Skip to main content

Category: Business/Technology

UW-Madison researchers find automation apps can enable dating abuse

WKOW

Researchers at the University of Wisconsin-Madison found that automation apps, like iPhone’s ‘shortcuts’, can be a vehicle potential abusers use to control their partner’s activities on their mobile device.

Rahul Chatterjee, an assistant professor of computer science at UW and founder of the Madison Tech Clinic, said Madison Tech Clinic helps individuals who have been virtually stalked or harassed by their partners.

Immigrant workers deserve legality, not further persecution

Wisconsin Examiner

According to the Applied Population Lab at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, Green County, where Monroe is located, has experienced a 229% increase in Latinos from 2000 to 2019. That growth has not been accompanied by a surge in murders, robberies, pet-eatings or any other crimes that the current administration has leveled against migrants. Instead Monroe has seen a rise in the number of Mexican restaurants and bilingual masses at the local Catholic church, as well as hardworking community members hoping to make a better life for themselves.

UW-Madison researchers find automation apps can enable dating abuse

WKOW - Channel 27

Researchers at the University of Wisconsin-Madison found that automation apps, like iPhone’s ‘shortcuts’, can be a vehicle potential abusers use to control their partner’s activities on their mobile device.

Rahul Chatterjee, an assistant professor of computer science at UW and founder of the Madison Tech Clinic, said Madison Tech Clinic helps individuals who have been virtually stalked or harassed by their partners.

Felony AI-generated child porn case in Eau Claire County is a test of new Wisconsin law

Wisconsin Public Radio

Dietram Scheufele is a professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison who specializes in misinformation, social media and AI. He told WPR the rise of artificial intelligence models has opened numerous legal and ethical questions that courts are left to grapple with.

On the technical side, Sheufele said, the question is how AI models are able to create lifelike images of child pornography. Another question is whether people or businesses that create the algorithm to assist the AI models that ultimately create the images would be liable.

“The same logic that applies to child pornography will apply to a whole bunch of other things — not in the sense of obscenity, but in the sense of responsibility and copyright, and all the other things that come that come along with that,” Scheufele said.

BLS nominee made claim that no ‘sensible economist would use’ — and that’s one of the kinder comments about him

MarketWatch

Menzie Chinn, a professor of public affairs and economics at the University of Wisconsin–Madison and a research associate with the National Bureau of Economic Research, reviewed the claims and found them wanting.

“The conclusion that real GDP is lower as of 2024Q2 than it was in 2019Q1 is not backed up by any calculation using defensible deflators a sensible economist would use. Second, other non-deflator sensitive indicators of real economic activity do not exhibit a downward decline from 2022 onward,” Chinn said.

Madison rents up 47% over the last five years

Isthmus

Kurt Paulsen, a UW-Madison professor who studies urban development and housing policy, says the region’s high rents and low vacancy rates spurred developers to build more housing: “We have had a lot of supply come online in the last year, and a lot in the pipeline in the last year. And you see that now in the fact that the vacancy rate has shot up.”

Still, Paulsen cautions that new construction will likely slow down as developers wait for these units to be absorbed into the market. High interest rates and tariffs on construction materials — the U.S. Department of Commerce recently announced it is tripling duties on Canadian lumber to 21% — pushed by the Trump administration are also likely to slow construction. And though rent growth has stagnated, Madison’s high prices are still pricing out many potential residents.

Wisconsin dairy farm count keeps falling amid hard times. Here are some farmers who persevere

Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

Wisconsin lost thousands of dairy farms in the ‘90s. At one point, farmers received inflation-adjusted milk prices that were 20% lower than in 1960 and about half of the peak price in 1979, according to the University of Wisconsin-Madison Extension.

Economist expects Wisconsin manufacturing jobs to show decline amid poor national numbers

Wisconsin Public Radio

Menzie Chinn is professor of public affairs and economics at UW-Madison’s La Follette School of Public Affairs. He told WPR’s “Wisconsin Today” that it’s normal for job figures to be revised several times after initial publication.

“The fact that the preceding months were revised down meant that you had a drastic change in the trajectory that you saw,” Chinn said. “… And that is what the markets reacted to.”

The quest to create gene-edited babies gets a reboot

NPR

“You’ve got a convergence of people who are thinking that they can improve their children — whether it’s their children’s health, or their children’s appearance, or their children’s intelligence, along with people who are comfortable using the newest technologies and people who have the money and the chutzpah — the daring — to try and do this,” said R. Alta Charo, a University of Wisconsin professor emerita, lawyer and bioethicist, who’s now consulting with government agencies and private companies.

