The following is a special contribution to this blog by Keith Marzullo, division director for the National Science Foundation’s (NSF) Division of Computer and Network Systems (CNS). Yesterday, the National Science Foundation (NSF) announced a new partnership with the U.S. Department of Homeland Security Science and Technology Directorate (DHS S&T) and U.S. Department of Transportation (DOT) Federal Highway Administration (FHWA), issuing a first-ever interagency solicitation for Cyber-Physical Systems (CPS). Leveraging years of investment in CPS science, engineering, and technology by NSF’s Directorates for Computer and Information Science and Engineering (CISE) and Engineering (ENG), the new solicitation establishes collaborations between NSF and mission agencies to “identify basic research needs in CPS […]

Computing is at the heart of one up-and-coming cultural trend – wearable technology. This emerging market is enabled by advances in computing, and it’s positioned to become a multi-billion dollar market in the near future. A report from BBC Research, Wearable Computing: Technologies, Applications, and Global Markets, projects the global market for wearable computing devices to grow to $30.2 billion by 2018. The consumer market is the fastest moving segment. Wearable computing encompasses everything from smart watches, activity monitors, to devices in clothing and accessories. The smart watch product category is projected to account for the largest single consumer market, generating more than $12.5 billion in global annual revenues in 2018. From […]

This week, President Barack Obama announced two new public-private Manufacturing Innovation Institutes and launched the first of four new Manufacturing Innovation Institute Competitions. The institutes will boost advanced manufacturing in the United States and increase high-quality jobs. One of the public-private institutes, the Digital Manufacturing and Design Innovation Institute (DMDI) is headquartered in Chicago, Illinois and spearheads a consortium of 73 companies, universities, nonprofits, and research labs. The partnership between world-leading manufacturing experts and cutting-edge software companies will develop enhanced digital capabilities to design and test new products, and reduce costs in manufacturing processes across multiple industries. From the White House website: “The country that gets new products to market faster […]

Recently The Atlantic published an article, “The Joy of Teaching Computer Science in the Age of Facebook.” The article has a Q&A with Mehran Sahami, a professor and Associate Chair for Education in Computer Science at Stanford University. Sahami gives his perspective on how the field has evolved over the past few decades. Twenty-five years ago, most people didn’t own home computers, these days they are an integral part of everyday activities. Technology is in increasing part of people’s lives, so everyone should have a better understanding of it.  Sahami has seen general awareness of computing increase and many more sub-areas develop.  Sahami was always interested in being a professor, however after earning his Ph.D. […]

The National Science Foundation (NSF)-funded Blue Waters and eXtreme Science and Engineering Discovery Environment (XSEDE) projects are hosting the 8th Extreme Scaling Workshop August 14-15, 2014, at the University of Colorado, Boulder. The conference committee seeks submissions of excellent quality addressing the challenges of using, designing, deploying, or integrating infrastructure for both big data analysis and large-scale computation to facilitate scientific discovery. The Extreme Scaling Workshop 2014 will showcase the discoveries, innovations, and achievements of those who use, build, and/or support advanced architectures at extreme scales around the world. The workshop will also provide a forum among researchers, professional staff, students, HPC center staff, and representatives from funding agencies to explore […]

DARPA’s new Memex program seeks user-defined, domain-specific search of public information, and plans to use its groundbreaking research to fight human trafficking. What makes this a groundbreaking new initiative? Currently web searches use a centralized, one-size-fits-all approach that searches the Internet with the same set of tools for all queries. Even though it is useful and successful commercially, it’s still a mostly manual process that doesn’t aggregate results which would be more useful for government purposes. The new search technologies developed through the Memex program will have the potential to  revolutionize the discovery, organization and presentation of search results. From the DARPA website: “We’re envisioning a new paradigm for search that would tailor […]