Calit2.Life : A day in the life of Calit2, every day.
The California Institute for Telecommunications and Information Technology (Calit2) has divisions, people and buildings at UC San Diego and UC Irvine. This website gives readers an inside look at the day-to-day, behind-the-scenes activities of the institute from the perspective of a cross-section of contributors from different parts of Calit2 on each campus.
Los Angeles Center for Digital Art presents "Homeland Insecurity"
By Trish Stone
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This Thursday at the California Museum of Photography, Los Angeles Center for Digital Art (LACDA) presents 'Top 40' and "Homeland Insecurity: Recent American Video" featuring work by Calit2 Tour Director and Gallery Coordinator, Trish Stone. The reception and video screening, timed to coordinate with the Riverside Artswalk, will start at 6pm, July 2. |
Digichotomy: Merging Real Life with the Digital
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Watch the Performance on YouTube! An experiment with the concept of merging the Second Life universe with what we have come to accept as "Real Life." Angela Black, Atom Leonhart, Garrett Sneen, Eric Ellorin, and Brett Stalbaum Digichotomy is a mobile performance experimenting with the idea of connecting and merging the "real" world with virtual reality. To perform Digichotomy, professional audio transmission equipment is worn by a mobile performer to broadcast the environmental sounds and voice chat conversations of Second Life into "Real Life," (known to the Second Life universe as "First Life"), and in turn broadcast the sounds and conversation of First Life back into Second Life. This ... |
Microwave Week Ends on a High Note
By Doug Ramsey
| The recent joint annual meetings in Boston of the Radio Frequency Integrated Circuits conference (RFIC 2009) and the International Microwave Symposium (IMS 2009) had researchers and students from Calit2 and UC San Diego out in force -- 17 UCSDers were on hand (five of them at left). UC San Diego was also the only university showing off hardware at their exhibit booth, staffed by a team led by Calit2's Javier Rodriguez Molina. They demonstrated technologies including Calit2's Gizmo, CalMesh, CalRadio and much more. Meanwhile, on the conference side, UCSD graduate students came home with bronze and silver medals for research papers presented at the two meetings. As we reported in our roundup ... |
Honorary Ph.D. for the 'Da Vinci Detective'
By Doug Ramsey
| On Monday, June 8, our own Maurizio Seracini, director of Calit2's Center of Interdisciplinary Science for Art, Architecture and Archaeology (CISA3), was in Canada to be honored at commencement ceremonies of McMaster University. They gave him an honorary Doctor of Letters degree, to add to his previous degrees in bioengineering (from UC San Diego, Class of '73) and electrical engineering (University of Padua). According to the Hamilton Spectator newspaper reporter covering the Calit2 scientist's address to the McMaster Convocation, Seracini "is a modern-day Renaissance man approaching problems in the same way Leonardo did five centuries ago." Reporter Mark McNeil added that Seracini "urged ... |
Slapshock by Elle Mehrmand and Micha Cardenas in LA Thurs Night
By Micha Cardenas
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Slapshock is a performance using a Freeduino and an Arduino to
create a pain sharing device. The performance, by CRCA researcher Elle Mehrmand and
Calit2 researcher and Experimental Game Lab member Micha Cardenas, is an exploration of symbiotic relationality through
pain, in which each performer slaps themself in turn causing the other
performer to receive a painful electric shock. |
Next Friday, June 12, Engineering Design Project Final Presentations
By Maureen Curran
Calit2 Congratulates Nominees for Exemplary Staff Employee of the Year Award
By Tiffany Fox
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The UC San Diego division of Calit2 would like to extend a hearty congratulations to the institute's six nominees for UCSD's Exemplary Staff Employee of the Year Award. The nominees are:
Thank you for all that you do to make Calit2 a wonderful place to work! |
Freephone Art Project Provides Deported People with a Phone Call
By Micha Cardenas
