Category: Business/Technology

U.S. patent No. 5,781,752 may not sound special: It’s a “table based data speculation circuit for parallel processing computer.” But for the Wisconsin Alumni Research Foundation — the research arm of the University of Wisconsin-Madison — it’s now worth half a billion dollars.

MADISON, Wis. – A deal for a major tech company to come to Wisconsin could be imminent, according to reports.

A video game about exploring the cosmos that a University of Wisconsin-Madison institution developed is up for a national award for educational games.

UW-Madison researchers are trying to root out race bias and other unfairness that has surfaced in computer programs used increasingly by private companies and government offices to decide if you are hired, approved for a bank loan or sent to prison.

If the Regents of the University of California and the California Institute of Technology see big paydays in their fight against tech bigwigs, could that further fuel the university patent boom?

The panelists also addressed the nagging problem of the “valley of death” in funding startups in Wisconsin. While the seed round is relatively easy to raise, many startups struggle to get additional investment beyond that stage.

“There is a real regional strength here in the state. You look at what comes out of UW-Madison, -Milwaukee, the other institutions here—there’s a lot going on,” Arida said. “There’s not a lot of follow-one capital. There has been a disproportionate surge in seed investing relative (to later stage investment).”

A federal judge on Tuesday rejected Apple’s request to overturn a jury’s finding that the company must pay $234 million in damages to the Wisconsin Alumni Research Foundation (WARF) for infringing on a patent held by the foundation, according to a statement from WARF and multiple news reports.

Noted: April McHugh is a career and educational counselor for the Division of Continuing Studies at UW-Madison.

Red Arrow American Pale Ale became available in stores May 1, and in just a few short weeks is nearly sold out.  The high demand shows that the UW-Madison Fermentation Sciences Program (Campus Craft Brewery) has met its educational goals, while its partner, Wisconsin Brewing Company has exceeded its commercial goals.

The project was among the projects to recently win funding from UW2020, an initiative backed by the Wisconsin Alumni Research Foundation to provide resources for innovative academic research.According to Jeremy Morris, the communications professor who launched PodcastRE, the project is saving cultural artifacts that are at risk of being lost. Unlike film reels or canvas paintings, podcasts are not vulnerable to decay, fire, humidity or mold. The threat they face is simply getting deleted from a server.

Computer scientists and dairy experts at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and the UW Extension are collaborating to create a suite of computer programs that can help with dairy farming — a “virtual brain” that uses artificial intelligence to help farmers with day-to-day decision-making.

Competition for an acceptance letter from the Wisconsin School of Business is already high—the college is one of the top 30 business schools in the nation, according to Businessweek’s 2016 rankings.

Members of Congress were at UW-Madison Thursday to discuss the future of the economy.

The company also hires 50 to 60 college students a year in a nine-month cooperative program with UW-Madison and several other universities, in which the students earn school credit for their paid employment.

Since FluGen was founded in 2007 — based on the research of UW-Madison scientists Yoshihiro Kawaoka and Gabriele Neumann — the company has raised $22 million from investors and has received $13 million in federal funds.