ETH News

The coloured Cube has been around for 50 years. Its inventor, Ern? Rubik, celebrated his 80th birthday this year. At the invitation of the ETH Department of Mathematics, he spent some time in Zurich to discuss the fascination of the Rubik¡¯s Cube with researchers, students and children.

When Kiril Vasilev started his Master's in Data Science at ETH Zurich, he was taken aback by the intensity of the workload. In the latest episode of the "Student Stories" series, he shares how he adapted to this demanding new routine.

At its meeting of 18 and 19 September 2024 and upon application of Jo?l Mesot, President of ETH Zurich, the ETH Board appointed fifteen professors. The Board also awarded the title of "Professor of Practice" once.

Machine learning, AI and new technologies are rapidly changing industry. The CAS ETH in AI and Software Development is aimed at managers who want to make better informed decisions for their companies. It is part of the new MAS in AI and Digital Technology.

Rasmus Kyng has written the near-perfect algorithm. It computes the maximum transport flow at minimum cost for any kind of network ¨C be it rail, road or electricity ¨C at a speed that is, mathematically speaking, impossible to beat.

ETH¡¯s outstanding reputation attracts top-flight researchers from all over the world. This pool of talent makes Zurich a major draw for global companies such as Microsoft.

Monitoring and treating a case of multiple sclerosis requires reliable and long-term data on how the disease is progressing in the person in question. Fitness trackers and smartphones can supply this data, as a research team led by ETH Zurich has now shown.

Artificial intelligence is transforming the way in which art is created and experienced. Are we at the beginning of a new artistic revolution? Or at the end of creativity as we know it? Adrian Christopher Notz puts things in perspective.

Juraj Hromkovic has been Professor of Information Technology at ETH Zurich for the past 20 years. During this time, he has been a leading advocate of teaching computer science in schools. He¡¯s now giving his farewell lecture.

Public cloud services employ special security technologies. Computer scientists at ETH Zurich have now discovered a gap in the latest security mechanisms used by AMD and Intel chips. This affects major cloud providers.

Researchers at ETH Zurich have developed a smartphone app that can be used to check the authenticity of documents and other items. Extracts from the debt enforcement register of the City of Zurich are being made forgery-proof as part of a pilot project.

ETH spin-off Scanvio is developing an algorithm that can be used to analyse ultrasound images of the womb on an automated basis. This should enable doctors to diagnose endometriosis more quickly in the future.

Researchers from ETH Zurich and KUNO Klinik St. Hedwig in Regensburg have developed an algorithm that provides an automatic and reliable method of detecting a certain heart defect in newborns.

Studying at ETH Zurich is demanding, and all students have their own personal hurdles to overcome. This video series portrays ETH students.

Studying at ETH Zurich is demanding, and all students have their own personal hurdles to overcome. This video series portrays ETH students.

Computer pioneer Niklaus Wirth died on 1 January 2024, just weeks before his 90th birthday. The long-serving ETH Professor of Computer Science achieved world fame by developing the Pascal programming language in the 1970s. In 1984, he became the only German-speaking computer scientist yet to have received the Turing Award, which is regarded as the Nobel Prize for computer science.

Raphael Steiner received his doctorate in mathematics at the age of 21. Now the Swiss National Science Foundation is funding his research at ETH Zurich in the field of graph theory. Among other things, this involves proving a conjecture that is over 80 years old.

At its meeting of 6 and 7 December 2023 and upon application of Jo?l Mesot, President of ETH Zurich, the ETH Board appointed twelve professors and awarded the title "Professor of Practice" once. ?

Warfare is increasingly spreading to the realm of cyberspace. In response, the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) wants to protect its digital infrastructure and that of humanitarian organisations with a digital emblem. The Information Security Group at ETH Zurich has developed a standard for this along with initial pilots.

Of the 13 scientists receiving an SNSF Starting Grant for projects at ETH Zurich this year, 11 are women.

Experts from ETH Zurich, the University of Zurich, and the University Hospital Zurich have used machine learning to jointly create an innovative method. This new approach can predict how individual cells react to specific treatments, offering hope for more accurate diagnoses and therapeutics.

