AT&T Labs Research — Leading Invention, Driving Innovation

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.

Postscript to the Netflix Prize contest

Those who followed the Netflix Prize might wonder what happened with the $1M-winning solution. A blog post by Netflix reveals the $1M solution was never used. Does this mean the contest was for naught?

No. As Chris Volinsky explains in a news article, Netflix is still using the main methods that he, Bob Bell, and Yehuda Koren (now at Yahoo!) developed to win the first-year $50,000 progress prize. All three later became part of the winning coalition in the third and final year.

Beyond Jeopardy! The Future of DeepQA

In a classic, televised man-vs-machine intelligence matchup last year, IBM Watson defeated two celebrated human Jeopardy! champions. In this talk, David Ferrucci, who led the team behind IBM Watson, discusses the technological advances his team engineered and how IBM Watson can help solve real-world problems.

This talk will take place May 30 at 3:30 in Florham Park as part of AT&T’s Distinguished Speaker Series. Non-AT&T visitors should pre-register.

The Achievement of the OEIS

For close to 50 years, Neil J. Sloane has been collecting and cataloguing integer sequences. The result is The Online Encyclopedia of Integer Sequences (OEIS),a constantly updated repository of 200,000+ sequences and one of the first large-scale exercises in crowd-sourcing to expand mathematical and scientific information.

For years hosted on AT&T Research servers, the OEIS is now under the stewardship of The OEIS Foundation.                    Read more

Developers: Tap into AT&T's speech expertise

Speech interfaces are becoming de rigueur for mobile apps. Users find them easy, but implementing these interfaces is not easy. Speech technologies are complex and require expert knowledge.

AT&T should know. The AT&T WATSON^SM speech engine—known for accuracy and speed—represents decades of research. In June, AT&T will make this technology available in API form. If interested now, send an email to

A service that won’t let you forget

Ever drive off without your wallet, laptop, or other needed item? Got My Stuff, a new, car-based project from AT&T Research may fix that problem. It works like this.

When you turn your car key, Got My Stuff checks to make sure you don't forget items you need for your destination. But why limit such a useful service to the car? Got My Stuff may soon move to the home, the workplace, and other locations where it’s possible to forget something.

Use your own voice to create a synthesized one

Synthesized voices often sound generic, and creating new ones isn't easy since it usually requires commercial equipment.

AT&T’s VoiceBuilder solves both problems. It lets you use your voice and requires only a good-quality microphone.

To create a voice for real-time applications, log in to the AT&T Speech Mashup site, open VoiceBuilder from Test Application, then follow the directions to record your voice or upload audio.

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.

Texting while driving: what can happen?

What can happen in the five seconds it normally takes a driver to look away from the road to text? Probably more than you think.

So that drivers can experience, in a virtual way, the dangers of texting while driving, AT&T created a text-and-drive simulator. In this Spanish-language video, AT&T Researchers Maria Fernandez and Valerie Torres describe how the simulator works. (For an English-language video about the simulator, go here).