天美影视传媒 researchers developed a system called VueBuds that uses tiny cameras in off-the-shelf wireless earbuds to allow users to talk with an AI model about the scene in front of them. For instance, a user might look at a Korean food package and say, 鈥淗ey VueBuds, translate this for me.鈥� They鈥檇 then hear an AI voice say, 鈥淭he visible text translates to 鈥楥old Noodles鈥� in English.
At the brand-new Quantum Technologies Training and Testbed lab, researchers from across the UW probe the 鈥渟pooky鈥� mysteries of quantum phenomena.
Researchers at UW and the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory are simulating something in the lab that they hope will rarely happen in the wild: a collision between underwater turbines and marine animals.
A team led by 天美影视传媒 researchers has created DopFone, a system that uses an off-the-shelf smartphone鈥檚 existing speaker and microphone to accurately estimate fetal heart rate. The phone mimics a Doppler ultrasound, emitting a tone and listening for the subtle variations in its echo caused by fetal heart beats. A machine learning model then estimates the heart rate.
The Vera C. Rubin Observatory has issued its first real-time alerts of changes in the night sky. The ultrafast alerting system, developed at the UW, will eventually detect up to seven million changes in the cosmos every night and notify scientists around the world.
A UW and Ai2 research team built OpenScholar, an open-source AI model designed specifically to synthesize current scientific research. In tests, OpenScholar cited sources as accurately as human experts, and 16 scientists preferred its response to those written by subject experts 51% of the time.
A new smart glove from the UW Wearable Intelligence Lab could help physical therapy patients track progress and train robotic hands to grasp.
UW researchers analyzed the checkout data from the last 20 years of the 93 authors included in the post-1945 volume of 鈥淭he Norton Anthology of American Literature,鈥� which is assigned in U.S. English classes more than any other anthology. Sci-fi was especially popular.
New research from the UW and the Toyota Research Institute explores how drivers trade off between cognitive tasks, driving and using the vehicle’s touch screen. Researchers placed participants in a driving simulator and had them complete memory tests while interacting with the simulator鈥檚 touch screen.
A new 天美影视传媒 study suggests that AI could learn cultural values by observing human behavior, similar to how children learn by watching and interacting with adults. Researchers had AI systems observe two cultural groups playing a video game. The AI systems were able to learn each group鈥檚 degree of altruism and apply this to a new situation.
Researchers at the UW have developed AI-powered headphones that automatically isolate conversation partners in a noisy soundscape. The system employs AI models that listen for the back-and-forth pattern of conversation and mute voices that aren鈥檛 following the established rhythm.
A web-based method was shown to mitigate political polarization on X by nudging antidemocratic and extremely negative partisan posts lower in a user鈥檚 feed. The tool, which is independent of the platform, has the potential to give users more say over what they see on social media.
In a new UW study, 528 participants worked with simulated AI systems to select job candidates. The researchers simulated different levels of racial biases for resumes from white, Black, Hispanic and Asian men. Without suggestions, participants鈥� choices exhibited little bias. But when provided with recommendations, participants mirrored the AI鈥檚 biases.
Researchers at the UW have created a recyclable, flexible and self-healing composite material that could replace traditional circuit boards in future generations of wearable electronics.
The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences on Tuesday awarded the 2025 Nobel Prize in Physics jointly to John Clarke, Michel H. Devoret and John M. Martinis, 鈥渇or the discovery of macroscopic quantum mechanical tunneling and energy quantization in an electric circuit.鈥� Clarke, a professor emeritus of physics at the University of California, Berkeley, collaborates with the Axion Dark Matter Experiment at the 天美影视传媒.
UW researchers discuss their study which surveyed 166 gamers about how video games sparked meaningful changes in their lives.
In her new book, Katharina Reinecke explores how “digital culture shock” manifests in the world, in ways innocuous and sometimes harmful.聽
A 天美影视传媒-led study of X found that posts with Community Notes attached were less prone to going viral and got less engagement. After getting a Community Note, on average, reposts dropped 46% and likes dropped 44%.
In a recent paper, 天美影视传媒 researchers argue that a key standard for deploying medical AI is transparency 鈥� that is, using various methods to clarify how a medical AI system arrives at its diagnoses and outputs.
The goals of those developing AI systems for the climate and those working on the front lines of climate advocacy don鈥檛 necessarily align. To compare the two groups, UW researchers interviewed nine people who are developing AI for sustainability and 10 climate advocates.
New research led by the 天美影视传媒 provides clear evidence that highly walkable areas lead to significantly more walking. Authors compared the steps per day of 5,424 people who moved one or more times among 1,609 U.S. cities. Across all relocations, when the Walk Score rose or fell more than 48 points, average steps increased or decreased by about 1,100 per day.
