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.

CCC Research Highlight: ExCAPE

November 19th, 2014 / in Announcements, CCC, research horizons, Research News / by Helen Wright

Periodically, the Computing Community Consortium (CCC) will highlight research projects that are nominated by the public. Research highlights are meant to inform the computing community about interesting research going on in the field. The most recent research highlight featured Dr. Rajeev Alur from the University of Pennsylvania. Dr. Alur leads the NSF Expeditions in Computer Augmented Program Engineering (ExCAPE). The goal of ExCAPE is to change the way programmers develop software by advancing the theory and practice of software synthesis.  ExCAPE develops synthesis tools that can assist expert programmers in discovering difficult code and meet challenges in multicore programming. To read more, see the full research highlight. To submit a research highlight for inclusion […]

Getting Serious about the Design of Social Computing Systems

November 13th, 2014 / in CCC, Research News / by Ann Drobnis

This is a guest post, written by David W. McDonald, Chair and Associate Professor in the Human Centered Design and Engineering Department at the University of Washington. Designing a good application is hard. Designing a good computer system is harder. Designing a good system that accounts for the vagaries of people, their motivations, and their flaws is even harder. Yet that is the challenge that designers of social computing systems must solve. The difficulties of designing social computing systems derive from both the complexity of the software and hardware configurations, and the fact that some participants in a social computing system will not behave with positive goals or intent. That […]

Privacy and Security Briefing on Capitol Hill

November 12th, 2014 / in NSF, policy / by Ann Drobnis

  In honor of National Cybersecurity Awareness Month, the National Science Foundation (NSF) and the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE-USA) sponsored a Capitol Hill briefing titled Privacy and Security in a Connected Age on October 30.  This briefing was hosted by the Congressional Cybersecurity Caucus, including the Caucus Co-Chairs Congressman Michael McCaul and Congressman James Langevin. Dr. C Suzanne Iacono, acting Assistant Director for the Computer and Information Science and Engineering (CISE) Directorate at NSF and moderator of the panel, opened the session by saying, “If we want a future with more individual choice and freedom, a future that we want to live in…we need to create large scale systems that […]

Robotics for Ebola Response

November 10th, 2014 / in research horizons, Research News, resources, robotics / by Ann Drobnis

The following is a special contribution to this blog from Computing Community Consortium (CCC) Chair Gregory Hager (Johns Hopkins University). Imagine you have to change the IV on a writhing patient while wearing two layers of protective gear, the temperature is nearly 100 degrees, the humidity is 100 percent, and you’ve been in your suit for nearly an hour. That is the daily struggle for healthcare workers across Western Africa treating Ebola patients. Can we somehow use our technologies, either those existing today or envisioned for the near future, to change the course of this daily battle and, by doing so, have an impact that could potentially save the lives of […]

DARPA’s Biological Technologies Office announces new program to speed funding

November 7th, 2014 / in pipeline, policy, Research News / by Ann Drobnis

On November 6, 2014, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) Biological Technologies Office (BTO) announced a new program with a simplified process for engaging with DARPA that will make it easier for businesses to attract up to $700k in seedling funding to pursue capabilities at the intersection of biology and technology. From Dr. Alicia Jackson, deputy director of DARPA’s BTO: DARPA’s Biological Technologies Office looks at biology as a technology, with a focus on harnessing living systems or integrating those systems with nonliving systems.  If you look at where we’re already invested, it’s in areas such as human-machine interfaces, synthetic biology, combatting infectious disease and optimizing human health. The ideas we’re seeking would continue that […]

Cyber Physical Systems: A Perspective from Keith Marzullo

November 6th, 2014 / in NSF, research horizons / by Ann Drobnis

The following is a special contribution to this blog by Keith Marzullo, division director for the National Science Foundation’s (NSF) Division of Computer and Network Systems (CNS).    Starting in 2008, the National Science Foundation (NSF) established a program called Cyber-Physical Systems, or CPS for short. What are CPS, and why did we establish this program? To answer these questions, I’d like you to imagine a world in which our physical environment interacts seamlessly and intelligently with us. Where our homes and offices respond to our needs while conserving our use of resources such as energy and water. Where we have access to autonomous vehicles that provide transportation while reducing congestion, fuel […]