With the next step in computer evolution on our doorstep, researchers are grappling with how the technology of today can facilitate designing the computers of tomorrow. Enter gem5, a computer simulation tool that could become a gateway to future generations of supercomputers.
This may come as no surprise to internet users that Amazon collects data from your interactions with Alexa and shares it with advertising partners to curate online ads. But Alexander Gamero-Garrido, a new assistant professor in the Department of Computer Science, proved this was the case.
There’s been a lot of media discussion about blockchain over the last several years, particularly in the context of the ever-fluctuating cryptocurrency market. But what is blockchain technology really?
Ph.D. student Rajvardhan Oak stumbled upon an underground market for fake Amazon reviews by accident while scrolling through Facebook. Seedy scam networks are using social media to organize campaigns that influence product ratings. They’re a headache for shoppers—and tough to crack down on.
Doctors already rely on a patient’s medical history to prescribe the right treatments and medications, but Computer Science Distinguished Professor Kwan-Liu Ma and Dr. Shin-Ping Tu at the UC Davis School of Medicine think they can also use it to improve how the entire medical system works together.
The face already plays an important role in communication, but a group of UC Davis computer scientists led by Ph.D. student Shuyi Sun is taking this to the next level. The team is designing facial jewelry that can use signals from a person’s facial muscles to send wireless commands to at-home devices like Alexa and Google Home. By reading a user’s conscious and unconscious gestures, the technology has the potential to help silently operate lights or other devices or discreetly send messages to get out of potentially dangerous situations.
Software code is written to be read by both computers and humans. Machines quickly and perfectly understand the computational meaning, while humans read it the same way they read natural language: not as quickly and sometimes incorrectly. With a new $1.2M three-year NSF-funded project, a group of software engineers and social scientists at UC Davis will leverage this bimodality to develop tools that make writing, reading and maintaining code easier and improve the overall programming experience.
As the pandemic surged in spring 2021, third-year computer science major Shrey Sheladia used the programming skills he learned at UC Davis to help increase India’s vaccination rate. For four months, Sheladia ran an online notification program that helped more than 40,000 people in India receive COVID-19 vaccines by alerting them when a vaccine appointment was available.
As of October, Google Flights displays carbon emissions estimates alongside the duration, layovers and price for each flight. New research from UC Davis computer science professor Nina Amenta and Institute of Transportation Studies environmental psychologist Angela Sanguinetti suggests that this new interface will cause small but important changes in how people choose flights and possibly lead to lower emissions.
Whether it’s coding, cooking or calculus, more people are using YouTube and other video sharing websites to learn new things. Computer science Ph.D. student Jingxian Liao, part of associate professor Hao-Chuan Wang’s group, is trying to make this experience better and easier by creating a structured learning experience from a list of video search results.
