Mobiledia is out this week with an interesting article about “Big Data”: Technology is improving Siri, powering driverless cars, improving cancer treatment and even being called Big Brother. But “big data” is what makes it possible, and why it’s so important. Big data refers to the analytic algorithms applied to vast amounts of data across several different places, or simply the math and computer formulas used to sift through massive amounts of data and analyze the results to answer questions and solve problems. The edge big data has over traditional analytics is its ability to include data types that aren’t organized in tabular formats, including written documents, images and […]
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.
“Five Reasons ‘Big Data’ is a Big Deal”
May 29th, 2012 / in big science, policy, research horizons, Research News / by Erwin GianchandaniData, Computing at Center of Presidential Advisors’ Meeting
May 25th, 2012 / in big science, policy, research horizons, Research News / by Erwin GianchandaniData and computing were front and center at today’s meeting of the President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology (PCAST) in Washington, DC, with U.S. Chief Technology Officer (CTO) Todd Park summarizing the Administration’s rollout this week of a “digital roadmap” seeking to take advantage of existing government data repositories — and David Ferrucci, head of IBM’s Watson project, and Anthony Levandowski, product manager for Google’s self-driving car technology, delivering talks about the fundamental advances being enabled by their teams’ work (more following the link).
Turning the Body Into a Wireless Controller
May 25th, 2012 / in Research News / by Erwin GianchandaniNew Scientist published a great article last week summarizing two new gesture computing technologies developed by colleagues at Microsoft Research and the University of Washington and presented at CHI 2012 earlier this month: THE advent of multi-touch screens and novel gaming interfaces means the days of the traditional mouse and keyboard are well and truly numbered. With Humantenna and SoundWave, you won’t even have to touch a computer to control it, gesturing in its direction will be enough… As the name suggests, Humantenna uses the human body as an antenna to pick up the electromagnetic fields — generated by power lines and electrical appliances — that fill indoor and outdoor spaces. Users wear a device […]
A Retrospective on Alan Turing’s Influence
May 24th, 2012 / in awards, resources / by Erwin GianchandaniAhead of the Alan Turing Centenary next month, SD Times has published an interesting retrospective describing Turing’s influence on the field: Turing’s birthday — June 23, 1912 — will be marked by worldwide celebrations. The Association for Computing Machinery is hosting its Turing Centenary Celebration on June 15 and 16 at the Palace Hotel in San Francisco… The Turing Award, first given in 1966, is handed out each year to one or more individuals for their contributions of a technical nature to the computing community. The award also includes a US$250,000 prize. In speaking with past winners of the Turing Award and others who have used his research as a starting point for their […]
Microsoft Research Names 2012 Faculty Fellows
May 23rd, 2012 / in awards / by Erwin GianchandaniMicrosoft Research today announced its 2012 Faculty Fellows, recognizing 7 outstanding new faculty members — with diverse research interests spanning robotics, machine learning, human-computer interaction, and social networking, and representing “a selection of the best and brightest in their fields.” Among this year’s Fellows is one of our 2009 Computing Innovation Fellows (CIFellows), Miriah Meyer, who started in the fall as an assistant professor at the University of Utah. According to Microsoft’s announcement: Now in its eighth year, the Microsoft Research Faculty Fellowship program has awarded nearly 50 innovative faculty members in order to stimulate and support creative research undertaken by promising researchers who have the potential to make a profound impact on […]
Revisiting “Where the jobs are…”
May 23rd, 2012 / in pipeline, resources / by Erwin GianchandaniA little over two years ago, we blogged about the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics’s (BLS) biennial employment outlook — a 10-year forecast of job growth in all occupations — noting the prominence of computing in the decade ahead. Well, earlier this year, BLS released a new employment outlook for the period 2010-2020, and computing was once again front and center: Computer and mathematical occupations are projected to add 778,300 new jobs between 2010 and 2020, after having added 229,600 new jobs from 2006 to 2010. This represents 22.0 percent growth from 2010 to 2020… Employment in the computer systems design and related services industry is projected to add 671,300 jobs, to reach […]
