In November, the Computing Community Consortium (CCC) announced the third offering of the CCC Leadership in Science Policy Institute (LiSPI), intended to educate computing researchers on how science policy in the U.S. is formulated and how our government works.  All information from nominators and nominees must be in by midnight, December 22, 2014. Discuss this opportunity with your colleagues, identify those you believe would be interested in participating, and submit nominations today! See the original blog post to learn more.  

The National Science Foundation (NSF) Directorate for Computer & Information Science & Engineering (CISE) announced in October a new solicitation, entitled US Ignite, that is a big step forward in the US Ignite Administration initiative. From the solicitation: The primary goal of US Ignite is to break a fundamental deadlock: there is insufficient investment in gigabit applications that can take advantage of advanced network infrastructure because such infrastructure is rare and dispersed. And conversely, there is a lack of broad availability of advanced broadband infrastructure for open experimentation and innovation because there are few advanced applications and services to justify it. US Ignite aims to break this deadlock by providing incentives for […]

The National Science Foundation (NSF) Directorate for Computer Science and Engineering (CISE) in partnership with Intel announced a joint funding opportunity called Visual and Experiential Computing (VEC), aimed at fostering novel, transformative, and multidisciplinary approaches that promote research in VEC technologies. The advancement of sensing technology, multi-camera and light field imaging systems, networks of sensors, advanced visual analytics and cloud computing will challenge the longstanding paradigms of capturing, creating, analyzing and utilizing visual information. Advances in VEC will enable capability, adaptability, scalability, and usability that will far exceed the simple information systems of today. VEC technology will transform the way people interact with visual information through, for example, the realization of new mobile and […]

Recently, some Computing Community Consortium (CCC) Council Members visited the U.S. Department of Transportation (USDOT) to talk about possible synergies between the computing research community and DoT. Established in 1966, the USDOT’s top priorities are to keep the traveling public safe and secure, increase their mobility, and have our transportation system contribute to the nation’s economic growth. A number of topics were touched on that we will share at a later time. One important piece of information is a recent Request For Information (RFI) on the vehicle-to-vehicle security credential management system. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) announced an advance notice of proposed rulemaking for Vehicle to Vehicle (V2V) communications, and concurrently released an extensive research […]

The following blog post was written by Dr. Stephanie Forrest, Distinguished Professor of Computer Science at the University of New Mexico. Dr. Forrest recently completed a one year Jefferson Science Fellowship at the U.S. Department of State. Over the past decade it has become evident that computer science and the Internet are on a collision course with larger society. What was once an esoteric technical field, pursued by most of us for its intellectual beauty and engineering adventure, is now at the forefront of the U.S. economy, our social interactions, and foreign policy. When a U.S. President steps to the podium to discuss a software bug called Heartbleed and the U.S. policy on “zero day exploits,” something is up. Catalyzed by […]

Last week the National Science Foundation (NSF), in partnership with the National Institutes of Health (NIH), U.S. Department of Agriculture and NASA announced $31.5 million in new awards to spur the development and use of robots that work cooperatively with people (known as co-robots). The awards mark the third round of funding made through the National Robotics Initiative (NRI), a multi-agency program launched in September 2012 as part of the Advanced Manufacturing Partnership Initiative, with NSF as the lead federal agency. The 52 new research awards, ranging from $300,000 to $1.8 million over one to four years, advance fundamental understanding of robotic sensing, motion, computer vision, machine learning and human-computer interaction. The awards […]