D-INFK news channel

In this interview, two emeriti, Prof. em. Peter Rieder and Carl August Zehnder, talk about how they stay connected to ETH Zurich and how they contribute to society. (German)

Prof. Marc Snir says that systems with exascale performance are likely to be deployed in 2020-​2023. He is involved in several efforts to define the software research agenda for exascale and start executing on it. In his opinion, exascale may be the end of the road, at least for a system using silicon technology. Prof. Hoefler is asking Prof. Snir about his views on high-​performance computing in the next decade. 

Gunnar Rätsch joined the Computer Science Department as a Full Professor of Biomedical Informatics in May 2016. Prior to accepting this position, he was conducting research at the Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center in New York City, NY, USA. Professor Rätsch develops machine learning algorithms for the analysis of biological and medical data. His research will be central in ETH Zurich's initiative for personalized medicine.

Ce Zhang joined the Department of Computer Science as a Tenure Track Assistant Professor on September 1st of 2016. He joins us from his post-​doctoral research at Stanford University, California, USA. His research interests are in the areas of databases, data processing, machine learning and data science. He links conventional areas of databases and information retrieval with new methods of machine learning.

Ankit Singla joined the Department of Computer Science as a Tenure Track Assistant Professor at the beginning of 2016. He joins us fresh from his doctoral research at the University of Illinois, Urbana-​Champaign, USA. His research interests are in the areas of computer networks, including internet architecture and data center networks, with particular regard to the efficiency of networking infrastructures and protocols.

At one of the most important international competitions in text sentiment analysis, two ETH Master’s students designed the most accurate algorithm worldwide. Jan Deriu and Maurice Gonzenbach won the 2016 SemEval text sentiment classification competition, placing first out of 34 teams from all over the world.

According to the European Research Council, its ERC grants “aim to support up-​and-coming research leaders who are about to establish a proper research team and to start conducting independent research in Europe”. Professor Torsten Hoefler has been awarded one of these prestigious grants. His group addresses a fundamental and increasingly important challenge in computer science: how to efficiently program heterogeneous supercomputers with millions of processors of different architectures.

In recognition of his significant contributions to cryptography and information security, Professor Ueli Maurer has been named ACM Fellow. Professor Maurer is also the winner of the prestigious 2016 RSA Award for Excellence in the Field of Mathematics for his work and results in information theoretic-​based cryptography. Many congratulations!

In a world of permanent technological (r)evolution, a country can only succeed if it has relentless drive for new ideas and innovation. Thus, Swiss Federal Councilor Johann Schneider-​Ammann says: "The use of digital solutions is of central importance for every sector of our economy. […] our high-​caliber ICT companies and research establishments enjoy an excellent reputation. I therefore look forward to this great opportunity to showcase our skills in Hanover."

Three internationally renowned Swiss universities – ETH Zurich, EPFL and the University of Zurich – will showcase their research at the CeBIT 2015.

Forming an indispensable tie between technology and a 'smart' energy usage: Conference on Energy Informatics involving participants from Germany, Austria and Switzerland.

In this interview, the CEO of Avaloq discusses his company's recent donation to the Excellence Scholarship & Opportunity Programme of ETH. The company has changed the paradigms in modern banking software and strongly believes in the power of higher education, proving that a business is and can be philanthropic in and of itself.

The renowned European Conference on Computer Vision (ECCV) will be held from September 8-​11, 2014 at the Kongresshaus Zürich and on the ETH premises.

Good companies are hard to find; good people with the highest potential can be even harder. But when both parties get together, then revolutionary things can happen – the kind of things that make a real impact by providing innovative technological solutions for complex challenges that people face around the globe. For years and at different levels of the business, Google and ETH have collaborated closely to achieve the maximum impact and value of their research and innovation.

Software reliability, piracy and tampering are serious and well known threats the world is faced with. Significant attempts have been made to protect software from reverse engineering and tampering. Last week, the Software Reliability Lab at ETH Zurich, headed by Prof. Martin Vechev, released a system called JSNice which makes obfuscated and minified JavaScript code readable again. The system has already been used by more than 34,000 developers in over 140 countries.

New York is the perfect vantage point from which to build dreams, bridge cultures, and advance global citizenship. The festival, a joint project of Switzerland’s Consulate General, the city of Zurich, ETH and the University of Zurich, provides a significant opportunity to strike roots as deep as to yield such potent energy. During eight days, the event will showcase local artistic creations and scientific discoveries, and discuss their impact on American culture.

Prof. Niklaus Wirth, one of the great pioneers of computer technology, has been praised as a designer of programming languages, compilers, operating systems and even hardware, and his research is strongly guided by the constant search for simplicity, clarity and efficiency. The following interview sought not only to highlight Niklaus Wirth’s contemporary views on the latest technological developments, but also to capture, to some degree, the personality of the computer scientist through and through.

In this interview, AdNovum CEO Ruedi Wipf talks about why his company supports ETH’s Excellence Scholarship & Opportunity Program by a donation into ETH Zurich Foundation, why businesses should build bridges to today’s students and what qualities they need to succeed in a technology-​driven 21st century.

In this interview, Professor Donald Kossmann talks about how his research tackles global challenges and what the title of ACM Fellow means to him.

According to ETH's latest gender monitoring report, around 12% of students at D-​INFK are women, while the share of females at ETH level is almost three times higher (30.6%). So, it is vitally important that the department has promotion processes for female students with aspiration, knowledge and skills. I have talked to Christina Poepper and Adrian Altenhoff about the future of the "Frauenfoerderung" (FF).

Every year, the Fritz Kutter fund awards outstanding industry-​related theses in computer science. In 2010, René Müller, a former doctoral student with Prof. Alonso, received this sought-​after prize. Currently based at the IBM Research Center in Almaden, René came over to Zurich on November 22 to take home his "trophy" – a good opportunity to talk to him about his passion for research, visions and how he would make Zurich a better place for IT.

Master's student Simona Constantinescu and her seven fellow students won the first prize in the category Information Processing at the iGEM 2010 with their project “E. lemming”.

Prof. Gustavo Alonso has recently received the VLDB 10 Year Best Paper Award. This award has been established for the author(s) whose paper appeared in the VLDB conference 10 years ago and has had the most impact on database research since then. In the interview, Prof. Alonso talks on the significance of this award and the impact of his remarkable research achievements on society, as well as business and industry.