Artificial intelligence (AI) has captured the public’s imagination for over 60 years, but it has proceeded in fits and starts leading to what has become known as an “AI winter” – a long period of diminished research and funding activity. Until recently, the conventional wisdom has been that new algorithms were the limiting factor in making steady progress towards artificial intelligence. However, recent advances in machine learning, have established that historical algorithms in conjunction with high-performance computers can be used to achieve nearly human-level performance on diverse tasks such as image and speech recognition, language translation, and video game play. In each of these instances rapid progress was facilitated by the […]

The Computing Community Consortium (CCC) sponsors an initiative to bring special “Blue Sky Ideas” tracks to leading computer science research conferences. The goal of this initiative is to help conferences reach out beyond the usual research papers that present completed work and to seek out papers that present ideas and visions that can stimulate the research community to pursue new directions. Conferences may request CCC sponsorship of such tracks along with a CCC grant that provides prize money for the top 3 papers (first prize $1000, second prize $750, and third prize $500), to be awarded as travel grants. Papers in a “Blue Sky Ideas” track should be open-ended, possibly “outrageous” or […]

A careful distinction between quality and quantity is key to promoting the future growth of the computing and information field. Toward that end, Batya Friedman, Professor in the Information School at the University of Washington, and Fred B. Schneider, Chair of the Department of Computer Science at Cornell University, put together a Best Practices Memo that advocates adjustments to hiring, promotion, and tenure practices as well as to the publication culture. Contributions in a small number of high quality publications or artifacts are what should be emphasized; success as a researcher is then not primarily a matter of numbers. These Best Practices recommendations were developed over an 18-month period by the Computing […]

The Global City Teams Challenge Tech Jam was a success! The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) and US Ignite initiative designed to advance the deployment of Internet of Things (IoT) technologies within a smart city / smart community environment was attended by more than 250 people. Representatives of 34 existing teams presented and several new Action Clusters were created during the well-received working sessions. You can find Tech Jam resources here: Presentations Webcast One-Slide Action Cluster Highlights What is next for the Global City Teams Challenge? GCTC Action Cluster teams are working hard to finalize their projects in anticipation of the GCTC Festival in June. Many of the Action Clusters have developed […]

There has been a tremendous amount of press on the astonishing advancement of artificial intelligence (AI) and the negative impacts that it could have on our society. Former Computing Community Consortium (CCC) council member, Eric Horvitz recently published a piece about the Benefits and Risks of Artificial Intelligence. Others have commented that AI could take our jobs and even potentially kill us. Elon Musk, Tesla chief executive, called artificial intelligence our biggest existential threat at the MIT Aeronautics and Astronautics department’s Centennial Symposium in October. I think we should be very careful about artificial intelligence. If I were to guess like what our biggest existential threat is, it’s probably that. So we need to be very […]

The Global City Teams Challenge, an initiative by National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) and US Ignite, is designed to advance the deployment of Internet of Things (IoT) technologies within a smart city / smart community environment around the world. More than 30 teams are pursuing projects related to sectors including public safety, energy and transportation. Participants in the Global City Teams Challenge are working to deploy an emerging technology within a cyber physical system (CPS) by June 2015. On February 12-13, 2015, NIST and US Ignite will host a Tech Jam that will provide existing teams with an opportunity to present their project plans and identify additional project […]