In addition to Tuesday’s special Science Times describing the future of computing, The New York Times has featured several other articles this week about cutting-edge work in the field. For instance, yesterday, the Times covered University of Washington Computer Science and Engineering Professor Oren Etzioni’s electronics price prediction startup Decide — which utilizes data mining and machine learning over electronics prices to help consumers determine when it’s best to buy the electronics gadgets on their wish lists: If only shopping for electronics were as easy as buying a car.   There was a time not so long ago that buying a car was one of the worst shopping experiences. As you drove off the dealer’s lot, you couldn’t […]

If you haven’t already, be sure to check out the Science Times in yesterday’s New York Times — devoted entirely to “the future of computing”: What’s next? If we had a supercomputer that could predict the future, we would tell you. Then again, if the past is any guide, the predictions would certainly be wrong. This special issue takes a many-faceted look at a set of technologies that are changing the world in more ways than could ever have been foreseen… In addition to Times‘ science and technology writers John Markoff and Steve Lohr, several computing researchers have authored short essays about recent innovations — and future potential — within computing(after […]

In celebration of CSEdWeek — this week! — the National Science Foundation’s (NSF) Directorate for Computer and Information Science and Engineering (CISE) rolled out CS Bits & Bytes this morning, a one-page biweekly newsletter highlighting innovative computer science research. The NSF CS Bits & Bytes series will emphasize how computer science permeates and improves our lives and supports progress in many other disciplines. CS Bits & Bytes issues will also include profiles of the individuals who do this exciting work. NSF hopes educators and parents will use CS Bits & Bytes to inspire students to engage in the multi-faceted world of computer science, to become not just users but creators of technology, and to develop […]

An interesting computer security research result making news this morning — and stirring some controversy — courtesy of msnbc.com: Could a hacker from half-way around the planet control your printer and give it instructions so frantic that it could eventually catch fire? Or use a hijacked printer as a copy machine for criminals, making it easy to commit identity theft or even take control of entire networks that would otherwise be secure?   It’s not only possible, but likely, say researchers at Columbia University, who claim they’ve discovered a new class of computer security flaws that could impact millions of businesses, consumers, and even government agencies [more after the jump…]. […]

Among the 10 world-changing ideas we featured earlier today is the “forever health monitor,” i.e., the ability to exploit today’s technology to quickly, easily, and fairly inexpensively monitor our own vital signs in real time, so that we may pinpoint the first signs of trouble as they arise. It turns out one man — Internet pioneer and founding director of California Institute for Telecommunications and Information Technology (CalIT2) Larry Smarr — has been doing exactly that for the past 10 years. And for all his personal health instrumentation efforts, Xconomy has named Larry its Xconomist of the Week: In the 10 years since he moved to San Diego to become founding director of the [University of California] system’s [CalIT2], […]

As we’ve previously noted in this space, in December 2009, 10 red balloons were deployed from locations throughout the U.S. as part of the DARPA Network Challenge — a competition to “explore the roles the Interent and social networking play in the timely communication, wide-area team-building, and urgent mobilization required to solve broad-scope, time-critical problems.” The challenge: to be the first to submit the coordinates of the 10 8-foot red weather balloons. And the winning team — a group of MIT students — received a $40,000 prize. At the time, according to DARPA, “a senior analyst at the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency characterized the problem as impossible” using traditional intelligence-gathering methods. […]