AT&T Labs Research — Leading Invention, Driving Innovation

Three from AT&T Research Named IEEE Fellow

Three from AT&T Research were elevated by the IEEE (Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers) to the status of IEEE Fellow, the highest grade of membership.

Ramón Cáceres was recognized for contributions to mobile computing and communications, Enrico Bocchieri for contributions to computational models for speech recognition, and Saeed S. Ghassemzadeh for contributions to measurement and modeling of broadband wireless channels and their applications to system design.

Human-Mobility Research Featured in CACM

Human Mobility Characterization from Cellular Network Data, the cover article for January's Communications of the ACM, describes the huge potential in using cellular network data to study large-scale patterns in human mobility. Written by AT&T researchers and colleagues from Princeton University, the article focuses on commuting patterns, but cellular data—ubiquitous and obtained at low cost—can also be used to understand the spread of diseases and many other consequences of human mobility.

Computational Advertising May Soon Move to TV

Methods of placing TV ads still rely heavily on traditional marketing approaches even as online advertisers use sophisticated data analysis to target ads to users. In a paper presented in December at ICDM (and the subject of this MIT Technology Review article), AT&T Researchers show how computational approaches similar to those used online can make use of anonymous, aggregated set-top box data for more precise ad targeting in the TV domain.
 

QNX In-Car Speech System Leverages AT&T Watson^SM

QNX announced a software framework that extracts meaning from a driver's words, enabling in-car systems to set destinations, create appointments, do Internet searches, and perform other complex tasks. The framework enables in-car systems to leverage the AT&T Watson^SM.

A prototype system was demoed at CES in a concept car built from a Bentley Continental, with press coverage in The New York Times, Washington Post, Engadget, and other news sites.
 

Visualizing the Data Behind Hall-of-Fame Voting

For baseball fans mystified by hall-of-fame voting, there's now an interactive visualization site to explore the voting trajectories of all 1,070 players who have appeared on the ballot since 1936. Interactive plots and histograms, created using d3, let users dig into players’ voting histories and career stats by clicking, hovering, and selecting different plot elements. Even non-fans will appreciate the way the data is linked and brushable, and the possibilities for interactively exploring other interesting data sets.

Mazin Gilbert Interviewed in Speech Technology

AT&T and other companies have begun sharing their speech technology, making it easy for developers—even those without speech expertise—to build voice-enabled applications. “We're doing this so people don't have to reinvent the wheel," says Mazin Gilbert in this Speech Technology article, referring to the release last year of seven AT&T WATSON^SM-enabled speech APIs (from the AT&T Developer Program), each optimized for a specific task such as web search and SMS. 

AT&T's ARO Wins Global Mobile Award

The 2013 Global Mobile Awards, announced at the Mobile World Congress, named the AT&T Application Resource Optimizer (ARO) winner of the Smartphone Application Challenge, a category that promotes efficient smartphone applications. Judging was based on measured efficiency. Available free from the AT&T Developer Program, ARO was created at AT&T Research to analyze energy usage of apps and pinpoint inefficiencies. The research behind ARO is described here.

U-verse® Easy Remote is Edison Award Finalist

AT&T's U-verse^® Easy Remote app, which turns an iPhone or iPad into a voice-controlled remote, has been named a 2013 Edison Awards^TM  finalist in the entertainment category. For more about the Easy Remote, see this article.

The Edison Awards are focused on innovators as much as innovations, and seek to reward "game changing" products, services and excellence in innovation. Winners will be announced at an awards ceremony in Chicago April 25.

Alicia Abella Blogs: Geek is the New Chic

Geeks have the ability to create innovations that can revolutionize the world, and encouraging women (and men) to join their ranks was the message last week when Alicia Abella, Executive Director of the Innovative Services Research Department, spoke at the Columbia Women in Business Conference. In this blog post summarizing her talk, she writes of the important contributions made by those who study math and science, and why she wears the geek label with pride.