Carnegie Mellon Univ, Yahoo together on a mobile toolkit

PITTSBURGH, USA: Yahoo! Inc. and Carnegie Mellon University (CMU) have announced a five-year, $10 million partnership highlighted by a mobile toolkit that will enable CMU researchers to easily experiment with Yahoo's real-time data services, letting them test new ways that machine learning and interface technologies can improve personalized user experiences, as per the announcement.

"We're thrilled to be partnering with the exceptional faculty and students at Carnegie Mellon, which has established itself as a premier institution for machine learning and user interface technologies," said Dr. Ron Brachman, Chief Scientist and Head of Yahoo Labs. "By creating a way for Carnegie Mellon University researchers to work directly with Yahoo software and infrastructure, we hope to speed up the pace of mobile and personalization research and create a better user experience."

The mobile toolkit serves as the infrastructure for a living laboratory for researchers to explore new approaches to understanding human behavior by using machine learning algorithms to more accurately predict user needs and intentions. It is also expected to enable the development of new personalization techniques and interfaces to provide a more compelling user experience. Members of the CMU community who opt-in to use the experimental mobile software will provide researchers access to real user data and the opportunity to rapidly iterate on the technologies, as explained.

The partnership, named Project InMind, also includes a new Yahoo-sponsored fellowship program at CMU. "The InMind program provides unique new opportunities for the outstanding faculty and students at CMU to partner with Yahoo and its talented scientists and engineers to potentially further the frontiers of mobile applications and technologies," said CMU President Dr. Subra Suresh. "This partnership is a clear demonstration, in the tradition of CMU, of how scholarly scientific research combined with industry relevance and perspectives could advance technologies that have a global social impact."

"This is a one-of-a-kind opportunity for our students and faculty to work directly with a team of leading-edge researchers from Yahoo Labs on technologies that could benefit hundreds of millions of mobile users," said Dr. Randal E. Bryant, University Professor and Dean of the School of Computer Science, Carnegie Mellon University.