The U.S. Department of Commerce‘s National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) announced the next round of the Global City Teams Challenge (GCTC) at a White House Smart City Forum hosted by the Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP). See the White House Fact Sheet to read all the announcements made at the Forum. NIST announced that the kick-off conference for the next round of the Global City Teams Challenge will take place November 12-13, 2015 at NIST’s Campus in Gaithersburg, Maryland. Registration for the conference is now open. Please use this link to register. There is no registration fee. Pre-registration is required and closes November 5, 2015. The draft agenda can […]

The White House has kicked off the first ever Smart Cities Week (September 15-17, 2015) in Washington, DC, announcing new steps in support of a new National Smart Cities Initiative. The National Smart Cities Initiative will invest over $160 million in federal research and leverage more than 25 new technology collaborations to help local communities tackle key challenges such as reducing traffic congestion, fighting crime, fostering economic growth, managing the effects of a changing climate, and improving the delivery of city services. The Administration’s Smart Cities Initiative will begin with a focus on three key strategies creating test beds for “Internet of Things” applications and developing new multi-sector collaborative models, collaborating with the […]

Currently, Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) is hosting a three-day forum:  Wait, What? A Future Technology Forum, focusing on new technologies and how they can change the future, in particular with respect to national security. Three early-career engineers and scientists, chosen from a pool of 54 candidates, were selected to share their ideas to the Forum Participants.  They are: Alexander Bataller, a postdoctoral researcher at the University of California Los Angeles …who studies dense microplasmas, a recently discovered form of matter… Anupama Lakshmanan, a graduate student in biology and biological engineering at the California Institute of Technology…focuses on adapting immune cells to provide non-invasive diagnosis, continuous monitoring and real-time treatment of […]

The National Science Foundation (NSF) has recently announced a partnership with Intel Corporation  on two new grants for $6 million to research security and privacy solutions of cyber-physical systems (CPS). Cyber-physical systems, such as smart-homes and autonomous vehicles, are part of the rise of the new Internet of Things (IoT). “Advances in the integration of information and communications technologies are transforming the way people interact with engineered systems,” said Jim Kurose, head of Computer and Information Science and Engineering at NSF. “Rigorous interdisciplinary research, such as the projects announced today in partnership with Intel, can help to better understand and mitigate threats to our critical cyber-physical systems and secure the nation’s […]

The National Academies Forum on Cyber Resilience, which held their inaugural meeting last April, met again last week in Washington, DC. At the open session, Federal Trade Commission (FTC) Commissioner Julie Brill spoke about Security, Privacy, and the Internet of Things. The mission of the FTC is to “prevent business practices that are anticompetitive or deceptive or unfair to consumers; to enhance informed consumer choice and public understanding of the competitive process; and to accomplish this without unduly burdening legitimate business activity.” In terms of privacy and data security, Commissioner Brill stated that, at this point in time, the FTC has already handled 40 privacy cases and 60 security cases, including the Fandango and Credit Karma cases in […]

In December 2010 and then again in December 2012, the President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology (PCAST) conducted an extensive review of the Federal Networking and Information Technology Research and Development (NITRD) Program – the $4B coordinated multi-agency IT R&D program. PCAST has just released a 2015 follow-up report on the progress of the NITRD program, which was conducted by co-chairs of the PCAST NITRD Working Group Susan Graham (PCAST Member and UC Berkeley) and Greg Hager (Johns Hopkins University and the Computing Community Consortium Chair). Other PCAST NITRD Working Group Members included, William J. Dally (Stanford University), Eric Horvitz (Microsoft Research), Sara Kiesler (Carnegie-Mellon University), Michael McQuade (United Technologies […]