If you haven’t already, be sure to check out the Science Times in yesterday’s New York Times — devoted entirely to “the future of computing”: What’s next? If we had a supercomputer that could predict the future, we would tell you. Then again, if the past is any guide, the predictions would certainly be wrong. This special issue takes a many-faceted look at a set of technologies that are changing the world in more ways than could ever have been foreseen… In addition to Times‘ science and technology writers John Markoff and Steve Lohr, several computing researchers have authored short essays about recent innovations — and future potential — within computing(after […]

Earlier today, the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP) released a new report — Trustworthy Cyberspace: Strategic Plan for the Federal Cybersecurity Research and Development Program — specifying an agenda for game-changing cybersecurity R&D. As U.S. CTO Aneesh Chopra and White House Cybersecurity Coordinator Howard Schmidt noted in a blog post, the report provides “a roadmap to ensuring long-term reliability and trustworthiness of the digital communications network that is increasingly at the heart of American economic growth and global competitiveness.” In particular, the plan defines four strategic thrusts (after the jump):

Over 3,600 officials spanning government, industry, and academia are gathered at the third annual mHealth Summit just outside Washington, DC, this week, “to advance collaboration in the use of wireless technology to improve health outcomes in the U.S. and abroad.” Secretary of Health and Human Services Kathleen Sebelius kicked off the conference on Monday morning, emphasizing the game-changing aspects of mobile health technology to improve clinical outcomes, promote preventative medicine, and reduce wasteful spending and healthcare costs. Sebelius noted that mobile healthcare technology is gaining added significance — and issued a call to arms to support innovation in mobile medical devices. “This is an incredible time to be having this […]

In celebration of CSEdWeek — this week! — the National Science Foundation’s (NSF) Directorate for Computer and Information Science and Engineering (CISE) rolled out CS Bits & Bytes this morning, a one-page biweekly newsletter highlighting innovative computer science research. The NSF CS Bits & Bytes series will emphasize how computer science permeates and improves our lives and supports progress in many other disciplines. CS Bits & Bytes issues will also include profiles of the individuals who do this exciting work. NSF hopes educators and parents will use CS Bits & Bytes to inspire students to engage in the multi-faceted world of computer science, to become not just users but creators of technology, and to develop […]

Earlier this afternoon, the National Science Foundation (NSF) held an informational webinar about its new multi-disciplinary Secure and Trustworthy Cyberspace (SaTC) program. Replacing NSF’s Trustworthy Computing (TwC) program this year, SaTC expands cybersecurity research support within the Foundation beyond the Computer & Information Science & Engineering (CISE) Directorate for the first time, to include the directorates for Social, Behavioral, & Economic Sciences (SBE) and Mathematical and Physical Sciences (MPS) as well as the Office of Cyberinfrastructure (OCI). In the webinar, NSF officials highlighted the goals and driving principles underlying the SaTC solicitation and offered deep dives into each of three “perspectives.” They also noted that any proposer should clearly delineate his or her problem statement and specify the relevance of his or her proposed work to the […]

An interesting piece about the future of human computing in the print edition of The Economist tomorrow — and it features the thinking of CCC Council member Eric Horvitz along with several others: …Over the past few years, human computing has been reborn. The new generation of human computers carry out different tasks, but they mirror their predecessors in many other ways. They are being drafted in to perform tasks that computers cannot. They are employed in large numbers and are organised into streamlined workflows. And, as was the case in the age before electronic computers, their output is combined to generate results that could not easily be produced in any other way.