The President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology (PCAST) held its July 2010 meeting at the National Academies in Washington, DC, on Friday. The hearing began with a session on “Science, Technology, and Diplomacy” that featured the three founding members of the Science Envoys program – Bruce Alberts, Elias Zerhouni, and Ahmed Zewail – speaking candidly about their experiences as part of this new diplomatic effort, which places U.S. scientists in foreign nations to promote international relations. The three envoys shared insights they had gleaned while trying to improve diplomatic relations with Indonesia, Egypt, Algeria, Qatar, Turkey, and the U.A.E. A prevailing sentiment was the urgent need for a […]

Last week Amy Harmon wrote the third installment of the awesome New York Times Magazine series “Smarter Than You Think.” The article, titled ‘Discovering a Soft Sport for Circuitry – Robot Machines as Companions,’ details the use of artificial intelligent machines as human companions. In particular, the article highlights Paro — a robotic baby harp seal — used in nursing homes as a therapeutic aid for the elderly. Paro uses 14 different sensors, two microprocessors, and a whole slew of AI algorithms to illicit compassionate responses from users and convincingly behave as a real-life animal. The Paro robot is used to help patients suffering with dementia and provide comfort in […]

Last week it was Jeopardy! superstar Ken Jennings who was facing competition. This week it’s assistants everywhere. In the second in a fascinating series of articles titled “Smarter Than You Think” being published by The New York Times Magazine this summer, writers Steve Lohr and John Markoff illustrate how artificial intelligence is transforming how we answer questions, complete simple tasks, and assist one another. This Sunday’s story highlights the work of Eric Horvitz, a member of the CCC Council, whose team at Microsoft Research has developed a “medical avatar” that can understand speech, recognize symptoms of pediatric conditions, and reason according to simple rules. The avatar is able to interface […]

The Computing Community Consortium recently prepared a white paper titled, “Information Technology Research Challenges for Healthcare: From Discovery to Delivery,” as a follow-on to the Discovery and Innovation in Health IT Workshop that the CCC co-sponsored with various Federal agencies in October 2009. The paper describes basic research opportunities that can catalyze transformations in healthcare — an enterprise that costs U.S. taxpayers $2.3 trillion (yes, that’s trillion!) each year but, by all accounts, is poorly equipped to handle the evolving needs of patients and providers. A multitude of factors — poor diet habits, stressful lifestyles, aging populations, etc. — is causing chronic diseases like cancer and arthritis to soar, and […]

The Computing Community Consortium was launched three years ago –- in the Spring of 2007. The “long version” of what we’ve been up to is detailed in a formal self-assessment submitted to NSF in the Summer of 2009. The “PowerPoint version” is contained in an overview slideset. Here, I’m going to focus on just a few specific activities, to argue the benefits of having our act together as a field. Broad agenda-setting During the transition period to the Obama administration, we had the opportunity to feed a number of “white papers” into the transition team’s planning process.  Thanks to the receptiveness of the incoming administration, these white papers had impact […]

Your faithful correspondent recently attended the paired ACM-BCS Visions of Computer Science 2010 and UKCRC Grand Challenges conferences at Edinburgh University.  (Due to volcanic ash and the resulting travel snarls, this correspondent’s stay in the UK has been extended longer than expected!) The Visions conference was designed to highlight research visions for the future and consisted of invited plenaries and submitted talks. The plenaries were extremely well done.  Ross Anderson spoke about the integration of social issues and computing in the design of increasingly complex systems, using numerous examples from history and economic theory. Nicolò Cesa-Bianchi explored frontiers in machine learning, Jon Kleinberg spoke about the future of social networks, […]