DARPA’s Information Innovation Office (I2O) has issued a new solicitation for “innovative research proposals in the area of social media in strategic communication” that will give rise to “a new science of social networks built on an emerging technology base.” Here’s the overview from the official broad agency announcement: The conditions under which our Armed Forces conduct operations are rapidly changing with the spread of blogs, social networking sites, and media-sharing technology (such as YouTube), and further accelerated by the proliferation of mobile technology. Changes to the nature of conflict resulting from the use of social media are likely to be as profound as those resulting from previous communications revolutions. […]

In the past year, we’ve developed a set of brochures describing fundamental computing research challenges in a few areas of national priority, including healthcare, sustainability (spanning energy, transportation, and environment), and education. These brochures — based entirely on white papers prepared by the research community — are intended to appeal to a broad audience. Browse through them after the jump…

In a public session last Friday, the President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology (PCAST) spent time discussing the future of scientific research in the U.S. — hearing from Keith Yamamoto, Executive Vice Dean of the UCSF School of Medicine, and Venkatesh Narayanamurti, Professor of Technology and Public Policy at Harvard. The pair spoke about an upcoming American Academy of Arts and Sciences’ Study on the Impacts of Federal and Industry Funding of Science, Engineering, and Medicine on American Universities (ARISE II). While much of the discussion centered on the life sciences, there were some interesting points raised about the divide between basic and applied research — as well as the future […]

A few weeks ago, we began highlighting a few of the 107 Computing Innovation Fellows (CIFellows) we’ve had the pleasure of funding. (With support from the NSF, the CIFellows Project was established two years ago to provide recent Ph.D.s in computer science and allied fields exciting one- to two-year opportunities at universities and industrial research labs. A key goal was to retain these bright young graduates in research and teaching during the economic downturn. A total of 60 CIFellows were funded in 2009, followed by 47 others in 2010.) The CIFellows listed below — again, they’re in no particular order — are pursuing groundbreaking computing research in areas like learning, biology, sustainability, and […]

Every year at this time, Microsoft Research recognizes outstanding new faculty members — nominated by their universities as the best and brightest in their fields. This year’s class of Faculty Fellows — with interests spanning economics and game theory, bioelectronics, sustainability, healthcare, computer vision, computer security, etc. — was announced moments ago at the annual MSR Faculty Summit here in Redmond: Maria Florina Balcan Georgia Institute of Technology Assistant Professor School of Computer Science   Maria Florina Balcan is an assistant professor in the School of Computer Science at Georgia Institute of Technology. She received her PhD in Computer Science from Carnegie Mellon University under the supervision of Avrim Blum. From October 2008 until […]

In a post on the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP) Blog today, Deputy Director for Policy Tom Kalil noted the Administration’s keen interest in Big Data — and singled out the CCC’s recent white papers on data analytics: …Researchers in a growing number of fields are generating extremely large data sets, commonly referred to as “Big Data.” For example, the size of DNA sequencing databases is increasing by a factor of 10 every 18 months!  Researchers need better tools to help them store, index, search, visualize, and analyze these data, allowing them to discover new patterns and connections.   Increases in the ability to make predictions and […]