Tom Still: A new college at UW-Madison focused on AI? Now may be the time

Wisconsin State Journal

What’s so special about being a college versus a school or even a department, which is how computing programs at UW-Madison were structured up until six years ago? It’s not about bragging rights or status, but being able to build business relationships, raise money and more quickly carry out a mission that’s in step with the times.

New UW-Madison lab creates ‘Green Book’ for city’s Black residents

The Cap Times

Launched this spring, The SoulFolk Collective is the first research lab to be housed in UW-Madison’s Department of African American Studies. The group is made up of about a dozen undergraduate and graduate students and is led by Jessica Lee Stovall.

“As a Black studies professor,” Stovall said, “I’ve been really interested in the ways that we can create learning and research environments that are Black affirming, that center Black joy and Black liberation, Black organizing.”

They’re here. They’re queer. They’re farming. New generation of LGBTQ farmers more visible and vocal.

Chicago Tribune

Michaela Hoffelmeyer, an assistant professor of public engagement in agriculture at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, recalled interviewing early-career queer farmers who worried that valuable internships and apprenticeships would place them in hostile work environments or unsafe communities.

Queer farmers may also be forgoing good farmland because they want to avoid harassment, Hoffelmeyer said.

Dane Co. Regional Airport announces new, returning nonstop flights to select UW football games

Channel 3000

Heads up, Badgers fans! The Dane County Regional Airport has announced the return of nonstop flights to select University of Wisconsin-Madison football games.

These flights, as provided by Delta Air Lines, American Airlines, and United Airlines, offer UW football fans to travel to the University of Alabama and University of Oregon.

UW Health pediatric gynecologist connects with patients through social media

Channel 3000

Dr. Katie O’Brien, an assistant professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, has been leveraging social media to bridge the gap between doctor and patient, fostering a more familiar and approachable relationship.

As one of only two specialty-trained pediatric adolescent gynecologists in Wisconsin, Dr. O’Brien dedicates her career to diagnosing and treating common female pelvic conditions. She practices at the Teenage and Young Adult Clinic in Middleton and the UW Health Obstetrics and Gynecology Clinic in Madison.

Rent Smart training helps tenants navigate Wisconsin’s housing crunch

Wisconsin Watch

In an increasingly tough housing market, a University of Wisconsin program seeks to give renters a leg up in their search for safe, affordable housing by educating them about the process and improving their standing with landlords.

Rent Smart, a free, six-module course developed by the University of Wisconsin-Madison Division of Extension, covers the essentials of renting — everything from what’s affordable, what to look for during an apartment inspection and what to ask a landlord while applying.

How the U.S. lost its lead in electric vehicles and other clean energy inventions

The Washington Post

In the 1980s, everything changed. President Ronald Reagan slashed funding for renewables and research and development into solar power. “It was really ideological,” said Greg Nemet, professor of public affairs at the University of Wisconsin at Madison. “They cut the solar budget by 85 percent within a couple of years.”

Can A.I. help revitalize Indigenous languages?

Smithsonian Magazine

Like the Skobot, most new A.I. technologies developed by Native scientists are designed for a specific language community. Jacqueline Brixey, a computer scientist formerly at the University of Southern California and now joining the University of Wisconsin, created a chatbot called “Masheli” that can communicate in Choctaw. Drawing from a collection of animal stories, the chatbot can listen and respond to users in both English and the target language, helping conversational skills.

Instructional software UW-Madison uses now has AI tools. Here’s what to know

Wisconsin State Journal

A software program UW-Madison faculty and students use on a daily basis has added artificial intelligence tools to assist with grading and summarizing discussion posts.

But the university says some of the tools could run afoul of guidance it provides instructors against using AI to automate student feedback.

Gov. Tony Evers says EPA abandons science as it moves to end greenhouse gas regulations

Wisconsin Public Radio

Greg Nemet, a professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, served as a lead author on a United Nations panel report on climate change. He called the move a political change that’s meant to prop up fossil fuels.

“The change seems to be to get rid of that ruling that greenhouse gases are a danger to humans, and there’s certainly no scientific basis for that,” Nemet said. “Over time, there’s just been more and more evidence about how damaging it will be to have a hotter climate.”

‘There’s signs of life’: Wisconsin housing expert analyzes new state data

Wisconsin Public Radio

ales of previously owned homes in Wisconsin rose 8.1 percent in June compared to the same month last year.

That’s according to the Wisconsin Realtors Association’s latest housing report.  Kurt Paulsen, professor of urban planning in the Department of Planning and Landscape Architecture at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, called the sales jump a “mixed signal.”

A banking expert says Trump’s latest Crypto policy could put the whole economy at risk

Inc.