天美影视传媒 researchers recruited self-identifying Democrats and Republicans to make political decisions with help from three versions of ChatGPT: a base model, one with liberal bias and one with conservative bias. Democrats and Republicans were both likelier to lean in the direction of the biased chatbot they were talking with than those participants who interacted with the base model.
天美影视传媒 researchers developed the game AI Puzzlers to show kids an area where AI systems still typically and blatantly fail: solving certain reasoning puzzles. In the game, users get a chance to solve puzzles by completing patterns of colored blocks. They can then ask various AI chatbots to solve and have the systems explain their solutions 鈥� which they nearly always fail to do accurately.
A new era of astronomy and astrophysics began Monday when the first images captured by the NSF鈥揇OE Vera C. Rubin Observatory were released, demonstrating the extraordinary capabilities of the new telescope and the world鈥檚 largest digital camera.
In 2023, 天美影视传媒 researchers recruited a group of 29 laid-off U.S. tech workers to discuss the effects of recent mass layoffs on employees. Overall, the group was ambivalent about tech work. They said it was often unfulfilling, despite their plans to continue in the industry.
UW researchers designed a headphone system that translates several people speaking at once, following them as they move and preserving the direction and qualities of their voices. The team built the system, called Spatial Speech Translation, with off-the-shelf noise-cancelling headphones fitted with microphones.
A UW-led team has developed a system, called ProxiCycle, that logs when a passing car comes too close to a cyclist (four feet or less). A small, inexpensive sensor plugs into bicycle handlebars and tracks the passes, sending them to the rider鈥檚 phone. The team tested the system for two months with 15 cyclists in Seattle and found a significant correlation between the locations of close passes and other indicators of poor safety, such as collisions.
A new data set called OS-CONNECT maps sidewalks and other pedestrian paths statewide, from Forks on the Olympic Peninsula to Clarkston in the southeast. In House Bill 1125, the Washington State Legislature assigned the UW’s Taskar Center for Accessible Technology to build the data set, which was completed well ahead of its projected 2027 goal.
Researchers deployed a robotic feeding arm in a pair of studies outside the lab. In the first, six users with motor impairments used the robot to feed themselves a meal in a UW cafeteria, an office or a conference room. In the second study, a community researcher and co-author on the research used the system at home for five days.
UW doctoral student Brett Halperin interviewed picketing film workers about AI during the 2023 strikes.
UW researchers developed a new system for turning used coffee grounds into a paste, which they use to 3D print objects, such as packing materials and a vase. They inoculate the paste with Reishi mushroom spores, which turn the coffee grounds into a resilient, fully compostable alternative to plastics.
A UW team studied how AI systems portray teens in English and Nepali, and found that in English language systems around 30% of the responses referenced societal problems such as violence, drug use and mental illness. The Nepali system produced fewer negative associations in responses, closer to 10% of all answers.
UW researchers have developed IRIS, a smart ring that allows users to point and click to control smart devices. The prototype Bluetooth ring contains a small camera which sends an image of the selected device to the user鈥檚 phone. The user can control the device by clicking a small button or 鈥� for devices with gradient controls, such as a speaker鈥檚 volume 鈥� rotating the ring.
天美影视传媒 researchers created a method for training AI systems 鈥� both for large language models like ChatGPT and for robots 鈥� that can better reflect users鈥� diverse values. It predicts users鈥� preferences as they interact with it, then tailors its outputs accordingly.
Chirag Shah, a UW professor in the Information School, discusses what AI agents are and what might impede a near future where people can simply get AI bots to shop for them.
UW News sat down with experts in public health and AI to discuss AI could enhance health care, what鈥檚 standing in the way, and whether there’s a downside to democratizing medical research.聽聽
天美影视传媒 researchers developed a system for detecting subtle biases in AI models. They found seven of the eight popular AI models they tested in conversations around race and caste generated significant amounts of biased text in interactions 鈥� particularly when discussing caste. Open-source models fared far worse than two proprietary ChatGPT models.
Jie Xiao, 天美影视传媒 professor of mechanical engineering, talks about batteries and how academia can help support the growing domestic battery manufacturing industry.
UW assistant professor Sheng Wang discusses BiomedParse, an AI medical image analysis model that works across nine types of medical images to better predict systemic diseases. Medical professionals can load images into the system and ask the AI tool questions about them in plain English.
A team led by researchers at the 天美影视传媒 has created a headphone prototype that allows listeners to hear people speaking within a bubble with a programmable radius of 3 to 6 feet. Voices and sounds outside the bubble are quieted an average of 49 decibels, even if they鈥檙e louder than those in the bubble.