News

WNCG students Marius Facktor and Abhinau Venkataramanan and WNCG alumnus Praful Gupta from Prof. Al Bovik’s Laboratory for Image & Video Engineering (LIVE) have been named Phase 2 winners in the Enhancing Computer Vision for Public Safety Challenge. The challenge is hosted by the Public Safety Communications Research Division of the National Institute of Standards and Technology. The competition aims to support public safety missions by advancing computer vision algorithms and no-reference (NR) metrics that assess image or video quality.

The spring semester is in full swing, and as WNCG continues on the forefront of research, the group has welcomed a new director. Professor Constantine Caramanis began his three-year term as WNCG Director at the start of the new calendar year. Prior to that, he served as the group’s associate director. With Caramanis stepping into the new role, Professor Alex Dimakis was chosen among WNCG faculty to serve as associate director. WNCG’s leadership system allows the associate director to learn the ropes over the course of the term before serving their own term as director. 

Envision an early cubist painting by the famous artist Pablo Picasso. To the untrained eye, the painting can look like a jumbled series of boxes overlapping and intertwining with each other. But the art of cubism is about exploring the world from multiple perspectives. The painting, which at first looks like boxes, is actually a city seen from multiple perspectives.

The Texas Wireless Summit (TWS) is a unique event that brings the high profile of a world-class conference right to UT Austin’s front door. Hosted by WNCG, TWS offers direct access to cutting-edge research and innovations from industry leaders, academics, investors and startups. The 14th annual TWS saw record high attendance with nearly 300 participants consisting of academics, industry partners, business leaders, researchers and students from across the world.