The following is a special contribution to this blog by CCC Executive Council Member Mark D. Hill of the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Even with the slowing of Moore’s Law and the end of Dennard scaling, computer chips can still get dramatically better performance—without dramatically more power—by using specialized “accelerator” blocks to perform key tasks much faster (> 100x) and/or at lower power. Classic accelerators include floating-point hardware (a separately chip back in the days of the Intel 8087), graphics processing units (GPUs), and field-programmable gate arrays (FPGAs). The recent explosion in the progress and importance of deep learning makes artificial neural networks a promising target for hardware acceleration. To this end, at least NINE papers at the recent International […]

The following is a guest blog post by Liz Bradley from the University of Colorado and a member of the CCC Executive Committee. Last week we summarized the Computing Community Consortium (CCC) May 2016 Symposium, Computing Research: Addressing National Priorities and Societal Needs. This is the second of a series of blogs that will be posted about the symposium and the four different themes that were presented. One of the most dynamic and forward-looking events at the symposium was a poster session involving 38 early career faculty members, postdoctoral scholars, and graduate students. The interests of this group, which represents the future of the field, spanned the full range of computing research. A number of their posters described novel technologies for computer-human […]

The following is a guest blog by Greg Hager, Computing Community Consortium (CCC) Chair and Professor in the Department of Computer Science at Johns Hopkins University.  Computing has become a powerful tool for productivity and connectivity — it powers companies, it fuels scientific research, and it delivers entertainment and social engagement for billions. Could research-based innovations in computing also become a catalyst for addressing compelling societal problems? To explore this question, the Computing Community Consortium (CCC) organized a two-day Symposium on Computing Research: Addressing National Priorities and Societal Needs. This meeting brought together over 130 in-person participants and over 1000 online viewers to raise the visibility of work that connects […]

The following Great Innovative Idea is from Gloria Washington, an Assistant Professor of computer science at Howard University. In addition to being an Assistant Professor, Dr. Washington is the Director of the Affective Biometrics Lab. Washington presented her poster, A Socio-Cultural & Technical Approach to Affective Biometrics, at the CCC Symposium on Computing Research, May 9-10, 2016. The Idea Traditional approaches to biometric recognition and affective computing involve using a database to train computer algorithms to recognize different types of individuals and emotional states. However, these databases are usually not diverse and include only subjects from majority populations. Howard University is developing technologies that can use computer vision and affective […]

Imagine diagnosing a hospital patient with septicemia 25 hours before the onset of sepsis shock, dispatching the right police officer to de-escalate a situation, or increasing agricultural productivity based on weather knowledge where few weather stations exist. These scenarios are not simply dreams, but thanks to artificial intelligence (AI) research are actually happening in the world today and are having a positive impact on societies across the globe. Interest in artificial intelligence has been rapidly increasing in recent years, often with a focus on the flashy robot or computer that can speak responses, but the practical applications have a major societal impact and are often overlooked. AI has been successfully applied to societal […]

The following is a guest blog by Greg Hager, Computing Community Consortium (CCC) Chair and Professor in the Department of Computer Science at Johns Hopkins University.  I recently had the opportunity to participate in a panel discussing the National Robotics Initiative (NRI). The NRI is in its 5th year, so we were asked to describe “the return on investment” of the program. Various panel members pointed out how focused and energized robotics is on high-value, relevant applications, and how it has created new startups, a new cohort of students who will power the next wave of R&D innovation, and, of course, a host of new research results. But what does this really […]