Studying at ETH Zurich is challenging, and all students have their personal hurdles to overcome. This video series shows personal portraits of ETH students.

At its meeting of 20 and 21 September 2023 and upon application of Jo?l Mesot, President of ETH Zurich, the ETH Board appointed five professors and awarded the title of professor three times.

With its ability to write text and generate images, artificial intelligence is making inroads into many areas of life. Perceived as threatening, enriching or just plain gimmicky, AI also raises a fundamental question: what is it that makes us human?

ETH Zurich professors Mustafa Khammash and Marc Pollefeys are each recipients of a prestigious Advanced Grant currently awarded by the Swiss National Science Foundation, rather than the European Research Council.

Large language models such as GPT-3 are able to learn new concepts by interacting with their users. Researchers at ETH and Google may now have uncovered a key mechanism behind this capability.

At its meeting of 12 and 13 July 2023 and upon application of Jo?l Mesot, President of ETH Zurich, the ETH Board appointed ten professors.

Today, the latest animated film Elemental from Walt Disney Studios and Pixar Animation Studio is released in Swiss cinemas. The film revolves around the fiery Ember, who lives in Element City ¨C a place where fire, water, earth and air beings live. The film is not only made in Hollywood, but also enabled by ETH technology.

John von Neumann was one of the most important mathematicians and computer pioneers of the 20th century ¨C and an ETH alumnus. He began his studies in chemistry here one hundred years ago. ETH Professor Benjamin Sudakov pays tribute to a mathematical legacy at a symposium.

In theory, quantum computers vastly outperform classical computers in terms of computing speed. For them to do so in practice, it is necessary to design more and novel high-speed algorithms, says ETH supercomputing specialist Torsten Hoefler. ?

At its meeting of 24 and 25 May 2023 and upon application of Jo?l Mesot, President of ETH Zurich, the ETH Board appointed nine professors and awarded the title of professor twice. At the same time, the Board also bid farewell to nine professors and thanked them for their service.

Quazel*, a spin-off from ETH Zurich, has launched a language learning app that uses artificial intelligence (AI) to engage users in conversations. The AI tutor adapts to the users' language skills and corrects their mistakes.

Researchers from ETH Zurich created a new open-source platform and programming language called LMQL. This programming language makes it easier, cheaper, and safer to interact with large language models like ChatGPT.

Psychologist Verena Zimmermann joins computer scientists Joachim Buhmann and Elgar Fleisch to discuss whether our feelings can be measured, what role they play in human-machine interactions, and the use of smart technologies.

In an open letter, tech luminaries from the worlds of science and industry are calling for a freeze on training new AI models that are more powerful than GPT-4. ETH AI experts Andreas Krause and Alexander Ilic from the ETH Zurich AI Center consider this to be difficult to enforce and associated with risks. ?

At its meeting of 8 and 9 March and upon application of Jo?l Mesot, President of ETH Zurich, the ETH Board appointed 14 professors and awarded the title of professor five times. At the same time, the Board also bid farewell to three professors and thanked them for their service.

What is it like to study computer science at ETH? 33 female high school students attended a one-week taster course in February to find out.

Artificial intelligence seems to be on the rise ¨C and not just in the headlines. Florian von Wangenheim from ETH Zurich¡¯s Chair of Technology Marketing and researcher at the ETH AI Center explains this trend in a short interview.

The LOOP Zurich research centre is creating a central platform for the exchange of health data between the University of Zurich, ETH Zurich and the four university hospitals. This will allow data to be utilised quickly and easily to the benefit of patients.?

New research offers potential benefits for those affected by the hereditary metabolic disease methylmalonic aciduria. By combining the results of multiple molecular analyses, scientists can better diagnose this rare and severe disease. In the future, an improved understanding of the disease might also improve treatment options.

Are we witnessing the rise of a different, adaptive artificial intelligence (AI) that works with humans and supports them with smart decisions? Computer scientist Niao He is investigating how this kind of AI can be theoretically underpinned so that it really does provide benefits.

Elvis Nava teaches robots to carry out oral and written commands. To this end, he sends them to ¡°training camps¡± where they learn to combine image, text and motion data.

