The Computing Community Consortium’s (CCC) is excited to release a report titled Quantification, Communication, and Interpretation of Uncertainty in Simulation and Data Science, the result of the Uncertainty in Computation Visioning Workshop, which was held in Washington DC in mid October.  The workshop brought together over 40 scientists from different disciplines including simulation and data science, engineering, statistics, applied mathematics, visualization, decision science and psychology. The overarching goal of the workshop was to open a discussion between experts with diverse scientific backgrounds about the topic of uncertainty/risk and its communication. Workshop participants identified significant shortcomings in the ways we currently process, present, and interpret uncertain data. Specific recommendations on a research agenda for the future were […]

The National Academies Forum on Cyber Resilience, which held their inaugural meeting last April, met again last week in Washington, DC. At the open session, Federal Trade Commission (FTC) Commissioner Julie Brill spoke about Security, Privacy, and the Internet of Things. The mission of the FTC is to “prevent business practices that are anticompetitive or deceptive or unfair to consumers; to enhance informed consumer choice and public understanding of the competitive process; and to accomplish this without unduly burdening legitimate business activity.” In terms of privacy and data security, Commissioner Brill stated that, at this point in time, the FTC has already handled 40 privacy cases and 60 security cases, including the Fandango and Credit Karma cases in […]

The organizing committee for the Research Interfaces between Brain Science and Computer Science (BRAIN) have released their workshop report. This two-day workshop, sponsored by the Computing Community Consortium (CCC), brought together brain researchers and computer scientists for a scientific dialogue aimed at exposing new opportunities for joint research in the many exciting facets, established and new, of the interface between the two fields. Videos of the workshop presentations as well as the presentation slides are posted on the workshop website in the agenda. The reports suggests that the study of computing and the study of the brain interrelate in three ways, each suggesting a major research direction. First, the experimental study of brain architecture […]

In December 2010 and then again in December 2012, the President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology (PCAST) conducted an extensive review of the Federal Networking and Information Technology Research and Development (NITRD) Program – the $4B coordinated multi-agency IT R&D program. PCAST has just released a 2015 follow-up report on the progress of the NITRD program, which was conducted by co-chairs of the PCAST NITRD Working Group Susan Graham (PCAST Member and UC Berkeley) and Greg Hager (Johns Hopkins University and the Computing Community Consortium Chair). Other PCAST NITRD Working Group Members included, William J. Dally (Stanford University), Eric Horvitz (Microsoft Research), Sara Kiesler (Carnegie-Mellon University), Michael McQuade (United Technologies […]

Google announced the finalists for its annual international science fair. There are projects from all over the world covering a wide variety of fields, including computer science.  All the projects are by scientists under 18 years old. The projects will be exhibited and judged at an event on September 21 at the Google Headquarters. You can browse through all 20 finalists at the Google Science Fair website, but here are two that stood out. ALAIR (Assisted Living Autonomous Internet Robot) by Benjamin Lourdes Hylak from Oxford, Pennsylvania. Benjamin, age 17, built an assisted living robot for $1,250 that can preform the duties of an in-home nurse, such as: Healthcare/homecare monitoring Pill […]

In May, The White House Office of Science Technology Policy, Department of Commerce and the Arnold Foundation approached the Computing Community Consortium (CCC), as a community organization of computer science researchers, to lead a conversation for law enforcement to learn about the state of the art in video analysis techniques and how they may be applicable to analyze and improve law enforcement practice. This was a timely opportunity to provide input to a burgeoning application space: police body worn cameras. The CCC brought together a panel of computer vision experts and law enforcement personnel. Their subsequent discussions resulted in the recently released Video Analysis for Body-worn Cameras in Law Enforcement whitepaper. The whitepaper […]