ATTENTION: Seniors Considering Grad School.
Date: Monday, 3 November 1997. If you are a graduating
senior and are considering graduate school in computer science, this message is for you.
We sometimes get requests from other CS departments for a list of our graduating seniors
who are considering graduate school. The schools would then contact you directly with
information about their department and their Ph.D. application process. If you want to be
on this list, send your NAME and E-MAIL ADDRESS to cardie@cs.cornell.edu. If you know what
area of CS you're interested in, include that too.
WebGenesis May Open Ithaca Office.
Date: Saturday, 1 November 1997. In conversations
yesterday, it was learned that WebGenesis (see below) is looking to open a
satellite office here in Ithaca. No details have been released and nothing has been
finalized, but WebGenesis President, Stephan Paternot '95, did say that business is
booming and that there is a real need to re-connect with the Upson Faithful.
Paternot said that he envisioned an office that would be similiar in many ways to the one
that he and partner Todd Krizelman opened in Collegetown in 1995. That early office
was totally staffed by students and people worked as much and as often as they
could. The energy was electric and being near Cornell was the key to making it
work. Anyone interested in getting involved in this new project or perhaps working
in New York City should contact Vance Huntley <vance@theglobe.com> phone: 212 886 0820.
IBM Endows Major Fellowship for CS Students. Date: Thursday, 30 October 1997. "Cornell announced
Monday the endowment of a $50,000 fellowship, the IBM University Partnership Award, to
support outstanding students of computer and computational science at Cornell. The
fellowship, which will begin in Fall 1998, will be administered through the Cornell Theory
Center." (from Cornell Chronicle, 10/30/97)
If you want to take CS 513 "Systems Security" next
semester, please read the following: (Reposted. Date: Mon.,
27 October 1997) Undergrads have two options when signing up for CS 513: 1. Take
CS513 for four credits; do not do the project. or 2. Take CS513 for four credits and do
the project. In this case you should register for CS490 for ***TWO*** credits. To
recapitulate, in addition to taking CS513 for four credits, a student may optionally elect
to take the course project for credit: Undergrads should take CS490 for TWO credits.
For more information contact Professor Mike Godfrey <migod@cs.cornell.edu>.
Digital Arts Gathering at Cornell. Date: Mon., 4 October 1997.
ITHACA,
N.Y. -- Representatives from various California digital arts and film production
companies, including DreamWorks, will meet with representatives of the College of
Architecture, Art and Planning (AAP) this weekend to discuss the merits of a new academic
program on digital arts. As part of their visit, representatives will discuss careers in
the field with students at a Career Forum, Oct. 4 from 4:30 to 6:30 p.m. in the Call
Alumni Auditorium of Kennedy Hall. AAP Associate Dean for Technology Stanley Bowman, a
professor in the art department who is leading the discussion on the development of a
digital arts program, says he is eager to hear what the industry experts have to say. digital_arts.dg.html
(Cornell News Service)
IBM Finds Key to Copper-Based, Superfast Computer Chips. Date: Mon, 22 Sept 1997. (excerpted
from NYTimes) IBM announced that it has solved a fundamental problem holding
back the development of faster semiconductor chips and will begin manufacturing chips
early next year that are smaller and up to 40 percent more powerful than the most advanced
chips currently being produced commercially...The technological breakthrough that IBM says
it has made concerns the metal that is combined with silicon to produce semiconductors.
For the last 30 years, chip makers etched aluminum circuits on silicon wafers. Most chips
sold today contain transistors that are 0.35 micron wide. The most advanced have circuits
with a width of 0.25 micron. But at 0.20 micron, or about a five-hundredth the width of a
human hair, aluminum begins to slow the chips down...Copper is a much better conductor.
But when chip makers tried to use it, they found that the metal bled into the silicon,
contaminating the chip...Finally, after 10 years of work, researchers at IBM's laboratory
in Yorktown Heights, N.Y., figured out a way to insulate the microscopic copper wiring so
that it does not come directly into contact with the silicon.(from article by LAURENCE
ZUCKERMAN of the NYTimes).
CS Alums in today's NYTimes.
