Previous |
Next Man vs. Machine II: Poker-Playing Software Program Will Try to Avenge Last Year's Loss |
July 03, 2008, 03:17 PM ET
6 American Teams Make It to Finals of Microsoft's Imagine Cup
An interface that allows blind people to access the Web, a photo essay on tropical-rain-forest sustainability, and a system that saves energy by automatically adjusting the power usage of appliances are among the six projects from American students that have made it to the finals of Microsoft’s sixth annual Imagine Cup.
The international competition, which kicked off today in Paris, comes with a cash award of $240,000. This year’s edition challenges students to find new ways to use technology to help sustain the environment.
In the interface-design category, a duo from Indiana University designed a Web site that allowed students who were participating in a campus energy challenge to compare their dorm’s consumption with other dorms’, and also suggested conservation actions. Another student, from Arizona State University, has developed a user interface to teach people to be sustainable in their homes.
A team from California State University at Long Beach has designed an embedded system that adjusts the power consumption of home appliances, and a group from the Rochester Institute of Technology has created a software program that allows mobile-phone users to access and control environment data collected from a network of sensors.
Two students from Wayne State University are competing in the photography category with a photo essay that portrays a global movement that wants to slow the effects of global warming and deforestation.
A Ph.D. candidate in computer science and engineering at the University of Washington has won the Interface Design Technology Award for a screen-reading interface that allows blind people to access the Internet.
More than 200,000 students from all over the world registered in the Imagine Cup and 370 of them, from 61 countries, have made it to the weeklong finals. The winners will be announced on July 8. More information is available on the Imagine Cup Finals Web site. —Maria José Viñas
Categories: Student-Life, Research
Add Your Comment
Commenting is closed.