He turned his face into a remote control

Computer science PhD student Jacob Whitehill turned his face into a remote control. The proof-of-concept demonstration is part of a larger project to use automated facial expression recognition to make robots more effective teachers.


One of the news blogs from the journal Nature picked up the story.

Discover Magazine blogged about the research today too.

Jake got Slashdotted as well, via NetworkWorld.

The LA Times linked to the NetworkWorld story from their Tech blog.

The Chronicle of Higher Education took a slightly different angle on the story.


Watch Jacob Whitehill turn his face into a remote control in a three minute video.

View a one minute video Jacob Whitehill created to communicate his research results.

Ring Ceremony 2008 at the Jacobs School

Here are a few photos from the 2008 Ring Ceremony.









Jacobs School Oath:

As a graduate of the Jacobs School of Engineering, I pledge to use my knowledge for the public good, to innovate for the advancement of humanity, and to be accountable to future generations. As a member of the engineering community, I dedicate myself to lifelong learning and to the growth of my field. I promise to always conduct myself with honor and to uphold the strong ethical values instilled in me by the Jacobs School. I accept this ring as a symbol of this oath

Graphics Rendering Competition

It's June in San Diego and that means another graphics competition in the computer science department at UC San Diego. The competition marks the end of the Spring 2008 "CSE168 Rendering Algorithms" class with Henrik Wann Jensen.

The students in the class were asked to render a realistic object or scene of their own choosing, and the images were judged by an external panel of experts (the best student image would be rewarded with a trip to SIGGRAPH 2008). The winners and honorable mentions were selected based on the quality of their rendered images and the technical difficulty.

Bin Chen won the grand prize for his "Magical Lotus" graphic.

Bin created a realistic scene depicting two lotus flowers in a pond. He implemented a number of techniques including translucency using photon mapping, depth of field, ray marching, tone mapping, and bloom.

how sweet is this UC San Diego photo?

Have a favorite UCSD photo? Link to it in the comments section.

Photo credit? Well, I don't know who took the picture, but I found it in the Flikr photostream run by the UCSD chapter of the engineering honor society Tau Beta Pi (TBP). They won the most outstanding chapter award last year.

The Jacobs School was THIS close!!!

We were THIS close to grabbing some prize money in the 2nd Annual UCSD $50K Entrepreneurship Competition.

Bioengineers working on better multidrug combinations and electrical engineers working toward solar-powered personal electronics were the two Jacobs School finalists in the business plan competition that was held at Calit2’s Atkinson Hall on Saturday May 31 from 9:00 am to 2:00 pm.

But alas, the three other finalists placed above our finalists.

It's all good though. Before the competition, both teams told me that even if they didn't win any money, just getting to the finals was a big success because it forced them to fully think through their business plans. They also had the benefit of meeting with lots of seasoned entrepreneurs and venture capital folks.

Read all about the two great Jacobs School finalists here.