 |
Innovations:
Cutting-edge research from Berkeley Engineering
Innovations features brief updates on the
pioneering research done by Berkeley Engineering faculty and students.
See more at www.coe.berkeley.edu/newsroom.
Sproul installation features state-of-the-art
webcam
A robotic camera mounted atop UC Berkeley's student union for
six weeks last fall exhibited the latest webcam technology and
simultaneously got people thinking about privacy in public places,
all in conjunction with campus events celebrating the 40th anniversary
of the Free Speech Movement.
|
The
webcam was positioned to get a sweeping live view of the historic
plaza from the steps of Sproul Hall to Sather Gate and Telegraph
Avenue. A simulation can be viewed at http://demonstrate.berkeley.edu.
PHOTO COURTESY OF KEN GOLDBERG |
The brainchild of Professor Ken Goldberg and a multidisciplinary
student team, Project “Demonstrate” was tested by
more than 4,000 users who, through the camera’s Web site,
could get a live view of Sproul Plaza, remotely zoom in for close-ups,
and snap still photos for posting on the archives. Up to 20 Web
users at a time could share the camera, which would then calculate
a group view.
“The system uses algorithms we developed for efficiently
computing the optimal camera frame given many simultaneous user
requests,” says Goldberg, professor of IEOR and EECS. The
project was exhibited at the Whitney Museum's Artport Web site
and has generated dialogue on campus and beyond. Visit the Web
site at http://demonstrate.berkeley.edu
for a simulation of the live site and photo archives.
Setting limits on the speed of light
In an age where everything seems to be getting speedier, Berkeley
researchers are slowing down that proverbial measure of speed—the
speed of light—in an effort to improve network communications.
EECS professor Connie Chang-Hasnain, former EECS postdoc Pei-Cheng
Ku, and others have shown for the first time that the group velocity
of light, the speed at which a laser pulse travels along a light
wave, can be slowed to about six miles per second (mps) in semiconductors.
That’s 31,000 times slower than the normal speed of light
through a vacuum (186,000 mps).
“This achievement marks a major milestone on the road to
ever faster optical networks and higher performance communications,”
says Chang-Hasnain, who is also director of Berkeley’s Center
for Optoelectronic Nanostructured Semiconductor Technologies.
The technology could facilitate 3-D graphics transmission, high-resolution
video conferencing as good as face-to-face encounters, and quantum
memory chips that could boost the power of supercomputers, including
those used for complex climate modeling.
Secondhand smoke finds a room of its own
|
In
addition to furnishings, carpet, and draperies, the smoking
room at LBNL features a single-port puffer smoking system
and sorbent tubes to collect air samples for analysis.
PHOTO COURTESY OF BRETT SINGER |
Berkeley researchers are conducting studies in a new type of
smoking room—where machines do the smoking—to investigate
the dynamics of environmental tobacco smoke (ETS). CEE professor
Bill Nazaroff and Lawrence Berkeley National Lab (LBNL) researcher
Brett Singer (M.S.’94, Ph.D.’98 CEE) utilize a furnished
room that more accurately simulates a home environment than the
stainless steel chambers often used in ETS studies.
The researchers study the various components of ETS, like benzene,
formaldehyde, and other known carcinogens and contaminants. They
carry out detailed sampling and analysis to understand factors
like sorption onto room surfaces, ventilation, and how indoor
pollutant levels compare to those in outdoor environments. The
goal is to develop guidelines that can help minimize health risks
for nonsmokers whose housemates won’t kick the habit.
“The irony is that the amounts of several of these pollutants
breathed by individuals exposed to ETS far outweigh the total
amount breathed by the rest of us from polluted urban air,”
Nazaroff says. The research is being conducted in collaboration
with LBNL’s Environmental Energy Technologies Division.
|
|
FOREFRONT takes you into the
labs, classrooms, and lives of professors, students, and alumni
for an intimate look at the innovative research, teaching, and
campus life that define the College of Engineering at the University
of California, Berkeley.
Published three times a year by the Engineering Public Affairs
Office. Have a comment about Forefront? E-mail
your letter to the editor. Click here
to learn more about the magazine. |
|
