At a recent Naval STEM conference sponsored by the Office of Naval Research (ONR), U.S. Secretary of the Navy Ray Mabus said,  “I have committed to doubling the Navy’s investment in STEM education over the next five years… We are going to double it in a targeted and innovative way so that we reach the maximum number of people and have the maximum impact.” The secretary used his keynote to introduce a roadmap aimed at renewing the Navy’s focus on providing educational opportunities for future naval scientists and engineers — ultimately increasing total dollars committed to STEM education initiatives to more than $100 million by 2015. As part of the roadmap, […]

For those of you in the Washington, DC, area, the NSF is hosting a series of talks about trustworthy computing. It’s called the Washington Area Trustworthy Computing Hour (WATCH): Today we are regularly obliged to trust a cyberinfrastructure that is in fact untrustworthy. Transforming today’s infrastructure into one that can meet society’s growing demands is major national challenge and opportunity. Meeting the challenge requires not only technical advances in the fabric of computing and communication but also improved understanding of how individuals and organizations comprehend and use technology, how economic and policy incentives can affect adoption of new technology, and how to develop human-centered systems that can serve users with different […]

Today I attended a panel discussion on “The Role of the Cloud in the Smart Grid”, sponsored by Microsoft’s Innovation & Policy Center and the Digital Energy Solutions Campaign (DESC). The discussion — which featured leading government and industry officials — ranged widely from privacy implications to efficiency benefits, but there were a few key takeaway points that impressed me: Smart grids will empower consumers with real-time feedback about the services for which they are paying. Wired Magazine ran an article over the weekend discussing how feedback about our electricity habits (among other things) can help reshape behavior, conserve energy, and improve efficiency. As high-consumption items like electric cars become more […]

Late last month, DARPA’s Information Innovation Office (I2O) issued a solicitation calling for research proposals that “investigate innovative approaches that enable revolutionary advances in science, devices, or systems.” Among the focus areas (emphasis added): Understand: Change is pervasive and accelerating throughout all aspects of human, world and military affairs, bringing with it both opportunities and threats. Examples of threats include emerging regional peer rivals, rogue and failed nation-states, insurgent groups, militant/radicalized populations, transnational terrorist organizations and criminal enterprises, and new classes of cyber-human-physical threats. Military success requires understanding threat capabilities, intentions, and activities as well as local human, social, cultural, and behavioral factors. I2O seeks to enable this understanding through […]

What subject do high school students dislike the most? My bet is math — it’s confusing, abstract, and requires meticulous attention to detail. But at it’s heart, math is an exciting tool to grapple with otherwise unsolvable problems and ideas. The first time someone explained integrals to me, I couldn’t help but be amazed. Bret Victor is a self-described Technology Hobo (seriously, that’s what he calls himself) who wants to change the way we interact with math. His project, Kill Math, seeks to change the way students see math by incorporating new technology to transform the abstract, like equations, into corporeal, intuitive and interactive visualizations. Bret sees technology as the […]

Remember the electronic reservation system that you used to book your summer vacation this year? Well, in all likelihood, it was powered by information technology from ITA Software — the 450-person, Cambridge, MA-based company that was recently bought by Google for $700 million. ITA Software’s innovative travel tool — QPX — powers some of the world’s leading travel websites, including those of Orbitz and Travelocity, as well as United, American, Southwest, and Alaska Airlines. At the recent “Computation and the Transformation of Practically Everything” symposium commemorating MIT’s 150th anniversary celebration, ITA Software’s co-founder and President & CEO Jeremy Wertheimer described the history of travel technology, delving into the staggering complexity of finding and […]