The National Academies’ Computer Science and Telecommunications Board (CSTB) released this morning a new report — Computing Research for Sustainability — laying out an overall framework for computing research for sustainability, including recommendations for long-term research objectives and directions. The report, which was prepared by the CSTB’s Committee on Computing Research for Environmental and Societal Sustainability, describes how “innovation in computing will be essential to finding real-world solutions to sustainability challenges like electricity production and delivery, global food production, and climate change.” As UCLA computer science professor and committee chair Deborah Estrin noted as part of today’s announcement, “These problems are as complex as they are important; we need to engage deeply across disciplines to […]

Yesterday we blogged in this space about a ‘big data’ briefing held in downtown Washington, DC, earlier this week, one that emphasized the exponential growth in data that we are witnessing with each passing day. IBM Research’s David McQueeney noted how corporations recognize there are huge opportunities if they can “master the tsunami of data.” Well, what about something as simple as one’s e-reader? We can assume these days that if a device is digital, then it is tracking and storing information about its user. So how can an e-reader help businesses grow — and what are the consequences for consumers? The Wall Street Journal has published an interesting article — “Your E-Book is […]

On Wednesday afternoon, before a standing-room-only audience in downtown DC, IBM Corp. held a briefing titled “Big Data: The New Natural Resource.” During it, David McQueeney, vice president for software at IBM Research, described how corporate leaders increasingly appreciate the move toward ‘big data’ — but the field itself has not yet reached a point at which it can efficiently capture, integrate, and analyze these data and make results available to decision makers in a timely fashion. Yet decision makers know that a huge opportunity is presenting itself, if only they can “master the tsunami of data,” as McQueeney said. Indeed, McQueeney noted that the tidal wave of data is only […]

In the July Scientific American, Caltech electrical engineering and computer science professor Yaser S. Abu-Mostafa describes recent advances in machine learning: A couple of years ago the directors of a women’s clothing company asked me to help them develop better fashion recommendations for their clients. No one in their right mind would seek my personal advice in an area I know so little about — I am, after all, a male computer scientist — but they were not asking for my personal advice. They were asking for my machine-learning advice, and I obliged. Based purely on sales figures and client surveys, I was able to recommend to women whom I have never […]

On the heels of Francis Collins’s Scientific American article about mobile health apps, Technology Review has an interesting interview with MIT Media Lab associate professor Pattie Maes about the future of human-computer interaction in light of recent advances in mobile technologies: What will smart phones be like five years from now?   Phones may know not just where you are but that you are in a conversation, and who you are talking to, and they may make certain information and documents available based on what conversation you’re having. Or they may silence themselves, knowing that you’re in an interview [more following the link].  

The following is a special contribution to this blog from Robin Murphy, Raytheon Professor of Computer Science and Engineering and director of the Center for Robot-Assisted Search and Rescue at Texas A&M University. Back in April, Robin co-organized a visioning workshop about the role of computing in disaster management (including preparedness, prevention, response, and recovery). Here Robin summarizes the workshop, as well as the final report — Computing for Disasters: A Report from the Community Workshop — that the Computing Community Consortium (CCC) is releasing today. What would it take to reach a point when the unimaginable could be predicted, handled, and coordinated so that it no longer constituted an emergency? What […]