22/2008
Carnegie Mellon University's West Coast Campus and UC Berkeley's Fisher IT Center at the Haas School of Business partnered to hold a conference Tuesday of this week in Santa Clara, CA, on "The Mobile Future: Technology Revolutionizing Our Lives." CT talked with James H. Morris, dean of CMU West and a professor of computer science, about the unique conference that brings together both academics and industry leaders.
JM: As you know,
Carnegie Mellon and UC Berkeley are leading universities in engineering
and technology, and it’s become apparent to us, as well as many people,
that the future of computing and Internet expansion is actually going
to be happening more on mobile devices like cell phones than on
computers like laptops. So, we think that this will be a significant
change for everybody and we wanted to provide useful information for
our friends in Silicon Valley -- for technical managers and
professionals, academics, and investors -- who are trying to stay ahead
of this fast-moving force but in fact in some ways are so much in the
middle of it that they don’t have time to step back for a day and
understand where it’s going to be in several years. (Photo: Jim Morris at The Mobile Future conference)What types of technologies will the conference be looking at in particular?
The technologies we’re most interested in are the hardware and especially the software involved with handheld devices, like the Apple iPhone, software like Google’s Android system, and lots of infrastructure, such as the whole cell phone system as it’s provided by the wireless carriers in this country and other countries. It’s a huge technological system that is evolving around us, aimed basically at providing communications facilities for the people of the world.
We are probably going to be talking mostly about software -- Carnegie Mellon emphasizes software in computer technology -- but also about new product ideas that may be supported by that software.
CMU has always informed industry about new technologies. Could you comment on your own institution’s role -- both CMU and CMU West – in fostering technology change or even technology revolution, either within higher education or in a more generalized marketplace?
Many years ago I was one of the participants in Carnegie Mellon’s Andrew system, which exploited personal computers and networking to transform our campus into a modern campus that led the way for computer systems that not only supported campuses, but became the model for a lot of computing systems everywhere. So, the interesting lesson from that is that Carnegie Mellon didn’t invent the personal computer, and didn’t really invent the local area network, but made the campus into a huge test bed for showing a new basis for computing based on those technologies. And of course, we got wonderful support from IBM and other companies, including Apple and Digital Equipment, to show how these new products could be used to make computing at the time a much more dynamic and useful utility for a group of people.
Recommended Reading
- Microsoft Mends Breach in Open Source Sandcastle
Microsoft has released all of the source code used in its Sandcastle project, which is now published at the CodePlex open source developer's Web site, according to a blog. Sandcastle helps developers of managed class libraries create uniform documentation on their projects, using MSDN style.
- Lumens Debuts SXGA Document Camera
Lumens Integration this week debuted a new document camera and presentation system called the DC260 SXGA Digital Visual Presenter. The new gooseneck-style system is the first in Lumens' document camera lineup to support HD output via HDMI.
- U Liverpool Deploys iSCSI in Virtualized SAN
The University of Liverpool Department of Computer Science is moving away from direct-attached RAIDs to a virtualized SAN environment using StorMagic's SM Series iSCSI Storage Area Network.
- Indiana U, Wayne State Teams Capture Wins in Imagine Cup 2008
Winners of the 2008 Imagine Cup technology competition were announced Tuesday in Paris. Student teams from American universities took top honors in two categories and earned achievement awards in other areas. Microsoft, which hosted the event, said it was the most successful run for American teams in the Cup's six-year history.
- IE Is Least-Patched Browser, Report Says
According to a report released last Tuesday, more than 40 percent of Internet surfers don't use browsers with up-to-date security patches--and Internet Explorer users are the biggest culprits.
- Ballmer Wants Board Change at Yahoo
Microsoft's executives have been talking with investor and corporate raider Carl Icahn about renewed plans for Microsoft to acquire part or all of Yahoo, provided that Yahoo's board is replaced. The details were described in an open letter issued Monday by Icahn, which is addressed to Yahoo's shareholders.