“I am concerned that this legislation, and the broad adoption of stablecoins that it will facilitate, may trigger a crisis at the very heart of the banking system,” writes Mark Copelovitch, a professor of political science and public affairs at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Copelovitch is also the author of “The International Monetary Fund in the Global Economy: Banks, Bonds, and Bailouts” and co-author of “Banks on the Bank: Global Capital, Securities Markets, and the Political Roots of Financial Crises.”

How a Madison doctor is trying to help others find affordable housing

The Cap Times

Henderson brushed off the experience, hoping it was a fluke. But after matching into residency at the University of Wisconsin School of Medicine and Public Health, she overheard a medical student lamenting about their housing struggles and something clicked.

“The lightbulb went off in my head,” Henderson said. “I realized I think this is a nationwide issue and then really started to look into it from there.”

The enduring lessons of wages for housework

The Nation

Emily Callaci’s history of the international feminist movement examines the influence of their intellectual and political victories. The University of Wisconsin–Madison historian describes in “Wages for Housework: The Feminist Fight Against Unpaid Labor,” that modes of protest were part of an emerging, dynamic wave of left-feminist activism.

Callaci’s book marks a significant contribution to the new Wages for Housework literature and serves as a reminder of the campaign’s true aims. Weaving together capsule biographies of five of its founders, it offers a history that reflects Wages for Housework’s global scope and radical ambitions.

Even in Wisconsin, solar energy is booming. But the state lags behind other parts of the US.

Wisconsin Public Radio

Greg Nemet, a professor in the La Follette School of Public Affairs at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, knows this isn’t the first time people have declared the “dawn of the solar age.” People in the 1950s, the 1970s and the early 2000s all declared an imminent solar age, only to see fossil fuels continue to dominate.

Who picks the tissue box patterns? These Grand Chute designers are behind the look of iconic brands

Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

Pete Long, an adjunct professor teaching strategic communication at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, agreed that every aspect of the design, both the graphics and the product, is intentional.

For Kleenex facial tissues, he said limited editions and seasonal graphics are created to help consumers navigate the shelf and ultimately convince them to purchase.

How to design an actually good flash flood alert system

The Verge

And when it comes to warning people about flash floods in particular, experts still stress the need to get warnings to people via every means possible.

That’s why a “Swiss cheese” approach to warning people can be most effective in overcoming that last mile, Chris Vagasky, a meteorologist and manager of the Wisconsin Environmental Mesonet at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, explains. (And it’s similar to an ideology used to prevent the spread of disease.)

“You know you got slices of Swiss cheese and they’ve got holes in them. Nothing is ever perfect. But if you layer enough pieces of cheese, it reduces the risk because something might go through one hole, but then it gets blocked,” Vagasky says. “We always want people to have multiple ways of receiving warnings.”

Water sport or crime? The bitter fight over wave-making boats

The Wall Street Journal

William Banholzer, an engineering professor at the University of Wisconsin, Madison, has been traveling to town meetings arguing research doesn’t support banning the boats. Banholzer, who owns a wakesurfing boat but says that doesn’t affect his conclusions, said studies show about 70% of a wave’s energy is dissipated at around 200 feet.

“If you’re taking my rights away, you better have a preponderance of evidence on your side, and they don’t,” Banholzer said.

Seeking corporate tax insights? Check out the expanded audit report

Forbes

“Regulators introduced expanded audit reporting to increase the usefulness of the audit report to investors by requiring the auditor to discuss the most challenging issues. However, Prior research generally finds that key audit matters do not influence investor perceptions of audited companies,” says Dan Lynch, a professor of accounting at the Wisconsin School of Business.

What does Trump’s budget law mean for Wisconsin taxpayers?

Wisconsin Public Radio

“It’s worth remembering what those [2017] changes were,” said Ross Milton, an assistant professor at the La Follette School of Public Affairs at UW-Madison. “Those were some tax cuts for middle-income households and pretty large tax cuts for high-income households, and those are being extended permanently as part of this new act.”

The UW-Madison professor helping to shape Trump’s economic policies

The Cap Times

As President Donald Trump orders and sometimes rescinds tariffs on countries across the globe this year, one of his top advisers is an economics professor on leave from his job at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

Trump appointed Kim Ruhl in February to his Council of Economic Advisers, a three-member panel that plays a central role in shaping domestic and international economic policy and counselling the president.

Kathleen Gallagher: Wisconsin must seize the moment with fusion energy as power demand soars

Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

Wisconsin and the Great Lakes region have all the pieces to build a fusion industry here. UW-Madison is one of the top two fusion energy research universities in the country (MIT is the other). Amazingly, UW-Madison has spun out three of the world’s 45 fusion companies: SHINE Technologies; Type One Energy and Realta Fusion. And UW-Madison alumni work at all the major U.S. fusion companies that use magnetic (as opposed to laser) plasma containment.