IBM and IEEE have partnered to launch the Smarter Planet Challenge, seeking “creative team-based student projects that can help students at any level learn about applying engineering, science, and other disciplines to solve real world problems.” The competition — which will dole out prizes ranging from $1,000 to $5,000 to the top five entries — allows students to submit either completed projects or ideas in any one of five areas of interest (following the link):

Dan Kaufman, director of the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency’s (DARPA) Information Innovation Office (I2O), was interviewed on Tuesday evening by New York Times‘ tech writer John Markoff — the first in a series of conversations with “amazing people at research labs” being produced this summer by the Computer History Museum. During the hourlong interview, Kaufman — Markoff describes him as “not your standard, cookie-cutter DARPA official — touches on a bit of history about DARPA, his own personal background and how he landed at the agency, and a variety of projects he and his colleagues in I2O are currently spearheading. Check out the full-length video and summary after the jump…

To help mark the 60th anniversary of its Graduate Research Fellowship Program (GRFP), the National Science Foundation (NSF) has announced a new video contest — “Creating the Future” — that challenges Fellows to create short videos, not to exceed 90 seconds each, communicating how their NSF-funded research will help shape the future for themselves, for their field, or for the world. Submissions are due by Sept. 14, 2012, and winners — to be selected by a panel of judges as well as the broader public for a “People’s Choice” award category — will be announced in mid-November. First place carries a $2,000 cash prize. According to the contest website (following the link):

At the Computing Research Association’s (CRA) biennial Snowbird Conference today, the Computer Science and Telecommunications Board (CSTB) will roll out a new report — “Continuing Innovation in Information Technology” — updating the widely known “tire tracks” diagram that links government investments in academic and industry research to the creation of new information technology industries that drive our economy. According to the report (click on the link below to read more and see the new “tire tracks” figure!):

The Computing Community Consortium (CCC) has issued a call for participation for an upcoming visioning workshop on spatial computing. Led by Shashi Shekhar (University of Minnesota), the workshop — to be held in Washington, DC, on Sept. 10-11, 2012 — seeks to develop and promote a unified agenda for spatial computing R&D across U.S. agencies, universities, and corporations. From the call for participation (following the link):

For those planning to submit CAREER proposals to NSF/CISE for the Secure and Trustworthy Cyberspace (SaTC) program — the CAREER deadline is Monday, July 23rd — NSF has issued the following guidance today: Important Information for SaTC CAREER Proposals!   If you are planning on submitting a CAREER proposal to the CISE Directorate for the Secure and Trustworthy Cyberspace (SaTC) program, you will find that SaTC is not listed as a program that accepts CAREER proposals. Please be advised that all CAREER SaTC proposals to the CISE Directorate should be submitted to the to the Trustworthy Computing (TC) program. If this procedure is followed, your CAREER proposal will be managed by SaTC staff.