Date: Fri, 19 Sept 1997. In
case you didn't see it, alums Stephan Paternot and Todd Krizelman made page 1 of the NYT
Metro section. They've just been given $20 million by Michael Egan the founder and CEO of
Alamo Rent-A-Car, to help grow their internet chat business, WebGenesis <www.theglobe.com>. 
Analysts speculate that this is the largest-ever investment made by an individual in an
Internet business. Earlier investments by David Duffield (PeopleSoft),
Bob Halperin
(Raychem), and David Horowitz (former CEO of MTV) got Todd and Stephan to the point they
are today. Egan, Haperin and Duffield are all Cornell alums.
But before these heavy-weight investors started to chase after them, Stephan and Todd were
Upson Hall regulars who just wanted to take work they had done on a CS 490 project and
turn it into a viable business. Once they'd had the opportunity to incubate their ideas
here they moved to Collegetown and into the For-Profit sector.
We'll keep a copy of the article here in Upson 303 in case any of you are interested in
reading more about it. Here's the web address of the article: http://www.cs.cornell.edu/Ugrad/NewsOther/NYT-WebGen1997.htm
(there is a subscription window that comes up first if you aren't
subscribed--subscriptions are free).
Everything you wanted to know about graduate school but were
afraid to ask. Date: Thurs, 18 Sept 1997.
This article by Phil Agre, Professor of Computer Science at U. Cal. San Diego, is one of
the best I've ever seen written on the subject. Check it out: Advice for
Undergraduates Considering Graduate School. (ACM-Crossroads,
Summer 1997). Posted by Dan Jenkins.
New Intel chip will double memory.
Date: Wed, 17 Sept 1997. (excerpted from NYTimes) Intel announced that it will
begin marketing a new generation of memory chips that can store not one but two bits of
information on each transistor, essentially doubling the storage capacity of even the most
transistor-rich chip. (It takes the equivalent of eight bits to produce an alphabet
character in computer text.)
Moreover, Intel engineers believe that they have not reached the limits of this new
technology and that in the future it may be possible to build chips that can store and
retrieve three, four or even more bits on each transistor. "The holy grail for memory
has been finding a way to store more than one bit of memory per unit area," said
Stefan Lai, director of flash technology development and manufacturing at Intel. "It
has been extremely difficult to do this."
The Intel advance involves a type of chip, known as flash memory, that...is able to go
beyond "empty" and "full" readings, to also sense whether the glass is
two-thirds full or one-third full. Those four distinct states yield the equivalent of two
bits of data. And Intel engineers predict that even subtler gradations may soon be
possible, yielding even more bits with each transistor. The first Intel versions of the
chip will store 32 million and 64 million bits of data, based on technology originally
developed for 16-million-bit and 32-million-bit flash memory chips. (NYT 9/17/18. JOHN
MARKOFF reporting from SAN FRANCISCO)
Lucent contact. Date:
Tues, 16 Sept 1997. Charles
Wu '91 stopped by for a visit today. A former ACSU Officer and
Daily Sun columnist, Wu said he was impressed by the quality of students who turned out
for this year's Career Fair (being held today and tomorrow at Alberding). Wu said most
students think Lucent is "a phone company". He stressed Lucent's overall
involvement with both tele- and data-communications, as well as the newly released
"Inferno" portable OS ( Inferno link) , as prime examples of the depth and breadth of Lucent's
business. Wu's own work is with Bell Labs latest text to speech innovations. For more info
on TTS click here.
Said Wu, "it's my experience, that Cornell's CS
undergrad program prepares you very well for the challenges that work presents, and that
even if you didn't get a great GPA you will have acquired the skills to succeed in the
work world. If anyone has any questions about Lucent, that they should feel free to e-mail me."
Coleman appointed to high post. Date: Wed, 10 Sept 1997. Department of Computer Science
Professor, Thomas Coleman, has been appointed to serve as the Director of the Center for
Applied Mathmatics at Cornell.
Master of Engineering Early Admission. Date: Wed, 10 Sept 1997. If you plan to apply for the MEng
in CS while still completing 8 credits or less of your undergraduate coursework, you MUST
have applied and been accepted by the MEng Program. Follow this link for more information.
CS 432/33 will NOT be offered in the spring. Date: Wed, 10 Sept 1997. Databases has been moved to the
fall semester. This leaves two project courses in the spring semester: CS412/13 and CS
417/18.
