Manufacturing currently comprises about 12% of the US GDP  — roughly 1.8 trillion USD. Although there is a perception (and some truth) to the fact that manufacturing is leaving the US for low wage countries, there are many manufacturers that are interested in innovating in ways that would grow manufacturing (and jobs!) in the US. There are many efforts, such as the recently announced National Network for Manufacturing Initiative (NNMI), to accelerate this trend. How can the robotics and computing research communities support these efforts? To answer this question, the Robotics VO, National Science Foundation (NSF), The White House Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP), and the Computing Community […]

The National Robotics Initiative (NRI) Principal Investigator meeting showcased an amazing collection of new ideas and technologies developed by over 200 of the top researchers in the field Oct. 1-2 in Washington. The NRI program, which was the direct result of a Computing Community Consortium (CCC) roadmapping effort led by Henrik Christensen of Georgia Tech, is a broad multi-year, multi-agency initiative to develop “Collaborative Systems” that augment, assist, or amplify human capabilities in a wide range of areas. The technologies and applications covered were breathtaking in scope and frame interesting and compelling questions for Co-workers, Co-inhabitants, or Co-protectors; for example: How to combine automated observation with human sampling to produce […]

Today (October 9, 2013), The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences awarded the 2013 Nobel Prize for Chemistry to Martin Karplus of Harvard University and the Universite de Strasbourg, Michael Levitt of the Stanford University of Medicine, and Arieh Warshel of the University of Southern California.  The three devised methods which combined classical physics and quantum physics to more accurately model and understand chemical reactions. From the Academy announcement: Chemists used to create models of molecules using plastic balls and sticks. Today, the modelling is carried out in computers. In the 1970s, Martin Karplus, Michael Levitt and Arieh Warshel laid the foundation for the powerful programs that are used to understand […]

Miriah Meyer was a Computing Community Consortium (CCC) Computing Innovation Fellow (CIFellow) from 2009 – 2011 at Harvard University.  Upon completion of her Fellowship, Miriah became a  USTAR assistant professor in the School of Computing at the University of Utah and a faculty member in the Scientific Computing and Imaging Institute. Miriah has been selected for many accolades during her career, including being a TED Fellow, a Microsoft Research Faculty Fellowship, and being included on MIT Technology Review’s list of the top young innovators and Fast Company’s list of the 100 most creative people. Most recently, Miriah was named a PopTech Science Fellow.  This is a unique leadership development opportunity designed to help high potential working scientists become more effective communicators, collaborators and […]

The following entry is a special contribution to this blog from John L. King, the W.W. Bishop Professor in the School of Information at the University of Michigan.  John was a council member of the Computing Community Consortium (CCC) from 2007 – 2010 and on the Board of the Computing Research Association (CRA) from 2003 – 2005.   The Digital Societies and Social Technologies (DSST) 2013 Summer Institute took place at the University of Maryland College Park, College of Information Studies from July 28-August 1.  It built on traditions established by the CSST (Consortium for the Science of Sociotechnical Systems) summer institutes and the Summer Social Webshops.  The focus was on bridging the “social” and […]

In 2011, the National Science Foundation (NSF) created the Washington Area Trustworthy Computing Hour (WATCH), a series of thought-provoking talks by innovative thinkers with ideas that illuminate the challenges and provide signposts toward solutions in trustworthy computing. The series is jointly organized by NSF’s Computer Science and Engineering (CISE) and Social, Behavioral, and Economic (SBE) Directorates, and sponsored by the CISE Trustworthy Computing Program. The next WATCH seminar will be on September 26, 2013 given by Alessandro Acquisti from Carnegie Mellon University.  The title of his talk is An Experiment in Hiring Discrimination via Online Social Networks. Update: Due to unforeseen circumstances, the WATCH presentation scheduled for 9/26 is being postponed. NSF is actively working to […]