June 19, Vol. 24, No. 47                                     

CMU Moves To Make More       
To commemorate the first White House Maker Faire and national "Day of Making" yesterday, Carnegie Mellon President Subra Suresh in a letter to President Barack Obama announced nine new initiatives focused on expanding the role of making at the university.

President Suresh, who noted CMU's history of making things - from stainless steel, robots and bridges to plays, biosensors and fluorescent neurons - said President Obama's call to empower America's students and entrepreneurs to invent the future has "sparked enthusiasm and new thinking on our campus and around the nation."

First steps are already underway. CMU recently opened its Integrated Innovation Institute for breeding elite innovators cross-trained in engineering, design and business. In the fall, CMU will launch the Integrative Design Arts and Technology (IDeATe) Network, offering undergraduates eight new interdisciplinary minors and collaborative maker experiences through 30 new studio-based courses.

Other initiatives include:
  • an Integrative Media Program to provide training in creative industries that integrate technology and the arts;
  • a making facility on the first two floors of CMU's Hunt Library comprised of digital fabrication shops, physical and virtual computing labs and collaborative design studios; 
  • bio- and nano-fabrication labs for making next-generation bio- and nano-additives;
  • an advanced manufacturing facility for research and development of high-end metal and polymer additive manufacturing machines; and 
  • a Learning Media Design Center focused on K-12 education, which will be part of the Simon Initiative. 
Learn more. | Read President Suresh's letter.
 
Civic Leader Gives $7.5M for Grand Auditorium  

Pittsburgh civic leader and philanthropist Richard P. Simmons has given $7.5 million to Carnegie Mellon to support a state-of-the-art auditorium to be built on the university's future Tepper Quadrangle.

 

The Simmons Auditorium is planned to be the largest auditorium space at Carnegie Mellon. It will expand the university's capacity to host major speakers and events, and will be divisible to accommodate classes and other programs. 

 

"We are very grateful to Dick and Ginny Simmons for this generous gift," said CMU President Subra Suresh. "This auditorium will be a spectacular space that will anchor the Tepper Quad's multidisciplinary purposes as the center for major conferences, speeches, classes and performances. It fills an enormous need for CMU and Pittsburgh."

 

Pictured above are Richard Simmons and President Subra Suresh. 

 

Learn more.  


Automated Bus Hotline Expands Service      
"Let's Go," Carnegie Mellon's innovative automated phone line that has provided after-hours transit information to riders of the Port Authority of Allegheny County since 2005, is expanding to a 24-hour service available at 412-268-3526.

Beginning this week, the Port Authority is routing after-hours calls to its own automated information line. But as an independent service, Let's Go will offer riders an alternative, giving them options that wouldn't be available otherwise, said Maxine Eskenazi, principal systems scientist at CMU's Language Technologies Institute.

"Let's Go provides more than just information about when the next bus will arrive at a stop," Eskenazi said. "We also provide scheduling information for all future rides. We can tell if the next bus is full and we can tell if a bus line is re-routed because of parades, snow or other conditions."

To date, Let's Go has handled more than 200,000 calls from riders in the evenings and weekends, with an estimated 90 percent success rate, Eskenazi said. Despite a proliferation of online sources and smartphone apps for transit, phone information services remain a critical resource, particularly for low-income riders.

Learn more.

CMU Team Creates a Smarter Smartwatch       
Carnegie Mellon's Future Interfaces Group (FIG) has put a new twist on time.
 
The group that is exploring wearable technologies to make information and communication even more accessible has created a smartwatch prototype that's easier to use than existing smartwatches, and less distracting and less socially intrusive than a smartphone.

Their approach enables rich interaction by twisting, turning and clicking the watch without obstructing the screen with fingers.

CMU doctoral students Gierad Laput and Robert Xiao teamed up with Chris Harrison (CS'13), director of FIG and an assistant professor in the Human-Computer Interaction Institute, to create the prototype.

Harrison said the watch works well "for highly glance-able information such as notifications, directions, an upcoming meeting or your calendar."

Harrison and Xiao demonstrated their smartwatch for international journalists at a recent conference in Pittsburgh. They showed how a user could check time and calendar meetings, find directions and even play video games on the device.

Pictured above are Robert Xiao (left) and Chris Harrison.

Learn more. | Watch the video.

See something? Say something. Help ensure the safety and well-being of the CMU community:
University Police: 412-268-2323
Ethics Hotline: 1-877-700-7050

 Calendar Highlights 

Personal Mention 
  

Anita Barkin
Emma Brunskill
Anind Dey
John Woolford
Kiron Skinner
Jim Ray Daniels
John Anderson

Obituary:
Bob Matysek

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