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Ads on the Auction Block
Every day, the hammer goes down on millions of online auctions. And not just at eBay.com. Search engines like Google and Yahoo! have become billion dollar businesses by auctioning off popular search terms to the highest bidder. Advertisers pay top dollar to link their ads to certain keywords. For example, search "refinance" on Google and you'll see a list of mortgage brokers on the right side of the page. The top spot almost always goes to the advertiser who is willing to pay the most to Google each time someone clicks their ad. But according UC Berkeley professor Umesh Vazirani. that approach has plenty of room for improvement. He and his colleagues developed a novel computer algorithm that could optimize the advertising auction model, bringing in even bigger bucks for the search engines.
Cell Phone as Sensor
Right now, there are hundreds of millions of cell phones in use around the world. According to UC Berkeley computer science graduate student RJ Honicky, the ubiquity of those devices could be leveraged to help reduce pollution, fight disease, and tackle other societal scale problems with no additional effort on the part of the person carrying the phone. The key is outfitting newly manufactured cell phones with inexpensive environmental sensors.
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Nanoislander
Nanotechnology promises to revolutionize computer technology, enabling the development of processors thousands of times faster than today's speediest chips. The key is replacing the basic building blocks of integrated circuits with nanoscale counterparts so that many more of the components can be packed onto the same size chip. Controlling how and where nanostructures are placed on the silicon wafer is no easy task though. UC Berkeley materials scientist Oscar Dubon Jr. recently won a prestigious Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers for his work in this area.
Cool Alumni: Anthony Levandowski, inventor of the self-driving motorcycle
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