In today’s New York Times‘ weekly “Science Times,” science writer John Markoff pens a feature about the state of robotics research — including the many challenges to enabling robots to mimic humans’ basic capabilities of motion and perception. The robotics pioneer Rodney Brooks often begins speeches by reaching into his pocket, fiddling with some loose change, finding a quarter, pulling it out and twirling it in his fingers.   The task requires hardly any thought. But as Dr. Brooks points out, training a robot to do it is a vastly harder problem for artificial intelligence researchers than IBM’s celebrated victory on “Jeopardy!” this year with a robot named Watson.   Although […]

As I’ve previously noted in this space, the CCC Council is scheduled to meet in Washington, DC, this Friday, July 15. Among the discussion topics will be the role of fundamental computing research in Smart Health & Wellbeing as well as in Sustainability. The formal announcement for the public portion of the meeting — which is open to anyone — is below. You are invited to the public portion of a meeting of the Computing Community Consortium (CCC), a committee of 20 leading computer scientists from around the country:   Friday, July 15, 2011 1:00 – 4:30pm ET Hotel Sofitel Washington, DC, Lafayette Square Madeleine Room   The meeting will feature panel […]

Late last month, the White House announced a request for feedback on “Circular A-21” — a 7-year-old document that specifies key principles for determining costs applicable to grants, contracts, and other agreements between the Federal government and educational institutions. The goal is to identify a set of revisions that will revise and clarify the circular — and input from research faculty is strongly encouraged. As Sally Rockey, Deputy Director for Extramural Research at NIH and co-chair of the A-21 Task Force, wrote (emphasis added): This is your chance to have input on an important issue that greatly impacts the research community each and every day. Today, on behalf of the […]

Magnetic resonance imaging is an attractive tool for detecting breast cancer, but its slow speed and poor resolution limit its viability. With hardware and software improvements, those problems are fixable: on the hardware end, multiple coils arranged in an array produce more data with less noise. Combined with an interpolation algorithm, that large amount of data can be rapidly processed to better serve patients: To create sharp images quickly, Kyung Sung, a researcher working with [Brian Hargreaves, principal investigator and assistant professor of radiology at Stanford], has developed a process that does more with less information. A conventional breast MRI scan takes up to an hour because of the large amount […]

Here’s another great talk — by Tony DeRose, Senior Scientist and head of the Research Group at Pixar Animation Studios — at the recent “Computation and the Transformation of Practically Everything” symposium commemorating MIT’s 150th anniversary celebration. DeRose stepped through the 80-year history of computer animation, with examples from Beauty and the Beast, Monsters, Inc., Finding Nemo, Ratatouille, etc. Animation started about 80 years ago… with the Walt Disney Studio, where they really invented what later became an art form. Steamboat Willie was one of the first milestones, and, in this era, the only real technology was pencil, paper, and film. So, the artist would draw a complete drawing, including outlines and shading, for […]

Just a heads up that NSF’s CISE Directorate has issued solicitations for its core programs: Computing and Communication Foundations (CCF) — Algorithmic Foundations, Communications and Information Foundations, and Software and Hardware Foundations. Information and Intelligent Systems (IIS) — Human-Centered Computing, Information Integration and Informatics, Robust Intelligence, and Computer Graphics and Visualization. Computer and Network Systems (CNS) — Computer Systems Research (to include cloud computing, embedded and hybrid systems, pervasive computing, sustainable computing) and Networking Technology and Systems. As in the recent past, deadlines for small, medium, and large proposals are later this fall. To learn more, click on a link above to view the division’s core programs. (Contributed by Erwin […]