Mario Bergés (CMU) and Computing Innovation Fellow Zico Kolter (MIT) are co-organizing the first International Workshop on Non-Intrusive Load Monitoring, to be held on the campus of Carnegie Mellon University on May 7th. With support from Bosch Research, the workshop will provide a forum to unite researchers working on the topic of energy disaggregation, particularly on sensing and/or algorithms aspects. The workshop will review the main types of approaches that have been explored to date, and discuss possible paths forward. Key foci will include the growing need for standardized datasets and performance metrics that can allow the field to move forward, as well as possible areas of collaboration among research groups from multiple […]

The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) today launched a new blog — Tech @ FTC — focused on technology and consumer issues. Through the blog, the FTC aims to provide a vehicle for the agency’s Chief Technologist to communicate about technology issues to both technology experts and the broader public. Ed Felten, on leave from Princeton University (where he’s Professor of Computer Science and Public Affairs) to serve as the first Chief Technologist at the FTC, wrote in his first post: …As the nation’s consumer protection agency, the FTC works on technology issues every day. You’ll see lots of discussion of technology in our reports, cases, speeches and testimonies, not to mention the consumer […]

On Tuesday, the National Institute of Standards and Technology announced a solicitation for proposals that support long-term research in next-generation semiconductor technology, calling the work “critical to the future of the U.S. electronics industry.” Through the solicitation, NIST plans to issue one award of up to $2.6 million in Federal cost-shared funding (a minimum of 25 percent of a project’s budget must come from non-Federal sources) for the project’s first year, with the potential for continued funding for up to five years. Proposals are due by 5pm EDT on Monday, April 16th. According to the solicitation: One area where a clear long-term technological challenge resides is in the development of new […]

Earlier this month, the National Coordination Office (NCO) for the Networking and Information Technology Research and Development (NITRD) Program — the Federal program that provides a framework and mechanisms for coordination among 15 Federal agencies that support networking and information technology research and development — issued a Call for Papers for the National Symposium on Moving Target Research. This daylong symposium, which comes on the heels of the National Science and Technology Council (NSTC) Trustworthy Cyberspace: Strategic Plan for the Federal Cybersecurity Research and Development Program report published in December, “intends to bring together and publish the work of the Moving Target cybersecurity research community to provide a basis for building on […]

Back in January, we described a new Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) program focused on innovative research proposals “in support of the development of new software-based biometric modalities” that go beyond passwords for identity validation. Now The New York Times is out with a story that sheds more light on the initiative: IMAGINE sitting down at your work keyboard, typing in your user name and starting work right away — no password needed.   That’s a vision that the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, part of the Defense Department, wants to turn into a reality. It will distribute research funds to develop software that determines, just by the way you type, […]

The Washington Post is out with an article today about the Pentagon’s “accelerating efforts to develop a new generation of cyberweapons capable of disrupting enemy military networks even when those networks are not connected to the Internet”: Last year, to speed up the development of cyberweapons, as well as defensive technology, then-Deputy Defense Secretary William J. Lynn III and Marine Corps Gen. James Cartwright, then vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, placed $500 million over five years into the budget of the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), one of the Defense ­Department’s premier research organizations.   The agency also has launched new ­cyber-development initiatives, including a “fast-track” program.   […]