The following is a special contribution to this blog by CCC Executive Council Member Mark D. Hill of the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Even with the slowing of Moore’s Law and the end of Dennard scaling, computer chips can still get dramatically better performance—without dramatically more power—by using specialized “accelerator” blocks to perform key tasks much faster (> 100x) and/or at lower power. Classic accelerators include floating-point hardware (a separately chip back in the days of the Intel 8087), graphics processing units (GPUs), and field-programmable gate arrays (FPGAs). The recent explosion in the progress and importance of deep learning makes artificial neural networks a promising target for hardware acceleration. To this end, at least NINE papers at the recent International […]
Computing Community Consortium Blog
The goal of the Computing Community Consortium (CCC) is to catalyze the computing research community to debate longer range, more audacious research challenges; to build consensus around research visions; to evolve the most promising visions toward clearly defined initiatives; and to work with the funding organizations to move challenges and visions toward funding initiatives. The purpose of this blog is to provide a more immediate, online mechanism for dissemination of visioning concepts and community discussion/debate about them.
Accelerating Accelerating Artificial Neural Networks at ISCA 2016
June 27th, 2016 / in CCC, Research News / by Helen WrightComputing Research Symposium Poster Session
June 27th, 2016 / in CCC, research horizons, Research News / by Helen WrightThe following is a guest blog post by Liz Bradley from the University of Colorado and a member of the CCC Executive Committee. Last week we summarized the Computing Community Consortium (CCC) May 2016 Symposium, Computing Research: Addressing National Priorities and Societal Needs. This is the second of a series of blogs that will be posted about the symposium and the four different themes that were presented. One of the most dynamic and forward-looking events at the symposium was a poster session involving 38 early career faculty members, postdoctoral scholars, and graduate students. The interests of this group, which represents the future of the field, spanned the full range of computing research. A number of their posters described novel technologies for computer-human […]
The Importance of CS Education Research
June 23rd, 2016 / in CS education, Research News / by Helen WrightContributions to this post were provided by Andrew Ko, University of Washington. Andrew J. Ko is an Associate Professor at the University of Washington Information School and an Adjunct Associate Professor in Computer Science and Engineering. His research focuses on interactions between people and code, spanning the areas of human-computer interaction, software engineering, and more recently computing education. Ko maintains a blog called Bits and Behavior in which he muses “about software and the world’s attempt to understand it.” A recent blog post, however, was a little more personal and talked about his transition from studying developer tools and productivity to “shaping how developers (and developers-in-training) learn and shape their […]
Computing as a Force for Social Good
June 22nd, 2016 / in CCC, Research News, resources / by Helen WrightThe following is a guest blog by Greg Hager, Computing Community Consortium (CCC) Chair and Professor in the Department of Computer Science at Johns Hopkins University. Computing has become a powerful tool for productivity and connectivity — it powers companies, it fuels scientific research, and it delivers entertainment and social engagement for billions. Could research-based innovations in computing also become a catalyst for addressing compelling societal problems? To explore this question, the Computing Community Consortium (CCC) organized a two-day Symposium on Computing Research: Addressing National Priorities and Societal Needs. This meeting brought together over 130 in-person participants and over 1000 online viewers to raise the visibility of work that connects […]
National Week of Making!
June 22nd, 2016 / in Announcements, research horizons / by Khari DouglasContributions to this post were provided by Meredith M. Lee, Executive Director of the West Data Hub from UC Berkeley. President Obama released a proclamation announcing June 17 through June 23, 2016 as National Week of Making. He called upon all Americans to observe this week with programs, ceremonies, and activities that encourage a new generation of makers and manufacturers to share their talents, solutions, and skills. From the press release: During National Week of Making, we recommit to sparking the creative confidence of all Americans and to giving them the skills, mentors, and resources they need to harness their passion and tackle some of our planet’s greatest challenges… Over […]
2006’s Most Influential PLDI Paper Award Goes To…
June 21st, 2016 / in Announcements, awards / by Khari DouglasCCC Council Member Ben Zorn and his co-author Emery Berger were recently honored with the Most Influential PLDI Paper Award by ACM SIGPLAN for their 2006 paper DieHard: probabilistic memory safety for unsafe languages. SIGPLAN is a Special Interest Group of ACM that focuses on Programming Languages. In particular, SIGPLAN explores the design, implementation, theory, and efficient use of programming languages and associated tools. The Most Influential PLDI Paper Award is presented annually to the author(s) of a paper presented at the PLDI held 10 years prior to the award year. The award includes a prize of $1,000 to be split among the authors of the winning paper. The papers […]
