Stanford University
Stanford Engineers Enable Simple Cameras To See In 3D
Standard image sensors, like the billion or so already installed in practically every smartphone in use today, capture light intensity and color. Relying on common, off-the-shelf sensor technology – known as CMOS – these cameras have grown smaller and more powerful by the year and now offer tens-of-megapixels resolution. But they’ve still seen in only …
Stanford Physicists Help Create Time Crystals With Quantum Computers
There is a huge global effort to engineer a computer capable of harnessing the power of quantum physics to carry out computations of unprecedented complexity. While formidable technological obstacles still stand in the way of creating such a quantum computer, today’s early prototypes are still capable of remarkable feats. For example, the creation …
Stanford Algorithm Helps Modern Quilters Focus On Creativity
Stanford University computer science graduate student Mackenzie Leake has been quilting since age 10, but she never imagined the craft would be the focus of her doctoral dissertation. Included in that work is new prototype software that can facilitate pattern-making for a form of quilting called foundation paper piecing, which involves using a backing made …
Stanford Researchers Use AI To Empower Environmental Regulators
Like superheroes capable of seeing through obstacles, environmental regulators may soon wield the power of all-seeing eyes that can identify violators anywhere at any time, according to a new Stanford University-led study. The paper, published the week of April 19 in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS), demonstrates how artificial intelligence combined with …
Stanford Path-planning Algorithm Enables Autonomous Multi-drone Aerial Surveys Of Antarctic Penguin Colonies
Stanford University researcher Mac Schwager entered the world of penguin counting through a chance meeting at his sister-in-law’s wedding in June 2016. There, he learned that Annie Schmidt, a biologist at Point Blue Conservation Science, was seeking a better way to image a large penguin colony in Antarctica. Schwager, who is an assistant professor of aeronautics and …
Stanford Launches AI-powered TV News Analyzer
Cable TV news is a primary source of information for millions of Americans each day. The people that appear on cable TV news and the topics they talk about shape public opinion and culture. While many newsrooms and monitoring organizations routinely audit the content of news broadcasts, these efforts typically involve manually counting who and …
Stanford Engineers Develop COVID-19 Calculator To Help Hospitals Prepare
Working at breakneck speed, a team of engineering and medical professionals at Stanford have created two novel computer tools that can tell local governments and hospitals whether they are about to be overwhelmed by the COVID-19 pandemic. One of the new calculators provides county-by-county predictions of hospitalizations tied to the coronavirus. The other allows individual hospitals …
Stanford Crowdsourcing Site Collects County-level Policy Data To Inform Decisions About Easing Social-distancing
Americans nationwide now have a chance to help government officials decide when to ease social-distancing policies by completing a survey on a new website that compiles information about if and when their counties implemented local shelter-in-place measures to slow the spread of COVID-19. The website, SocialDistancing.Stanford.edu, is part of a research collaboration that aims to provide …
Stanford Engineers Create Shape-Changing, Free-roaming Soft Robot
Advances in soft robotics could someday allow robots to work alongside humans, helping them lift heavy objects or carrying them out of danger. As a step toward that future, Stanford University researchers have developed a new kind of soft robot that, by borrowing features from traditional robotics, is safe while still retaining the ability to …