The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency’s (DARPA) Microsystems Technology Office (MTO) has announced a Proposers Day for a new program — Power Efficiency Revolution for Embedded Computing Technologies (PERFECT) — to introduce the research community to the PERFECT vision and goals, and to facilitate interaction and coordination among prospective PIs and technology developers. The Proposers Day will take place on February 15, 2012, in Arlington, VA. The PERFECT program seeks to “provide the technologies and techniques to overcome the power efficiency barriers that currently constrain embedded computing systems capabilities and limit the potential of future embedded systems.” Importantly, a key component of this is resiliency, an area for which a recent CCC visioning […]

The Institute of Medicine (IOM) and National Academy of Engineering (NAE) have partnered to launch the “Go Viral to Improve Health” Health Data Collegiate Challenge, designed to spur undergraduate and graduate students to create health-related apps. The contest is aimed at students pursuing degrees in health, engineering, and computer science. And the prize for the winning team is $10,000. According to the Challenge website (after the jump):

The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) is out this month with a broad agency announcement soliciting “innovation research proposals in support of the development of new software-based biometric modalities” that go beyond the current focus of passwords for identity validation: The current standard method for validating a user’s identity for authentication on an information system requires humans to do something that is inherently difficult: create, remember, and manage long, complex passwords. Moreover, as long as the session remains active, typical systems incorporate no mechanisms to verify that the user originally authenticated is the user still in control of the keyboard. Thus, unauthorized individuals may improperly obtain extended access to […]

The International Society for Technology in Education (ITSE), in partnership with the Computer Science Teachers Association (CSTA) and the National Science Foundation (NSF), is out with an outstanding four-minute video — Computational Thinking: A Digital Age Skill for Everyone — providing an introduction to computational thinking. It’s part of the ITSE’s recent efforts to develop an operational definition for CT, generate booklets for teachers and leaders, and develop a toolkit for presentations or meetings with educators and parents. To describe computational thinking, the video highlights how advances in computing research are changing our everyday lives — from tracking and preventing crime to efficiently managing the global food supply, from detecting illnesses in rural […]

USAID is launching what it calls “an exciting and ambitious” program to engage universities and research institutes in novel ways to improve the agency’s (and larger development community’s) ability to define and solve large development challenges. Computing appears poised to play an important role here, as key goals of the program are “to advance evidence-based analysis and test new solutions, to champion and incubate creative approaches to accelerate solutions to traditional development challenges, and to encourage universities to assist in addressing development problems through sustainable, creative, and multidisciplinary approaches.” USAID has posted a draft request for applications describing the new development centers that it is aiming to fund through this program. […]

Verisign has announced its 2012 Internet Infrastructure Award Program, seeking proposals that pursue “research that has the potential to improve the availability and security of Internet access in all parts of the world.” Expanding on a program first launched in 2010, this year’s program seeks to emphasize research that “advances security and stability, encourages Internet deployment, and improves the Internet infrastructure overall.” Verisign will issue two $200,000 awards; each award will support two graduate students for one year, plus institutional overhead. According to the Verisign announcement: Verisign is pleased to declare that it will announce two $200,000 research awards on May 2012 to support research that has the potential to improve the availability […]