We posed this question to ETH Zurich researchers. In return, we got five intriguing answers from the perspectives of biomedicine, computer science, biology, robotics and philosophy.

The LOOP Zurich research center combines expertise from ETH Zurich, the University of Zurich and the four university hospitals in Zurich with the aim of developing more personalized therapies. Two new projects supported by The LOOP Zurich target urinary tract infections and obesity respectively.

IEEE Computer Society honours ETH Zurich professor, Torsten Hoefler with the Sidney Fernbach Memorial Award for his pioneering contributions to large-scale parallel processing systems and supercomputers. The ideas and software professor Hoefler and his group developed are actively used by tens of thousands of scientists today to power large-scale scientific simulations and artificial intelligence systems.

Autonomous virtual humans that move and behave naturally are Siyu Tang¡¯s vision. One area from which the computer scientist draws inspiration are our behavioural patterns. Collaboration with architects and surgeons provides further input ¨C and it also reveals the enormous potential of virtual people.

Game developers from the ETH Game Technology Center have created an app that explains bone remodelling in a playful way. If students point the camera of their mobile device at the textbook, they find themselves transported to the bone¡¯s surface, where they help cells break down bone tissue.

The Venture Awards for Swiss start-ups were presented yesterday evening for the 25th time. In addition to the three certified ETH spin-offs DeepJudge, Kaspar& and Versics, the 15 winners included five other start-ups founded by ETH students and alumni.

A team of cryptographers at ETH Zurich conducted extensive testing on the New Zealand-based cloud platform Mega. In doing so, they discovered security holes that would allow the provider to decrypt and manipulate customer data.

Did you miss an important moment? ETH Zurich researchers have developed a system that can record and later replay events in a room in 3D.

Four researchers from ETH Zurich have been awarded a Consolidator Grant from the European Research Council (ERC). Since Switzerland is no longer fully associated, they will receive the approximately eight million francs in research funding from the State Secretariat for Education, Research and Innovation (SERI).

Cookie consent banners only appear to give users control over their data. So researchers at ETH Zurich have developed a browser extension that uses machine learning to recognise and block unnecessary cookies.

At its meeting of 9 and 10 March 2022 and upon application of Jo?l Mesot, President of ETH Zurich, the ETH Board appointed ten professors and awarded the title of professor twice. ?

Soon, internet users will be able to meet each other in cyberspace as animated 3D avatars. Researchers at ETH Zurich have developed new algorithms for creating virtual humans much more easily.

When working with neural networks, their training is the single most resource-demanding and costly process. Scientists at the ETH Zurich have now developed a software that considerably speeds up training. This will be especially relevant for scientific applications of future users of ¡°Alps¡± at CSCS.

In the last application process for the sought-after ERC Starting Grants, the European Research Council made 11 awards to ETH researchers worth about CHF 17 million. Due to Switzerland¡¯s non-association, however, the researchers will not receive these grants. The funds will now be provided by the State Secretariat for Education, Research and Innovation (SERI).

Collaboration between talented members of multidisciplinary teams provides the best foundation for innovative, useful and trustworthy applications of artificial intelligence. This approach has been demonstrated at a joint event by ETH Entrepreneur Club and the ETH AI Center.

An international research team whose members include an ETH Zurich professor has revealed a vulnerability in the security architecture of Intel processors. Until July, Microsoft and Google products were also affected.

ETH and the Max Planck Institute for Intelligent Systems are intensifying their partnership to promote doctoral candidates and research: ETH professors Otmar Hilliges, Thomas Hofmann, Andreas Krause and Klaas P. Pr¨¹ssmann are new Max Planck fellows in T¨¹bingen and Stuttgart.

For a long time, the development of quantum computers was concerned with theoretical and hardware aspects. But as the focus shifts towards programming, software and security issues, the classical computer sciences are coming back into play.

Torrential rain and flooding have dominated the weather over the past few weeks. To forecast these weather events with greater accuracy and gain a better understanding of them against the backdrop of global climate change, ETH Zurich and partners are developing a new generation of high-resolution weather and climate models.

