In light of the tornadoes that have devastated parts of the Midwest and South over the past several weeks, Robin Murphy — the Raytheon Professor of Computer Science and Engineering at Texas A&M University (and a member of the CCC Council) — was asked by The Washington Post to participate in a live web chat on Wednesday to describe how robots can assist in search and rescue missions. Murphy noted that robots can help detect signs of life in otherwise inaccessible or dangerous disaster environments — ranging from deep, dark crevasses created by piles of debris to site that are submerged under water: We try to match the best robots for the responders’ […]

As part of ScienceLives — an occasional NSF/LiveScience series that “puts scientists under the microscope to figure out what makes them tick” — CCC Council member Frans Kaashoek recently described what motivated him to pursue software systems research as well as the experiences he’s had as a professor at the MIT Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory. It makes for great viewing — especially for students interested in pursuing computing research. Among the questions Frans was asked, “What’s the best piece of advice you ever received?” Do something that you really care about because you’re going to spend a lot of time on it… If you’re not excited about it, it’s not going […]

As we’ve noted in this space before, MIT — as part of its 150th anniversary celebration — recently sponsored a series of symposia exploring key interdisciplinary research questions and directions. One that’s of particular interest was titled “Computation and the Transformation of Practically Everything,” and touched on how computer science is changing the world: Computation and the Transformation of Practically Everything traced the evolution of the information age and celebrate MIT’s role in it. The event brought together early and recent pioneers from a variety of fields to review the role computation has played in the past and present and to explore frontiers that lie ahead. We’ve created a webpage linking to […]

A final reminder that the deadline for applications to the 2011-12 Computing Innovation Fellows (CIFellows) Project is 5pm EDT next Tuesday, May 31. Graduates awarded the Ph.D. or equivalent in computing or allied fields from U.S. institutions between May 1, 2010, and Aug. 31, 2011, are eligible to apply. All application materials — including confidential letters of recommendation to be provided separately by the letter writers — must be submitted through the CIFellows Project website by the deadline. The full announcement appears below. A few common questions thus far: To help meet the deadline, applicants may provide names of recommenders prior to submitting an application; CRA/CCC will contact the recommenders while the applicants are gathering […]

What would you do with a 1 Gbps, layer 2 programmable, sliceable network? That’s the central question underlying the US Ignite Gigabit Applications Workshop, a daylong meeting co-hosted by the NSF’s CISE Directorate and the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP) early last week. The workshop — supported by several other Federal agencies as well as a number of public and private partners — brought together over 80 individuals from colleges/universities, for-profit companies, non-profit organizations, and Federal, state, and local governments from across the country. About US Ignite Recent investments in broadband (>100 Mbps up and down) in highly innovative cities and regions across the country are […]

“How do you get people to buy more? That’s the $1 million question — literally.” RichRelevance and Overstock.com have partnered to offer the first-ever RecLab Prize on Overstock.com — up to $1 million in cash to the person or team capable of building the most powerful online product recommendation engine: The Prize provides a cash award totaling up to $1 million to the researcher or research team who can achieve a measurable lift over existing product recommendations in a wide variety of shopping contexts on Overstock.com. The RecLab Prize rewards the highest performing individual or team based on the results they are able to deliver within a defined judging period (up […]