Root Beer Floats Your Boat

Jacobs School undergrads are dishing out rootbeer floats today and publicizing the first general meeting of the Triton Engineering Student Council (TESC) at the same time.

The meeting is Weds Oct 1 at 7:30 PM in Room 1202 of the computer science building. Ice cream served at 7:00 PM.

After the meeting, you'll have a chance to meet folks from all the different engineering student organizations.

Ultrafast & Nanoscale Optics Group in New Scientist Tech

In a New Scientist column covering exciting new patents, Justin Mullins highlighted work from the electrical engineers in Shaya Fainmfan's group here at the Jacobs School. (Fainman is in the photo).

The patent is for a "universal detector" that will use plasmonics to test for contimation on any type of surface.

Read the New Scientist column here.

Read the full patent application here.

Fainman directs the Ultrafast & Nanoscale Optics Group at the Jacobs School. Read about his work in a recent issue of the Jacobs School alumni magazine, Pulse.

The researchers listed as inventors on the patent application are:
Kevin TETZ
Lin PANG
Shaya FAINMAN

Computer science students talk "Android"

San Diego Channel 6 came to campus on Tuesday afternoon to find out what our tech-savvy student body thought about the new Google phones unveiled in New York. Channel 6's Jenny Hamel picked a good day to come to campus:

New computer science students, including Jeanne Wang, were streaming out of an orientation with plates full of free food and Calit2's Summer Scholars had just finished presenting the fruits of their summer research.

One scholar, Benjamin Lotan, and some friends were still hanging out in front of the big flat screen TV that Benjamin used to show off his exploration into digital video.

Check out the students and their thoughts on the new Google phone here.

This is up on the Calit2Life blog too...which a cool photo

UC San Diego Startup Genomatica turns sugar into industrial chemicals

Genomatica, a UC San Diego startup founded by a UC San Diego Jacobs School bioengineering PhD student Christopher Schilling and his professor Bernhard Palsson made big news recently when it announced a process to use sugar, rather than petroleum, to produce a common industrial chemical.

CNET has a good story here.

The Forbes story "Making Plastic from Sugar" is a good read as well.

UC San Diego Entrepreneur Challenge

UC San Diego's entrepreneurial spirit continues to grow. On Oct 1, 2008, you can experience the startup vibe at the fall kickoff event which features a keynote from Dr. Irwin Jacobs, Co-Founder and Chairman, QUALCOMM, Inc.

RSVP at: http://challenge.ucsd.edu

UC San Diego Honored by Buildings Magazine

According to Buildings Magazine, UC San Diego Ranked #3 in the nation within the "building market" for it's efforts to become the greenest university.

UC San Diego students in the photo above are part of a project to collect weather and climate information across the UC San Diego campus in order to find ways to save energy. On example: identify the sunniest rooftops on which to expand the solar-electric system and determine just how much sun we can expect on our coastal campus.

A snippet of the story in Buildings magazine is pasted below.

Although UC San Diego is fortunate to have the support and expertise of its forward-thinking administration, continuous-improvement practices are only possible when students and faculty are asked—and empowered—to think outside the box while learning the "art" of collaboration. Imagine how these future leaders will influence corporate and political America in the next decade.

Jacobs School Startup in New York Times

Quanlight, the LED startup company that emerged from the laboratories of Charles Tu, an electrical engineering professor (and Associate Dean) at the Jacobs School (photo above left), made its way to the New York Times today.

Quanlight's chief technical officer is Vladimir Odnoblyudov (photo above right), who earned his Ph.D. in electrical engineering from UC San Diego's Jacobs School of Engineering in 2006.


Below is a bit of the New York Times story by James Flanigan whose column about small-business trends in California and the West appears on the third Thursday of every month.

Blackbird invested $1 million two years ago in Quanlight, essentially backing the invention of Vladimir Odnoblyudov, an electrical engineer from Russia who came to the University of California, San Diego, for his doctorate.

Mr. Odnoblyudov, working with an engineering professor at the university, Charles Tu, developed a semiconductor for light-emitting diodes that provided greater stability for red light, a major need in liquid-crystal displays. Quanlight, with Mr. Senturia as chief executive and Mr. Odnoblyudov as technology officer, raised $3 million last year to develop the invention under license from the university. The process is less expensive than current technology, Mr. Senturia said, “but for red light, stable is more important than cheap. Quanlight’s red is wonderful for backlight on L.C.D. television.”

Electrical Engineers in Popular Science

Electrical engineering graduate student Eric Tremblay is featured in the recent issue of Popular Science for his origami optics project.

Read the full story here

Read the original press release here.

App2You Got Scobalized!

App2You the computer science startup from Jacobs School professor and database guru Yannis Papakonstantinou set up the online submission and review system for the approximately 1,000 companies that are submitting themselves for a spot on the next TechCrunch 50 List.

Robert Scoble highlighted this fact on his Twitter stream this week:


"App2You made the site that 1,000 companies entered their data into and managed the process behind the scenes of TC50.

03:41 PM September 10, 2008 from web"

Scoble rose to prominence as a revolutionary blogger for Microsoft. He is currently a video blogger for Fast Company and runs the popular Scobalizer blog.