An international research team of cryptographers completed a detailed security analysis of the popular Telegram messaging platform identifying several weaknesses in its protocol that demonstrate the product falls short of some essential data security guarantees.

This summer, students from ETH Zurich will test various technologies on the Limmat for the automatic removal of waste. The Autonomous River Cleanup project is starting with rivers to tackle the global problem of marine pollution.

Artificial intelligence and machine learning are key technologies for science, business, and society ¨C but how transparent are their decisions? Andreas Krause, the 2021 recipient of the R?ssler Prize and Chair of the ETH AI Center, shares his thoughts on the opportunities and challenges with trustworthy artificial intelligence.

Next week, the first European Girls¡¯ Olympiad in Informatics will take place in Zurich. The competition, which will have around 160 participants from 43 countries, is being organised by ETH students, who also came up with the original idea and are the driving force behind the event.

How do you teach machines to learn for themselves and support people? Andreas Krause is one of Europe¡¯s leading machine learning researchers. His approaches combine mathematical elegance with a sense of social responsibility. He has now been awarded the R?ssler Prize, ETH Zurich¡¯s most generous research award.

ETH Zurich is launching a new Centre for Augmented Computational Design in Architecture, Engineering and Construction, known as Design++. 22 professorships from multiple departments are joining forces to develop digitally augmented design tools with a view to improving the efficiency and sustainability of construction.

ETH Zurich is committed to getting children interested in science and technology. For example, students from ETH Zurich and PHGR (University of Teacher Education Graub¨¹nden) jointly trained children for the robotics competition entitled "First Lego League". Two teams made it to the finals, one of which was received by ETH Rector Sarah Springman for a visit.

Fewer typing errors when touching a smartphone keyboard: ETH Computer scientists have developed a new AI solution that enables touchscreens to sense with eight times higher resolution than current devices. Thanks to AI, their solution can infer much more precisely where fingers touch the screen.

When a person taps with their fingers, each finger generates a different vibration profile propagating to the wrist through bones. ETH Zurich researchers have now leveraged this discovery in the development of a dual-sensor wristband that brings intuitive free-hand interaction to virtual productivity spaces.

After finding a vulnerability in certain credit cards for the first time last year, ETH researchers have now found a way to outsmart the PIN codes for other payment cards.

As part of a clinical study involving patients from the University Hospitals in Zurich and Basel, researchers are conducting a thorough and highly precise investigation into the molecular and functional properties of tumours. Their goal is to help physicians to better determine which treatment will best match every patient¡¯s cancer and thus be most effective.

The ETH researchers behind LatticeFlow are aiming to facilitate a new generation of trustworthy artificial intelligence (AI).

An interdisciplinary research team from ETH Zurich is developing the Nexus-e modelling platform in a project supported by the Swiss Federal Office of Energy. The platform facilitates the analysis of how technological, economic and regulatory developments affect the energy system of the future.

Quantum research has long since ceased to be an exclusive domain of physics. The purpose of the new ETH Quantum Center is to ensure ETH Zurich¡¯s various competences and activities in this area are networked even more closely and to raise their public profile.

The Engineering Humanitarian Aid initiative, officially launched on 10 December 2020, will harness the expertise of Switzerland's two federal institutes of technology to benefit humanitarian aid programs. The effort will focus on the areas of energy and the environment, data sciences and digital technologies, and personalized health and related technologies.

Seven ETH researchers can look forward to generous funding for their projects: the European Research Council (ERC) has approved a total amount of around 15 million Swiss francs. ?

The Graphische Sammlung opened a new exhibition on 9 December. What makes this latest exhibition special is its integration with an augmented reality app for mobile phones and tablets, which allows visitors to interact with the artwork on display.

Database systems are under pressure to become more and more powerful. But reliability seems to be suffering as a result. Now, ETH computer scientists have developed a tool to automatically detect logic errors in database systems using three different methods. They found and reported over 450 unique, previously unknown bugs.

ETH Zurich is opening a new research centre for artificial intelligence. A core team of initially 29 professorships, a new executive director and a Fellowship programme aim to promote interdisciplinary research into this key technology.

