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Knowledge: cyber safe

November 26, 2016 - The Ring

As digital technology becomes increasingly integrated and more advanced, so too does the threat to cyber-security. UVic’s Information Security and Object Technology research lab has been addressing this threat since 1999. Coordinator and research engineer Issa Traoré admits it’s a constant battle to keep ahead of hacker expertise and adaptability.

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Face Code

October 21, 2016 - The Ring

A quirky mix of student programmers. Dr. Jim Tanaka, the research psychologist who leads them. And the app software they designed that could change the face of autism therapy.

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Developing a data system for the world’s largest physics experiment

September 20, 2016 - The Ring

Randall Sobie is leading a project to build a cloud computing system for the ATLAS experiment at CERN—providing storage and analysis tools for the billion gigabytes of data produced at the Large Hadron Collider. The new system will significantly advance global investigations into the fundamental structure of the universe.

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New app identifies hundreds of BC central coast species

April 25, 2016 - Media tip

From seaweeds and sea stars to wolves and eagles, a new app provides experts and amateurs with a tool to identify over 700 species in the Great Bear Rainforest to help deepen our appreciation of the biodiversity along BC’s central coast. The guide for phone, computer and tablet is a collaborative project developed by UVic's Brian Starzomski and including grad studentChanda Brietzke and alumna Kelly Fretwell.

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Social app helps children on the autism spectrum

February 23, 2016 - The Ring

The newly released Let’s Face It 2.0, a scrapbook app developed by the University of Victoria’s Centre for Autism Research Technology Education (CARTE) and now available free on iTunes, is a powerful educational tool for learning faces and recognizing emotions of the important people in the lives of children on the autism spectrum. “It is a selfie culture and I hope our app will be adopted by anyone who finds it useful,” says CARTE director and UVic psychology professor Jim Tanaka. “Parents and educators can create their own storybook from people and objects in their children’s lives.”

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Engineering co-op students build tree-planting robot to help fight deforestation

January 21, 2016 - The Ring

Many students spend their summers tromping through slash-piles and battling blackflies to replant Canada’s forests. Two UVic engineering undergrads took a different approach: they designed and built a tree-planting robot with the idea of supplementing the humans’ hard work.  “TreeRover” is the brainchild of third-year electrical engineering students Nick Birch and Tyler Rhodes. Through an entrepreneurial co-op work term, they formed their own company—Iota Enterprises—to build their robot prototype in Rhodes’ Saanich backyard.

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Technology bends the academic curve to promote dynamic learning

January 21, 2016 - The Ring

Call it learning 360. When writing professor Maureen Bradley teaches digital media for storytellers, her venue is a departure from the typical university lecture hall: no podium, desk seating or front of the classroom. Instead, tables with roller-wheel chairs line the room, with a multi-media teaching island in the centre. Each table serves as a five-student pod, equipped with a 48-inch wireless video screen, audio speakers, laptop plug-ins and writable white board. Bradley displays video or broadcasts audio to any or all dozen screens in the room, or shows individual or group projects to every screen.

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Just one drop: UVic-based technology set to revolutionize standard blood tests

January 20, 2016 - The Ring

A small six-person team of scientists and lab technicians are leading a global revolution in medical diagnostics—from right here, in Victoria. Healthy or not, all of us at some time have been subjected to one of the most common forms of medial diagnostics—the dreaded blood test. But what if there was a way to avoid this uncomfortable process?

Read more: Just one drop: UVic-based technology set to revolutionize standard blood tests