Speaking the Language of Art and Science Yields Big Rewards for Engineering Prof
By Tiffany Fox
GRAIN takes seed at UC San Diego
By Tiffany Fox
StarCAVE Stars in Prize Winning Paper
By Doug Ramsey
| On April 25, one of the undergraduate students working on Calit2's StarCAVE took top honors in the 2009 IEEE Regional Student Paper Contest. UC San Diego electrical engineering junior Jordan Rhee won the competition for his paper on "Hot Spot Mitigation in the StarCAVE". Rhee -- who is President of the IEEE chapter at UCSD -- was competing against papers from the University of Nevada, University of New Mexico, University of Arizona, and the New Mexico Institute of Mining and Technology. The contest was held as part of the IEEE Southwest Area Meeting. For his work, Rhee also took home a $500 prize. Rhee first had to beat out four other UC San Diego papers before he could represent ... |
The Month Ahead at Calit2
By Doug Ramsey
| The first full week of May will be particularly busy, with a wide variety of seminars and conferences for Calit2 participants, and the rest of May looks equally busy. Note that this week the public will get an opportunity to sit in on the final forum and conference declaration, at the end of an invitation-only conference on water issues and climate change facing California and the Himalayas. It's organized by UC San Diego and the University of Cambridge. Trinity College Cambridge Fellow, Lord Julian Hunt (pictured) and Calit2 Director Larry Smarr will be on the closing panel discussion on Wednesday, and Calit2 will be videotaping the two-hour session for later ... |
UCSD Grad Student, Researcher awarded Emerging Fields Grant from UCIRA
By Micha Cardenas
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UCSD Graduate Student in Visual Arts Elle Mehrmand and Calit2 Artist/Researcher Micha Cardenas were recently awarded the Emerging Fields Award grant from the University of California Institute for Research in the Arts. Their proposed project is called "mixed relations" and it explores mixed reality performance with two performers in actual and virtual space producing live audio. The timeline for the project includes workshops in the fall of 2009 and performances in the spring of 2010. "The partners do not precede their relating: all that is, is the fruit of becoming with." mixed ... |
Project GreenLight Recognized for Sustainability Efforts
By Tiffany Fox
Violence, Technology and Public Intervention
By Micha Cardenas
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Come out to the auditorium at Calit2 tomorrow for this important symposium, including Calit2 researcher Micha Cardenas, UCSD Faculty Brian Goldfarb and numerous other UC faculty. The symposium is being held in conjunction with Carlos Trilnick's artwork on anti-personell mines in the gallery@calit2.
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Photo Gallery from San Diego Science Festival Expo Day Available
By Maureen Curran
'Cosmic Tree of Life' on HIPerSpace Wall
By Doug Ramsey
| The closest that artist Roger Ferragallo has come to displaying the full dimensions of his "Cosmic Tree of Life" digital painting was when he got the chance to display the latest version (2.0) of the art work on Calit2's HIPerSpace tiled display wall at UC San Diego recently. The digital painting measures 556 million pixels, and it was displayed on HIPerSpace's native 287 million pixelsl. If ever "Cosmic Tree of Life" is printed out in its current incarnation, the painting would measure 25 x 15 feet, so HIPerSpace permitted Ferragallo to see the full scope of his work on the tiled display system which measures 31.8 x 7.9 feet. In a video posted on YouTube, Ferragallo talks about ... |
Project GreenLight To Receive Sustainability Award
By Tiffany Fox
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The team behind UCSD's Project GreenLight -- a plan to connect scientists and their labs to more
energy-efficient 'green' computer processing -- will receive recognition for their outstanding sustainability efforts at a ceremony next week. |
Becoming Dragon at the New Media Lounge
By Micha Cardenas
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Saturday, April 4, 2009 - SD Science Festival Expo Day
By Maureen Curran
Talking Math
By Doug Ramsey
