The following Great Innovative Idea is from Nikolaus Correll, Assistant Professor in the Department of Computer Science at the University of Colorado at Boulder, about his paper with University of Colorado at Boulder doctoral student Andy McEvoy on Materials that couple sensing, actuation, computation, and communication.  The Innovative Idea Advances in polymers and miniaturization of computing devices allow us to tightly integrate sensing, actuation, computation and communication into composite materials. Such “robotic materials” can sense their environment at high-bandwidth, implement high-speed feedback control to change their shape or appearance, and solve tough computing problems using distributed algorithms. Examples of such materials include a skin that triangulates and classifies textures rubbed against it, smart glass that can […]

The following Great Innovative Idea is from John Oberlin, Maria Meier, Tim Kraska, and Stefanie Tellex in the Computer Science Department at Brown University. Their Acquiring Object Experiences at Scale was one of the winners at the Computing Community Consortium (CCC) sponsored Blue Sky Ideas Track Competition at the AAAI-RSS Special Workshop on the 50th Anniversary of Shakey: The Role of AI to Harmonize Robots and Humans in Rome, Italy. It was a half day workshop on July 16th during the Robotics Science and Systems (RSS) 2015 Conference. The Innovative Idea Baxter is a two armed manipulator robot which which is gaining popularity in the research and industrial communities. At […]

Tom Dietterich and Eric Horvitz, the current and former president of the Association for the Advancement of Artificial Intelligence (AAAI), respectively, have co-authored a CACM Viewpoint on the Rise of Concerns of AI: Reflection and Directions, now openly available in the October issue of CACM. Tom Dietterich is the Distinguished Professor and Director of Intelligent Systems at Oregon State’s School of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science and Eric Horvitz is the Distinguished Scientist & Managing Director at Microsoft Research and former CCC Council Member. Drs. Dietterich and Horvitz reflect about the recent rise of anxieties about AI in public discussions and media. They discuss the realities about progress in AI and carefully elucidate several different categories of […]

Texas A&M University‘s Raytheon Professor of Computer Science and Engineering and former Computing Community Consortium (CCC) Council Member, Robin Murphy recently gave a TED talk on Disaster Robots. Robots don’t replace people or dogs…They do things new. They assist the responders, the experts, in new and innovative ways. Robin Murphy, explains how if you can reduce the initial emergency response by one day, you can reduce the overall recovery by 1000 days. If the initial responders can get in, save lives… that means the other groups can get in to restore the water, the roads, the electricity, which means then the construction people, the insurance agents, all of them can get in to rebuild […]

The 2015 Microsoft Research Faculty Summit will be streamed live from Redmond, Washington on Wednesday, July 8 and Thursday, July 9. This free online event offers keynotes and selected presentations from the Faculty Summit on future trends in computer science research. This year’s event, which focuses on Artificial Intelligence, includes former Computing Community Consortium (CCC) Council Member and now Microsoft Research Managing Director, Eric Horvitz. Eric recently posted a CCC blog post on the Benefits and Risks of Artificial Intelligence. The Summit will feature three keynote speakers and a panel: July 8: Opening Keynote 8:30–9:15 A.M. PT (11:30 A.M.–12:15 P.M. ET): Jeannette Wing, Corporate Vice President, Microsoft Research Panel: Progress in AI: Myths, Realities […]

The White House has kicked off the National Week of Making, which lasts from June 12 to June 18. The event includes announcements and progress updates on the President’s call to action to create a “Nation of Makers.”