university of washington

Tips from a social media one-night stand

When you write about something called "social media one-night stand, the temptation, so to speak, is to fill it with bad puns and jokes about its name. But this is a post where that's the last double entendre.

Instead, I wanted to bring you social media tips and lessons from my most recent session, which is nothing more than a fancy name for an advanced social-media workshop.

I am just wrapping up a week in the Pacific Northwest. I spent time in digital offices as different as MSN News and Big Fish Games in Seattle, and the Oregonian … Read more

Paging Raven II, the open-source surgery robot

Any budding Dr. Frankensteins in the house? Here's a robot that's not only good for DIY surgery, it's open-source too.

The Raven II was developed at the University of California at Santa Cruz and the University of Washington and modeled on a system originally designed for military use. Five newly completed systems are being shipped to test centers throughout the U.S.

While the da Vinci Surgical System has been widely used for prostate and other surgeries because it's minimally invasive, the machine is very expensive and not portable. It also uses proprietary software.

The Raven II is more affordable at about $250,000 and its Linux-based operating system lets users modify code. Seven Raven IIs at centers including Harvard University and Johns Hopkins University will be linked together for collaborative experiments, according to UC Santa Cruz. … Read more

University of Washington offers iPhone development certificate

If you're anxious to develop an iPhone app but don't know where to start, the University of Washington offers iPhone and Cocoa development certificates that teach the basics of iPhone and Mac development.

The courses include Programming with Objective-C and Cocoa Framework, Developing with the iPhone SDK, and Advanced Cocoa and Mac OS X Development. Currently, the courses aren't offered online, but the university hopes to have online versions next year. You can download a program overview (PDF) of these courses for more information.

Experienced iPhone and Mac developers from Apple, Disney Interactive, Google, Microsoft's Mac … Read more

Ultrasound cuff to stop internal bleeding on battlefield

Internal bleeding can cause irreversible haemorrhagic shock within 30 seconds or progressive shock within eight hours, either way, it's not good and the military wants a portable, noninvasive way to detect and stop it right on the battlefield.

To that end, the Defense Advance Research Projects Agency (DARPA) has contracted with Siemens Healthcare, the University of Washington's Centre for Industrial and Medical Ultrasound and Texas A&M to develop something called the Deep Bleeder Acoustic Coagulation cuff (DBAC). The cuff is a semi-automated, ultrasound device designed to cut blood loss and shock resulting from combat limb injuries, … Read more

Next-gen Photosynth shown off at Siggraph 2008

A video from Microsoft Research and the University of Washington has been causing a stir online. The seven-minute clip, which was presented at Siggraph 2008 this week in Los Angeles, gives a small peek at some photo-viewing technology that's effectively the next generation of Photosynth, one of Microsoft Live Labs' most eye-popping technology demos.

Photosynth's technology puts hundreds of photos on a 3D map that users can browse and navigate in a similar fashion to real life. This new technology lets the viewer see several sides of a captured object using the varying angles from multiple photos. It … Read more

Robo-fish may monitor future oil spills

Propelled by a servo-actuated two-link tails and flapping pectoral fins, a new breed of robofish programmed to swim in schools may soon be used to track oil spills or wildlife such as whales, according to researchers at the University of Washington in Seattle.

By mimicking a fish's natural propulsion mechanics these "autonomous fin-actuated underwater vehicles" are able to swim in any direction, make tight turns, and even go backwards, researchers say. The university is testing three of the vehicles in an indoor freshwater tank equipped with a four-camera tracking system to supplement data collected by onboard sensors.… Read more

Clinton snubs journalists at University of Washington

The Clinton campaign is counting on Texas to stay alive, but as David Domke describes in his account at the Crosscut Seattle, they haven't exactly reached out to student journalists to keep the fire burning (at least not his students).

David Domke teaches journalism at the University of Washington. In order to cover the presidential race, 16 of his students created SeattlePoliticore. In David's words: We've gone new media, adopting a mode of blogging that combines traditional reporting, insights from other news outlets, and first-person commentary. It's somewhere between the voice of The Seattle Times' David Postman and the rancor of the blogosphere: part journalism, part pundit, part political newbies. Altogether, we have presented the campaign through youthful eyes.… Read more