Featured Interview
Conference Focuses on 'The Mobile Future'
Carnegie Mellon University's West Coast Campus and UC Berkeley's
Fisher IT Center at the Haas School of Business partnered to hold a
conference Tuesday of this week in Santa Clara, CA, on "The Mobile Future: Technology Revolutionizing Our Lives." CT talked with James H.
Morris, dean of CMU West and a professor of computer science, about the
unique conference that brings together both academics and industry
leaders.
CT: Why have CMU West and UC Berkeley's Fisher IT
Center at the Haas School of Business decided to hold a conference
event on “The Mobile Future”?
JM:
As you know,
Carnegie Mellon and UC Berkeley are leading universities in engineering
and technology, and it’s become apparent to us, as well as many people,
that the future of computing and Internet expansion is actually going
to be happening more on mobile devices like cell phones than on
computers like laptops. So, we think that this will be a significant
change for everybody and we wanted to provide useful information for
our friends in Silicon Valley -- for technical managers and
professionals, academics, and investors -- who are trying to stay ahead
of this fast-moving force but in fact in some ways are so much in the
middle of it that they don’t have time to step back for a day and
understand where it’s going to be in several years. (Photo: Jim Morris at The Mobile Future conference)
What types of technologies will the conference be looking at in particular?
The
technologies we’re most interested in are the hardware and especially
the software involved with handheld devices, like the Apple iPhone,
software like Google’s Android system, and lots of infrastructure, such
as the whole cell phone system as it’s provided by the wireless
carriers in this country and other countries. It’s a huge technological
system that is evolving around us, aimed basically at providing
communications facilities for the people of the world.
We are
probably going to be talking mostly about software -- Carnegie Mellon
emphasizes software in computer technology -- but also about new
product ideas that may be supported by that software.