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Category: Business/Technology

Bomb-sniffing drone technology developed at UW could become nightmare for terrorists

Wisconsin State Journal

The proven detection technology that also can detect chemical and nuclear weapons and drugs was successfully miniaturized and designed to fly on small unmanned aircraft by Fusion Technology Lab graduate students about five months ago, according to Jerry Kulcinski, an emeritus professor of nuclear engineering and the lab’s director.

If you’re a distracted media multitasker, take a few deep breaths to get your focus back

South China Morning Post

Do you text while watching TV, or listen to music while reading? Media multitasking is known to distract people not only when they are doing it, but when they aren’t consuming media – which is detrimental to performance at school or work, for maintaining relationships and for general well-being. A new study by the University of Wisconsin-Madison in the United States shows that a short meditation exercise involving counting one’s breath – inhaling and exhaling nine times – can sharpen one’s focus, and especially so for heavy media multitaskers.

Facebook, Twitter Engagement Done Best at Baylor and UW-Madison

Campus Technology

Want to know how to do Twitter or Facebook right at your institution? You might want to study the practices used by the University of Wisconsin-Madison for the first and Baylor University for the second. Those two institutions have been deemed the “top users” of the those social media sites by Engagement Labs, which develops technology for measuring online social engagement.

Incentives offered to charge up sales of electric vehicles

Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

Noted: Other workplace charging challenge partners in Wisconsin include University of Wisconsin campuses in Madison, Whitewater and Oshkosh, ABB Inc. in Wauwatosa, Evolution Marketing in Oconomowoc, Wisconsin Public Service Corp. of Green Bay, Xcel Energy Inc. of Minnesota (the parent company of Northern States Power), GE Healthcare and Organic Valley Cooperative in Lafarge.

Tech and Biotech: gBETA startups to graduate; finalists chosen for Biz Plan contest; UW2020 projects picked

Wisconsin State Journal

Three items related to UW-Madison — Three UW-Madison spinoffs, using technology patented by the Wisconsin Alumni Research Foundation (WARF), participated in gener8tor’s gBETA spring class. Another was formed by a team of UW-Madison MBA students … One of the gBETA startups, Linectra, is already a contender in a prestigious statewide competition, the Wisconsin Governor’s Business Plan Contest … Fourteen UW-Madison research projects will each get about $300,000 over the next two years as part of the UW2020: WARF Discovery Initiative.

Five gBETA companies to make their debut

Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

Noted: The gBETA program provides free coaching and connections to selected start-ups with ties to any Wisconsin college or university. It is run by gener8tor, which operates start-up accelerators in Madison and Milwaukee, and is supported by the Wisconsin Alumni Research Foundation and American Family Insurance

Controversial debt buyers get a break under new Wisconsin law

Wisconsin Public Radio (via Channel3000.com)

Noted: University of Wisconsin-Madison finance professor Jim Johannes, who testified in favor of the bill, said it standardizes courts’ interpretation of what is required in order to sue.

“It puts a fork in what you need as evidence when you approach the courts in the pleading stage of a case,” he said. “It provides clarity for the courts. Previously, before this the courts could interpret it any way they wanted to.”

Two days and three winners from Transcend Madison

Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

The Steven Burrill Business Plan Competition had an iconic aura on the University of Wisconsin campus. Some of Madison’s most prominent millennial entrepreneurs competed in the contest: Jon Hardin, Matt Howard, Chris Meyer, Nathan Lustig, Troy Vosseller, and Forrest Woolworth. From 2007 to 2013, Burrill Business Plan entrepreneurs raised at least 117M and create at least 290 jobs.

Nine common shopping myths, busted

Christian Science Monitor

Noted: Let’s get philosophical for a minute: Is the best price always the best deal? A recent study from the University of Wisconsin-Madison’s Wisconsin School of Business suggests that shoppers consider a retailer’s reputation as well as its prices. Savvy shoppers will think twice before buying from a less reputable merchant.

Time Capsule: A Photo History of Business Education

Biz Ed

Noted: In 1974, the consortium included Indiana University, the University of North Carolina, the University of Rochester, the University of Southern California, the University of Wisconsin, and Washington University in St. Louis. That year, those six schools graduated 63 black MBA students—more than had graduated from all U.S. business schools combined eight years earlier. This year marks the 50th anniversary of the consortium, which now includes 18 universities that have graduated more than 8,000 MBA students from minority populations.

