UW develops diet aid designed to work with smartphone

The UW Sensors, Energy, and Automation Lab  and the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center have developed a device that uses a smartphone to help people watch what they eat and maintain a healthy diet.

Read the announcement in TechFlash here.

Open Science

Happy Spring Break, everyone!

Since you don't have any classes this week, you might have time to watch a video of the panel presentation: "Open Science: Good for Research, Good for Researchers?" that took place at Columbia University on February 19, 2009.

The speakers are:

• Bora Zivkovic, Online Discussion Expert for the Public Library of Science (PLoS) and author of "A Blog Around the Clock." (The "useful knowledge" image above is from his talk.)

• Jean-Claude Bradley, Associate Professor of Chemistry and Coordinator of E-Learning for the School of Arts and Sciences at Drexel University and a practitioner of Open Notebook Science.

• Barry Canton, founder of Gingko BioWorks and the OpenWetWare wiki, an online community of life science researchers committed to open science that has over 5,300 users.
  

They discuss some interesting issues surrounding open science. What is it? How does it work? What are the benefits?

Safari Tech Books Online

Safari Tech Books Online offers full-text technical reference books on topics such as networking, Java, Linux/Unix, Perl, .NET, desktop productivity, web development and more from O'Reilly and other publishers of IT books.

The UW Engineering Library provides you access to Safari for books published in 2007, 2008, and 2009 (such as the brand new title Beautiful Architecture shown below).

So take advantage of this awesome resource. If you're working from off-campus and need help connecting, refer to this previous post for more info, or ask us here.

Technology Pioneers of 2009

Students in the College of Engineering like to stay on top of new technologies. If you're interested in the companies behind many of the innovations shaping our world, you might want to take a look at the 34 companies selected as the top Technology Pioneers for 2009 by the World Economic Forum.

The WEF recognizes companies in three areas: Biotechnology and Health, Energy and Environmental Technologies, and Information Technology. According to the nomination form: "The World Economic Forum’s Technology Pioneers programme focuses on distinguishing those innovations that will have a dramatic and sustainable impact on business and/or society."

You can also check out YouTube videos about Technology Pioneers here.