| Calit2's chief scientist Ron Graham will take part in a bit of history-making next week. That's because on April 8, Graham will give one of five plenary lectures at the 61st annual British Mathematical Colloquium. The history? It's the first time that the Colloquium has been held outside the United Kingdom. This year, the British are teaming with the Irish Mathematical Society to hold a joint meeting at the National University of Ireland's Galway campus. As for Graham's talk, it's on "the combinatorics of solving linear equations." A major branch of modern combinatorics, usually called Ramsey theory, studies properties of structures which are preserved under partitions. Its guiding philosophy ... |
Becoming Dragon featured on the cover of San Diego Reader
By Micha Cardenas
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Calit2 Artists participate in Tijuana Art Initiative
By Micha Cardenas
| Calit2 affiliated artists Ricardo Dominguez and Micha Cardenas are both part of the Lui Velazquez gallery in Tijuana, which is opening their new space on Saturday, March 14th. Micha is part of the 3 person collective that curates the space including UCSD alumni Katherine Sweetman and Felipe Zuniga, while Ricardo makes up part of the recently formed advisory board. The initiative includes a number of other UCSD faculty, curators and scholars from the San Diego/Tijuana region. To celebrate the grand opening of their new location in Tijuana, Saturday night will also see the opening of a new exhibition entitled Intimate Simulations. The show explores the close relationship we have developed ... |
Come to the Group Design Projects Final Presentations
By Maureen Curran
Calit2 UCSD Summer Scholarship Deadline Looming
By Maureen Curran
Composer in Residence Honored
By Doug Ramsey
| Calit2's composer in residence at UC San Diego, Pulitzer Prize winner Roger Reynolds, is getting a rare concert honor: On March 29, "Roger Reynolds and his Proteges" will echo through a concert hall in Toronto, Canada, as part of the New Music Concerts 2008-2009 season. The aforementioned proteges include composers David Felder of SUNY Buffalo, Israel's Chaya Czernowin, Juan Campoverde from Ecuador, and Brazilian Antonio Borges-Cunha. All of the proteges are well-known composers who earned their Ph.D.'s under Reynolds in the UC San Diego Music graduate program in Composition. The concert by the New Music Concerts Ensemble (with David Swan on piano and Robert Aitken on flute ... |
UCSD Summer Scholarship Info Sessions - Thurs. & Friday
By Maureen Curran
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There will be two information sessions about the UCSD division of Calit2's Summer Scholarship program which pays undergraduates to work as full-time researchers for the summer in faculty labs across the campus. The sessions take place today and tomorrow, Thursday, February 26 and Friday, February 27, both will be at 2p.m. in room 4004 of Atkinson Hall. |
Einstein Robot Gets Media Face Time
By Tiffany Fox
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'Becoming Dragon' Invades L.A. for CAA Conference
By Tiffany Fox
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Calit2 Artist Ricardo Dominguez Talks Sound, Science, Theory and Crisis
By Tiffany Fox
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Mohan Trivedi to Deliver UC Lecture
By Doug Ramsey
| Our colleague Mohan Trivedi, a professor of electrical and computer engineering in the Jacobs School and longtime participant in Calit2, has been singled out to deliver the annual Mel Webber Lecture. A lecturer is selected each year by the University of California's System-Wide Transportation Research Center (UCTC). It's the main event for all UC-wide Ph.D. students working on research in various transportation-related topics. Trivedi will give his talk on the evening of this Friday, Feb. 13, in Riverside, Calif., and the conference begins Feb. 12. The topic of Trivedi's keynote lecture: "Human-Centered, Holistic Systems for Safer and Smoother Traffic"; click here for the abstract. ... |
Peer to Peer Traffic Notification System: UCI's Autonet
By Jerry Sheehan
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"The International Journal of Vehicle Information and Communication
systems recently published the research of four UC Irvine graduate
students concerning a project capable of clearing Los Angeles Traffic.