EatStreet founder to speak at first-ever Technori Milwaukee

Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

Noted: EatStreet, which supplies restaurants with software for handling online orders, is one of the state’s fastest-growing start-ups. Howard and his partners started EatStreet in 2010 when they were students at the Unveristy of Wisconsin-Madison. EatStreet raised $15 million of outside funding in late 2015, saying it planned to add 30 employees to its staff of 110 people.

The Soap Opera has new owners but remains true to its brand

Wisconsin State Journal

Noted: Sean, 32, and Stacey, 29, are both UW-Madison graduates. They met in 2011 and married in 2014, and have taken over a business with a dedicated customer base and a strong stable of employees, one of which has been with the company since 1979. They had been contemplating buying a business for years but when Sean, who works as a broker connecting business owners with potential buyers, began talking with Bauer about the future of the business, the talks ultimately led to the Scannells making an offer.

Monona’s SHINE medical co. approved for Janesville expansion

Channel3000.com

Noted: The founder of the company, Gregory Piefer, studied at UW-Madison. The company performed a national search for places to locate their new facility, but Pitas said keeping the local company in Wisconsin brings the company full circle.

“The idea that work that goes on at the university should help people throughout the state. So, this is a great example of technology coming out of the university and helping people in Janesville with great-paying jobs,” she said.

Also quoted: Richard Steeves, professor emeritus of human oncology.

Plugged in

Isthmus

Quoted: “Medical education and nursing education is really grappling with: ‘How do we train the health professionals of the future to care for the patient and not for the electronic health records?’” says Katharyn May, a professor and the dean of the UW School of Nursing.

Insurance student hopes to help at-risk farmers cope with climate change

Automotive News

Noted: The University of Wisconsin School of Business student has collaborated with Askar Choudhury, James Jones and Raquiba Choudhury of Illinois State University, using an innovative statistical approach to analyze data by finding a trigger point that would initiate payment for crop loss through a simplified, index-based insurance policy. The approach is designed to be less costly than traditional agricultural insurance policies.

Behind the Scenes at SpaceX’s Hyperloop Pod Competition

Popular Science

Noted: Badgerloop, the University of Wisconsin’s largely undergraduate team, laid claim to one of the event’s most impressive booths. Throughout the weekend, team members, who were clad in matching red-and-black polo shirts and khakis, built an Oculus Rift-like headset out of cardboard to help explain their pod’s unique technology to the steady throng around their eye-catching display.

Teachers, UW-Madison game designers collaborate on video games

Daily Cardinal

Noted: Field Day Lab is continuing to develop some of the ideas that were born in the workshop into free, open-sourced video games. The game designers said they aim to further engage students with an interactive learning environment.

“By engaging science teachers right from the start, we want to build games that will actually be used in classrooms,” said David Gagnon, the director of Field Day Lab, in the release. “Too many games languish because they do not fit what teachers want. With the teachers’ help, we want to build them right—right out of the gate.”

This robot changes how it looks depending on your personality

Wired

We’ve already got robot receptionists, who respond to human interactions — now we have a robot that changes how it looks depending on your personality. This robot, designed by Sean Andrist at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, has been developed to respond to ’social gaze’ — essentially the social context in which we look at one another. The robot uses social cues, which it processes via a bespoke algorithm, to figure out what kind of personality you have and respond accordingly.

Students Compete to Change the Future of Transportation

NBC15

Students part of University of Wisconsin’s BadgerLoop are preparing for a national SpaceX competition that challenges them to bring transportation technology to life.

The BadgerLoop team is creating their version of SpaceX’s Hyperloop concept, a new technology that uses air pressures to propel a transportation pod down a tube for fast travel.

UW students compete in global engineering contest

Channel3000.com

(Video) Last year, Space X and Tesla announced an exciting engineering competition for university students. The goal of the competition is to come up with a mode of transportation that is faster, safer, less expensive and more sustainable than planes, cars or trains. A team from the University of Wisconsin is in the competition this year.