AT&T Labs Research — Leading Invention, Driving Innovation

Deborah Estrin to talk about mobilizing health

mHealth—the use of mobile devices to assist individuals in tracking and managing lifestyle choices to prevent disease—is the subject of a talk by Deborah Estrin. Prof. Estrin is the Jon Postel Chair in Computer Networks at UCLA, Research Director of MobilizeLabs, and co-founder of Open mHealth.

This talk, part of AT&T’s Distinguished Speaker Series, will be held May 9 at 3:30 in the Florham Park auditorium. Non-AT&T visitors should pre-register.

App turns your smart phone into a translation device

The free AT&T Translator app turns a smart phone into a speech translation device. Talk into your iPhone (or iPad or iPod) or Android smart phone, and the app translates and then speaks your words in one of seven languages, just like in the ad.

The speech translation technology was created at AT&T Research and incorporates AT&T WATSON^SM and AT&T Natural Voices^®.

AT&T Translator is available from iTunes and from Google Play.

Mihai Pătraşcu is a recipient of Presburger Award

Mihai Pătraşcu is a joint recipient of the EATCS 2012 Presburger Award, which acknowleges the contributions of young scientists in theoretical computer science.

The problems studied by Pătraşcu involve efficient data structures and understanding how computers can most efficiently represent and manipulate data. His contributions to fundamental results on lower bounds for data structures revolutionized and revitalized a field that was silent for over a decade.

AT&T unveils tool to help apps run faster, smarter

A free diagnostic tool is now available to help developers create energy-efficient apps that conserve battery power and respond faster.

The AT&T Application Resource Optimizer (ARO), which runs alongside device apps, analyzes energy usage and pinpoints inefficiencies in how apps connect and transfer data (a previous article details the complex device-network interactions). Go here to access ARO and learn more.

Improving on force-directed graph drawing

Using data from the Tree of Life project, Yifan Hu visualized genetic linkages among 93891 species using a high-performance graph layout method designed to overcome the peripheral warping sometimes seen with force-directed algorithms, especially when used on large data sets.

The result, shown here, is an aesthetic tree layout that efficiently utilizes white space to clarify the underlying phylogenetics structure.

Facet facilitates large-scale, interactive visualizations

Creating large-scale visualizations can be difficult, requiring either complex coding or manipulating standalone graphics primitives to fit together. Facet is an open-source, WebGL-based visualization infrastructure that provides an easier way: primitives designed to assemble easily together along with easy-to-use software to aid assembly.

Still early in the design stage, Facet is now available for downloading.