Research Spotlight


ImageNet is an image dataset organized according to the WordNet hierarchy. Each meaningful concept in WordNet, possibly described by multiple words or word phrases, is called a "synonym set" or "synset". There are more than 100,000 synsets in WordNet, majority of them are nouns (80,000+). In ImageNet, we aim to provide on average 1000 images to illustrate each synset. Images of each concept are quality-controlled and human-annotated. In its completion, we hope ImageNet will offer tens of millions of cleanly sorted images for most of the concepts in...


Given an image, we propose a hierarchical generative model that classifies the overall scene, recognizes and segments each object component, as well as annotates the image with a list of tags. To our knowledge, this is the first model that performs all three tasks in one coherent framework. For instance, a scene of a ‘polo game’ consists of several visual objects such as ‘human’, ‘horse’, ‘grass’, etc. In addition, it can be further annotated with a list of...


Panda (for Provenance and Data) is a new project whose goal is to address some limitations in existing provenance systems. this short paper describes our overall plans for Panda, including: a model that fully integrates data-based and process-based provenance; a set of built-in operators for exploiting provenance after it has been captured; an ad-hoc query language over provenance together with data; supporting the range from fine-grained to coarse-grained provenance; and addressing optimization problems involving eager versus lazy evaluation and...


What kind of tools would you need to make a functional interactive prototype of a media player in 30 minutes? d.tools is a hardware and software system that enables designers to rapidly prototype the bits (the form) and the atoms (the interaction model) of physical user interfaces in concert. d.tools was built to support design thinking rather than implementation tinkering. With d.tools, designers place physical controllers (e.g., buttons, sliders), sensors...


Who will be writing software in the future and how will they be doing it? As computing becomes increasingly important in people's work andhobbies, a much broader range of people are engaging in programming. Understanding and building tools for professional software developers has a long history, but there has been relatively little research on how to support amateur, opportunistic programmers. Professor Scott R. Klemmer's NSF-funded research group at Stanford University is currently studying this problem. So far, they have done fieldwork with exhibit...


Social software – email, blogs, wikis, forums, social networks – has revolutionized how people share expertise and collaborate on the web. However, in rural developing regions, many do not have direct access to Internet-connected PCs or the literacy skills to interact with textual content. How might we design a communications platform for these communities? In our research, we are designing voice-based applications for communities in rural India to access agricultural advice and share expertise, using the mobile phone. The key challenges are...


An artist might spend weeks fretting over questions of depth, scale and perspective in a landscape painting, but once it is done, what's left is a two-dimensional image with a fixed point of view. But the Make3d algorithm, developed by Stanford computer scientists, can take any two-dimensional image and create a three-dimensional "fly around" model of its content, giving viewers access to the scene's depth and a range of points of view.

Upcoming Events

Monday, May 13th

  1. 12:15pm - BIOMEDIN 206: Informatics in Industry: ...
  2. 12:15pm - Symbolic Systems Forum: 1) Jonathan Ty ...
  3. 04:15pm - ICME Colloquium (CME 500): Madeleine U ...
  4. 04:15pm - Special Seminar: Shobha Vasudevan, Dep ...

Tuesday, May 14th

  1. 01:00pm - MobiSocial Seminar: TBA ...
  2. 04:15pm - Lessons in Decision Making: Dr. Mark M ...
  3. 06:00pm - Cafe Scientifique Presents: Philipp Sc ...

Wednesday, May 15th

  1. 09:00am - EE Department Oral Examination: Mehmet ...
  2. 12:00pm - RAIN Seminar: Francis Bloch, Ecole Pol ...
  3. 12:15pm - Computational Logic Seminar - MUGS: TB ...
  4. 12:15pm - Surgical Robotics Seminar: Bob Webster ...
  5. 01:15pm - Evolutionary Genomics Seminar: TBA ...
  6. 04:15pm - Stanford EE Computer Systems Colloquiu ...
  7. 04:30pm - ETL Seminar: Chris Redlitz and Beverly ...

Thursday, May 16th

  1. 12:00pm - Center for Internet and Society (CIS) ...
  2. 12:15pm - Brain CS Reading Seminar: CANCELLED du ...
  3. 12:15pm - Theory Lunch: TBA ...
  4. 01:00pm - EE Department Oral Examination: Krishn ...
  5. 02:00pm - Ph.D. Electrical Engineering Thesis De ...
  6. 04:15pm - ISL Colloquium: Venkat Anantharam, UC ...
  7. 04:15pm - Seminar on Trends in Computing and Com ...
  8. 04:15pm - Stanford Security Seminar: Toby Murray ...
  9. 04:15pm - Theory Seminar: CANCELLED ...
  10. 06:00pm - Product Management Seminar ...

Friday, May 17th

  1. 12:00pm - Center for Internet and Society (CIS) ...
  2. 12:15pm - Software Research Group Lunch: TBA ...
  3. 12:30pm - Stanford Robotics Seminar Series: 1) K ...
  4. 12:50pm - HCI Seminar: Jesse Cirimele, Stanford ...
  5. 12:50pm - Oral Exam Announcement: Jesse Cirimele ...
  6. 05:00pm - Center For The Explanation Of Consciou ...
  7. 06:00pm - ACM Tech Talk: TBA ...

Department Overview

Founded in 1965, the Stanford Computer Science (CS) Department continues to lead the world in computer science research and education. Throughout the past four decades, the Stanford CS Department has influenced society at levels that remain without parallel among academic institutions. Its spin-offs are among the most successful corporate ventures in the world, and many of the leaders in the academic and corporate research world are graduates of the Stanford CS Department.