The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO), together with the recently created Center of Excellence for Collaborative Innovation (COECI), launched the USPTO Innovation Challenge last week, offering $50,000 in prizes for specialized algorithms that can “help bring the 7 million patents presently in the patent archive into the digital age.” In particular, the USPTO Innovation Challenge is seeking new algorithms to automatically identify and locate specific elements within patent documents, as part of a broader effort to improve the patent examination process. According to Robynn Sturm Steffen, a Senior Advisor in the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP): Approximately half-a-million U.S. patents are filed by inventors, entrepreneurs, and businesses […]

In the December 2011 Communications of the ACM, CCC Council member and MIT Professor of Electrical Engineering & Computer Science Frans Kaashoek discusses multicore computing, security, and OS design: Kaashoek has … conducted wide-ranging research in computer systems, including operating system design, software-based network routing, and distributed hash tables, which revolutionized the storage and retrieval of data in decentralized information systems. He also helped found two startups: Sightpath, a video broadcast software provider that was acquired by Cisco Systems in 2000, and Mazu Networks, which was acquired by Riverbed Technology in 2009. Kaashoek was named an ACM fellow in 2004 and elected to the National Academy of Engineering in 2006. […]

In the New York Times’ Sunday Review, technology writer Steve Lohr pens a story all about the “Internet of Things,” noting how “low-cost sensors, clever software, and advancing computer firepower are opening the door to new uses in energy conservation, transportation, health care, and food distribution.” From the article: The concept has been around for years, sometimes called the Internet of Things or the Industrial Internet. Yet it takes time for the economics and engineering to catch up with the predictions. And that moment is upon us.   “We’re going to put the digital ‘smarts’ into everything,” said Edward D. Lazowska, a computer scientist at the University of Washington [and CCC Council chair]. These abundant smart […]

The following is a special contribution to this blog from Cui Tao and Matt-Mouley Bouamrane, the organizing chairs of the First International Workshop on Managing Interoperability and compleXity in Health Systems, which was held in October 2011 in Scotland (U.K.). We were delighted to host a successful Vision and Challenge Track at the First International Workshop on Managing Interoperability and compleXity in Health Systems. MIXHS 2011 was a forum focused on recent research and technical results in knowledge management and information systems in bio-medical and electronic health systems. The workshop was designed to provide an opportunity for sharing practical experiences and best practices in e-Health information infrastructure development and management. Of particular interest to the […]

In The Washington Post yesterday: Modern technological advances have sparked many concerns that supercomputers, robots and other sophisticated machinery will soon erase the need for skilled workers, especially in industries like manufacturing and construction, perhaps driving the nation’s unemployment rate even higher in the years ahead.   Similarly, Americans’ increasing dependence on technology, ranging from constant computer use to around-the-clock interaction with mobile phones, has prompted many observers and academics to question whether the line separating people and technology is blurring in an all too dangerous manner.   On Monday, Google Chairman Eric Schmidt offered words to mollify those concerns [after the jump].  

Earlier this month, the National Science Foundation’s (NSF) Directorate for Social, Behavioral, and Economic Sciences (SBE) released a new report — Rebuilding the Mosaic: Fostering Research in the Social, Behavioral, and Economic Sciences at the National Science Foundation in the Next Decade — representing the results of a year-long visioning process assessing the directorate’s existing research investments and identifying important research directions for the future. What’s interesting is that the report, which is based on 252 white paper submissions from 240 authors (received through an open submission process) specifically touts “an interdisciplinary, data-intensive, and collaborative vision for the future of SBE research” — one that necessitates new partnerships and synergies between social […]