BERKELEY – The University of California, Berkeley, is teaming up with Yahoo Research Labs to launch a new laboratory to explore innovations in areas such as Internet search technology, social media and mobile media.
The founding director of the Yahoo Research Labs-Berkeley, which opens at
a location near campus in August, will be Marc Davis, an assistant professor
at UC Berkeley's School of Information Management and Systems (SIMS), where
he is the director of the school's cutting-edge "Garage Cinema Research"
group that focuses on creating the technology and applications that will enable
daily media consumers to become daily media producers. Davis is also a co-founder
of UC Berkeley's interdisciplinary Center for New Media.
Yahoo Research Labs-Berkeley is a first-of-its-kind partnership between a top
public university and a leading Internet company to conduct research and explore
new technologies that will support and reinforce key areas of Internet growth.
One area will be search technology. Another will be social media, such as photos,
video, music, audio and text, that are obtained from personal, public or community
sources and then shared, referenced or remixed in ways that help foster social
relations. Yet another area will be mobile media, involving mobile devices such
as camera phones.
The partnership offers Yahoo access to UC Berkeley's intellectual capital,
leadership and innovation, and provides UC Berkeley the ability to do new kinds
of research with Yahoo and its hundreds of millions of users on a massive scale
generally unavailable in academic settings, Davis said.
An added bonus, he said, is that UC Berkeley's lab researchers will be able
to work simultaneously with Yahoo's product experts.
"Working with Yahoo's innovative scientists, engineers, designers and
users, we will do research and create technology that combine understanding
context with the power of communities, enabling us to have an even greater impact
in reaching and benefiting Internet users around the world," said Davis.
He predicted that the collaboration will help establish UC Berkeley as the
global leader in academic research at the intersection of media, technology
and people. "By working together, Yahoo and UC Berkeley will change the
future of Internet media for millions of people around the world," said
Davis.
Plans call for involving other UC Berkeley faculty and students too, as the
partnership selects specific research projects and moves forward.
Jeff Weiner, Yahoo's senior vice president for search and the marketplace,
said the collaboration offers great opportunities to expand the scope of the
company's research into social media, mobile media and search technology.
He said that the research area that Davis oversees represents a great example
of relevant and innovative applications enabled by the intersection of social
and mobile media. Yahoo is looking forward to the partnership to further the
company's research and development, Weiner said, and to build the next generation
of search applications and core technologies "that will enable people to
find, use, share and expand information and content, no matter where they are."
"When you bring together the world's leading Internet company and one
of the world's top academic institutions, the possibilities are endless,"
said Usama Fayyad, Yahoo's senior vice president and chief data officer.
AnnaLee Saxenian, dean of SIMS, called Yahoo Research Labs-Berkeley "an
exciting and open framework for collaboration" that provides research possibilities
not possible at UC Berkeley alone, largely because of the huge investments required
in terms of equipment and technology.
"The lab offers unique opportunities for SIMS faculty and students, who
bring a mix of social, technical and design capabilities to the challenge of
developing new information systems and content," she added.
An advisory committee of Yahoo and UC Berkeley representatives will oversee
the partnership. The UC Berkeley Industry Alliances Office will oversee the
administrative components of the agreement for faculty, students and staff.
The lab is an investment in fundamentally new ways of doing research that will
result in the creation of "sociotechnical" systems, Davis said. These
systems "intimately connect people, media and technology together on a
large scale in order to address new challenges and opportunities that neither
people nor machines can solve alone," he said. "How hundreds of millions
of people will communicate, create, play and learn together on the future internet
can be influenced by the research we will do at Yahoo Research Labs-Berkeley,"
said Davis.
The partnership is initially set to operate for five years.
Davis will be on leave for the next academic year while running the lab.
Dana Bostrom, associate director of the Industry Alliances Office, characterized
Yahoo Research Labs-Berkeley as of one of various types of collaborations that
UC Berkeley has undertaken with industrial partners. Bostrom noted that Yahoo's
investment in a facility near campus is unusual, and demonstrates a strong desire
for collaboration.
The framework of the UC Berkeley and Yahoo pact gives all parties certain rights
to intellectual property developed in the lab, and "provides an exclusive,
time-limited option so that Yahoo will have first crack at what is developed
in the new research facility," she said.
Bostrom said that most intellectual property developed at the lab will be shared
jointly between UC Berkeley and Yahoo.
The university has a wide range of research interests and capabilities, she
said, and the partnership does not preclude UC Berkeley from entering into new
agreements with other companies. But Bostrom said UC Berkeley is eager to work
with companies that value interactions with its faculty and students, and sees
such collaborations as important in extending its missions of education and
public service.