Tentatively dubbed "Autonet," a portmanteau of "automatic/automobile"
and "Internet," the program is the brainchild of Trevor Harmon, James
Marca, Pete Martini and Raymond Klefstad." |
Group Design Projects Give Undergraduates Hands-on Experience
By Maureen Curran
R&D in the Proposed House Stimulus Package
By Jerry Sheehan
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The American Association for the Advancement of Science has released their first analysis of the proposed House Stimulus package. They write "The draft stimulus appropriations bill contains $13.3 billion in R&D funding, $9.9 billion for the conduct of research and development and $3.4 billion for R&D facilities and large research equipment, mostly extramural. Adding in another $2.5 billion in non-R&D but science and technology-related funding brings total science and technology-related funding in the stimulus to nearly $16 billion. There is also additional money for higher education construction and other education spending of interest to academia" |
Grad Researcher to Present 'Becoming Dragon' Findings at SPIE Conference
By Tiffany Fox
CISA3's DAAHL Project Featured on Google's Student Blog
By Tiffany Fox
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Fan fiction article in new MIT Press/MacArthur Foundation journal
By Bill Tomlinson
| Lauren Lewis (UCI undergraduate and 2008 Calit2 SURF-IT fellow), Rebecca Black (UCI Education professor and Lauren's SURF-IT mentor), and I just finished editing the proofs for an article titled, "Let Everyone Play: an Educational Perspective on Why Fan Fiction Is, or Should Be, Legal." This article will be appearing in the inaugural edition of the International Journal of Learning and Media (IJLM), going to press in 2009. IJLM is published quarterly by The MIT Press, in partnership with the Monterey Institute for Technology in Education, and with support from the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation. |
Calit2 Holiday Party/Battle of the Bands
By Tiffany Fox
Calit2 and NeuroArchitecture
By Jerry Sheehan
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Entrepreneurs Share Startup Experiences
By Anna Lynn Spitzer
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UCI visualization experts Steve Jenks and Sung-Jin Kim were featured in Friday's Entrepreneur's Forum, sponsored by OCTANe@UCI and the Office of Technology Alliances. The program took the form of an interview, with OCTANe's Luis Vasquez posing the questions. The focus of the lunchtime program was Hiperwall, Inc., the spinoff company led by Jeff Greenberg. Greenberg, president of Tech Coast Works, specializes in commercializing UCI research. Jenks said as he and Kim demonstrated the HIPerWall display wall in the Calit2 Center of Gravity, visitors often expressed interest in purchasing the technology. After the wall was featured several times on national and international news programs, ... |
'Becoming Dragon' Featured in CityBeat
By Tiffany Fox
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Sheldon Brown on "These Days"
By Tiffany Fox
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Canon Donates Equipment, Views Research
By Anna Lynn Spitzer
| Three representatives from Canon, Inc. visited Calit2 at UCI this morning to see how the equipment the company donated to an institute-housed research project is being integrated. The Canon Rebel camera and EF 17-40 mm lens were donated last month to benefit research conducted by Aditi Majumder, assistant professor of computer science. She is building scalable, reconfigurable and easily assembled multi-projector displays that utilize camera-based calibration techniques and algorithms to align images seamlessly and eliminate color variation. Nabil Abujbara, senior manager and project coordinator; Hideo Mizoguchi, senior engineer; and Toru Maeda, senior engineer from ... |
Local Entrepreneurs Visit Calit2 UC San Diego
By Maureen Curran
BBC Covers Stefan Savage Study on Spam
By Jerry Sheehan
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The BBC News recently covered the research done by Stefan Savage on Spammers conducted in 2008. Interestingly, Savage's findings indicate that spammers may be more responsive to economic impacts then previously thought. |
Calit2 Tiled Display Walls Referenced in Chronicle of Higher Education
By Jerry Sheehan
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The Chronicle of Higher Education has a summary article on the recent Educause conference that features a section on the use of scaled display walls for research and the recent talk given at the conference by Calit2 Director Larry Smarr. |
Digital Arts of CALIT2/CRCA Featured on ABC
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N Art Magazine, a new program on ABC in San Diego that documents the local arts scene, visited CALIT2 and the Center for Research in Computing and the Arts recently. For a program that is mostly familiar with traditional art forms, touring the digital art laboratories at CALIT2 and CRCA proved to be quite an experience for N Art Magazine. The final video (seen below) aired on Sunday, October 26th. |
Students Meet Face-to-Face with Facial Recognition/Identification Experts
By Tiffany Fox
| Computer Science and Engineering undergraduates from professor Gary Cottrell's cognitive modeling coursevisited the Machine Perception Lab at Calit2 Tuesday to get a hands-onintroduction to modern computer vision research. Cottrell, who is the director of UCSD's Temporal Dynamics of Learning Center, has focused his research on building working models of cognitive processes and using them to explain psychological or neurological processes.His research has focused upon face processing, including face recognition, face identification,and facial expression recognition -- something the MP lab also specializes in. |
Imperial Valley News Covers Calit2 and SIO Cliff Erosion Research
By Jerry Sheehan
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metaViz - Analyzing Political Blogs
By Eric Baumer
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The US election cycle is in its last week. Anticipating crowding at the polls, many have already cast their ballot through early voting. The rest of us will wait in line on Tuesday. However, while the political campaigns are drawing to a close, the analysis has just begun. |