We want to make sure our phones no longer disturb us at the wrong moment. To achieve this, we first have to better understand where our attention lies when using smartphones. Computer scientists at ETH have now developed a system that records eye contact with the display in everyday situations for the first time. Sociologists and medical experts could also benefit from this.

From Alexa and Siri to translation programs and computer-generated news, anything seems possible these days.The Media Technology Center is searching for applications that could lend a hand with day-to-day editorial work.

Leading AI researchers from 30 top institutions across Europe are joining forces to form the European AI network ELLIS. Today, it celebrates its launch, with ETH Zurich as a founding member. The ETH Zurich ELLIS Unit is set on establishing the foundations for reliable and trustworthy artificial intelligence.

A bioethicist and a neuroinformatics scientist discuss how machines are becoming more intelligent and why the advances in technology are leading to new ethical challenges.

Artificial intelligence is having a growing impact on our daily lives and is also revolutionising research. ETH Zurich recognises its responsibility in this area and is striving to promote innovation and trust in this fast-evolving technology.

Using algorithms to analyse the whole-genome sequence of a tumour can make treatment more successful ¨C and can even help determine how cells become cancerous.

How do you calculate the coordinated movements of two robot arms so they can accurately guide a highly flexible tool? ETH researchers have integrated all aspects of the optimisation calculations into an algorithm. The hot-wire cutter will be used, among other things, to develop building blocks for a mortar-free structure.

A PIN code is usually required at the checkout when paying large sums by credit card. ETH researchers have now discovered a flaw in the security system of some credit cards.

In the ETH-Podcast the two computer scientists Julia Vogt and Fanny Yang talk about what drew them to their field and why machines will never replace human beings in the medical field.

Making tumours visible so that surgeons can cut only as much as necessary: this is the goal of an invention by chemical biologists Helma Wennemers and Matthew Aronoff. For their achievement they have received the Spark Award, with which ETH recognises the most innovative invention with the most commercial potential of the past year.

Several technical advances have been achieved recently in the pursuit of powerful quantum computers. Now, Computer scientists from ETH Zurich have made an important breakthrough in the field of programming languages: their quantum language is the first of its kind that is as elegant, simple and safe as classical computer languages.

Climate change hasn¡¯t been hitting the headlines quite as much in recent months ¨C but that¡¯s not because the situation has improved. ETH Zurich researchers Lynn Kaack and David Dao spoke to the ETH Podcast back in March about how we can use AI to help in the fight against climate change.

Moving images in the newspaper as in Harry Potter, or digital weather forecasts in the Bern dialect? New media technology is transforming journalism. The Media Technology Center at ETH Zurich supports media companies on their path to the future.

Trading in digital currencies such as Bitcoin or Ether has become an established practice but using them as a payment means is still a slow process. ETH Professor Srdjan Capkun and his team have now developed a system that makes cryptocurrency payments secure, fast and practical.

Markus Gross is convinced that there are better technologies available than today's video conference systems. The key technology is developing at a rapid pace ¨C but not fast enough.

Clothes often have patterns that don¡¯t transition nicely at the seams. Katja Wolff, a PhD student at the Interactive Geometry Lab of ETH Zurich, has developed an algorithm that automatically aligns textile prints along seams.

Numerous factors affect the spread of coronavirus. To better predict the progression of the epidemic, researchers at ETH Zurich and the University of California, Los Angeles have started a ¡°datathon¡±. Participants from around the globe are called on to develop models based on publicly accessible data.

Researchers at ETH Zurich and Bern University Hospital have developed a method for predicting circulatory failure in patients in intensive care units ¨C enabling clinicians to intervene at an early stage. Their approach uses machine learning methods to evaluate an extensive body of patient data.

ETH Meets Davos during the World Economic Forum¡¯s Annual Meeting 2020 with ?"Rethinking Creativity" - an interactive exhibition featuring five new prototypes that? show how creativity plays an essential role in scientific and technological innovation.

Security in the digital world is nowhere near as tight as we tend to think, which is why ETH researchers are looking to develop a fundamentally new security architecture for data exchange that people can trust. A donation from the Werner Siemens Foundation is helping to finance the project.