stanford

Intel fetes four-decade Stanford link

Intel is celebrating its four-decade-long relationship with Stanford University by spotlighting the school's nexus with its top executives.

The Intel-Stanford tie famously began back in 1969 when Stanford electrical engineering alumnus Ted Hoff became Intel employee No. 12. Within two years, he had invented, along with Federico Faggin and Stan Mazor, Intel's flagship product: the microprocessor.

For more than four decades, the Stanford-Intel relationship has been behind the launch of some of Intel's flagship technologies and hundreds of the company's engineering careers. (Almost 1,000 Stanford alumni have worked at Intel and a Stanford University Web page marks this relationship.)

The retirement this month of Intel chairman and former CEO (1998-2005) Craig Barrett, highlights one of the most enduring ties. Barrett was a professor from 1965 until he joined Intel in 1974.

"Industry does a good job at the D part of R&D--but we rely on the tier-one research universities like Stanford on the R side," Barrett said in an interview published on Stanford University's Web site. Barrett cited marquee research at Stanford such as semiconductor device modeling and new packaging technologies.

Senior VP Pat Gelsinger is another Stanford graduate. "We've had great results from the collaboration," said Gelsinger--also quoted in the interview--who earned an masters of science degree in electrical engineering at Stanford in 1985. "In almost every area that Intel is doing work we can point to significant collaboration and research projects with Stanford." … Read more

Video of Ballmer's Stanford speech

For those who want to hear Wednesday's Stanford University appearance by Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer, the full video is now online (and embedded below).

As I wrote Wednesday, the highlights included his blunt assessment of the genesis of the economic meltdown ("The world borrowed too much money"), his subtle dig at Windows Vista, as well as his take on what's needed for Microsoft to compete in the search business.

But of course, Ballmer says things in a far more entertaining fashion than I can, so by all means, check out the video. The best part is … Read more

Ballmer: We need to be more disruptive in search

PALO ALTO, Calif.--While trailing Google badly in search has lots of disadvantages, it also opens some doors, says Steve Ballmer. And, he said, it's time Microsoft starts walking through more of those doors.

"We are going to have to be more disruptive," Microsoft's CEO said in response to a question at the end of a speech at Stanford. He pointed to Live Search Cashback as one example and hinted of changes to come in terms of the search user interface and new types of partnerships with content creators.

Google has the economies of scale and … Read more

Ballmer: 'The world borrowed too much money'

PALO ALTO, Calif.--Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer began his talk at Stanford University by offering a quick course in economics.

Explaining the economic crisis that has slowed business worldwide and caused Microsoft to have its first companywide layoffs, Ballmer told the crowd at the school's packed Memorial Auditorium, "The world borrowed too much money."

Then he went back to his obligatory chat about the early days at Microsoft, including when he dropped out of Stanford's business school to join the software maker. He noted that he knew how to read a balance sheet, but not much … Read more

Free Stanford iPhone developer course at iTunes U

If you're anxious to develop your own iPhone app, don't know where to start, and find high-pedigree university instruction appealing, consider learning the art of the iPhone from Stanford University. You won't need a high-school degree to take the class--the school's Computer Science Department has begun posting material from its 10-week iPhone Application Programming course in iTunes U.

"There's a lot of interest in the iPhone," said Brent Izutsu, Stanford's project manager for Stanford on iTunes U, in the university's press release. "This course provides an excellent opportunity for us … Read more

Shock! Scientists say video games feed male need to dominate

I always thought video games were a modern day artform.

But Professor Allan Reiss of the Center for Interdisciplinary Brain Sciences Research at Stanford University has proved such an elevated idea to be mere liberal tripe.

His research shows that video games stimulate the parts of men that so many other activities just cannot reach: the need to conquer, stomp on, dominate, crush, destroy, maim, annihilate, and turn to ashes and dust.

Women, apparently, understand video games, but their neurology doesn't house the same desire to conquer, stomp on, etc., etc.

"These gender differences may help explain why … Read more

Lessig ditches Stanford for Harvard

Larry Lessig, professor of law at Stanford Law School, is leaving the West Coast to head to the Stanford of the East, Harvard Law School, according to Harvard. Lessig used to teach at Harvard Law School, so it should prove to be a comfortable change, and perhaps in keeping with his shift from "West Coast code" to "East Coast code", to an emphasis on overcoming corruption in politics. (No, not that kind of corruption.)

Lessig was my professor at Stanford Law School, and became a mentor to me there, though I fought his ideas for the … Read more

Photos: The mouse that roared 40 years ago

A correction was made to this story. Read below for details.

Forty years ago this week, Doug Engelbart and fellow researchers at the Stanford Research Institute (SRI) gave a demonstration in San Francisco that turned out to be a prescient vision of the future: it included a computer mouse; hypertext linking; real-time, on-screen text editing; shared-screen teleconferencing; and other revolutionary ideas.

Tuesday, a large crowd gathered at Stanford to watch a video of the historic demo and hear original team members recount their groundbreaking work. Click here to see photos from the presentation.

Correction: This story initially misspelled the primary … Read more

Stanford and Harvard teach businesses how to squash open source

Having given in to gravity, America's elite graduate schools are taking on open source.

In recent research published in Production and Operations Management, Deishin Lee (Harvard Business School) and Haim Mendelson (Stanford Graduate School of Business) teach would-be business executives how to "Divide and Conquer: Competing with Free Technology Under Network Effects."

The professors argue that:

(T)he ideal scenario for the commercial vendor is to bring its product to market first, to judiciously improve its product features, to keep its product "closed" so the open-source product cannot tap into the network already built by … Read more

A.I.-controlled helicopter: Seriously, need I say more?

On Monday, a 4-foot-long helicopter equipped with an artificial-intelligence system developed by computer scientists at Stanford University flew over the campus, according to Reuters. The helicopter had taught itself to fly by watching the aerobatics of a radio-controlled helicopter flown by a human. Also on Monday, I got my Warlock to level 66 in World of Warcraft. Yeah, I think I need to reevaluate my priorities.

The self-controlled mini-hopper performed flips, rolls, pirouettes, stall-turns, knife-edges, and an inverted hover over a field. Adam Coates, a Ph.D. student who worked on the project, said the machines can fly maneuvers at … Read more