Google unveiled details about its Project Glass initiative Wednesday, attracting quite a bit of buzz in the popular press. In a Google+ post co-authored by Babak Parviz, Steve Lee, and Sebastian Thrun: We think technology should work for you — to be there when you need it and get out of your way when you don’t. A group of us from Google[x] started Project Glass to build this kind of technology, one that helps you explore and share your world, putting you back in the moment. We’re sharing this information now because we want to start a conversation and learn from your valuable input. So we took a few design […]
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.
Google’s Project Glass: Augmented Reality Glasses
April 5th, 2012 / in research horizons, Research News / by Erwin GianchandaniNPR Hosts Conversation About Last Week’s Big Data Launch
April 4th, 2012 / in big science, policy, research horizons, resources, videos / by Erwin GianchandaniNPR’s Diane Rehm Show on Monday featured an hour-long discussion among several thought leaders — titled “The New World of Massive Data Mining” — about the Federal government’s new Big Data R&D Initiative: Every time you go on the Internet, make a phone call, send an email, pass a traffic camera or pay a bill, you create [electronic data]. In all, 2.5 quintillion bytes of data are created each day. This massive pile of information from all sources is called “Big Data.” It gets stored somewhere, and everyday the pile gets bigger. Government and industry are finding new ways to analyze it. Last week the administration announced an initiative to aid the development of Big Data […]
NSF Announces New Expeditions in Computing Awards
April 3rd, 2012 / in big science, research horizons, Research News / by Erwin GianchandaniThe National Science Foundation’s (NSF) Directorate for Computer and Information Science and Engineering (CISE) today announced four new Expeditions in Computing awards, providing each selected project team up to $10 million in funding over five years to pursue “ambitious fundamental research” that will shape “the future of computing and information technologies for decades to come.” Established in 2008, Expeditions from “the centerpiece of the directorate’s award portfolio”; they represent the single largest investments made by the directorate in basic computing research. The four awards announced today “contribute to the program’s rich intellectual portfolio,” according to NSF, “by adding two projects in robotics and smart systems, one project focused on new […]
“The World According to DARPA”
April 3rd, 2012 / in policy, Research News, resources / by Erwin GianchandaniOur colleagues over at IEEE have published a great piece by G. Pascal Zachary, a professor of practice at Arizona State University, opining on the legacy of recently-departed Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) Director Regina Dugan: The most famous name in American innovation today isn’t Apple or Google. Nor is it Facebook, Boeing, or Intel. The iconic American innovator is a government agency that neither earns a profit nor sells a single consumer product. That DARPA … runs with the big dogs of commercial innovation reflects the importance of science and technology to national security. War, not necessity, is the mother of invention. .. Since its inception as the Advanced Research Projects Agency in the late […]
White House, Labor Dept. Announce Summer Jobs+ Code Sprint
April 2nd, 2012 / in pipeline, policy, resources / by Erwin GianchandaniCalling all developers! Late this afternoon, the White House and Department of Labor announced the Summer Jobs+ Code Sprint, “challenging the developer community to build apps that reach kids throughout the nation on their browsers, Facebook, Android, iOS, SMS or any other platform.” The Labor Department released an API that opens access to thousands of summer internship, mentorship, and other training opportunities through the Summer Jobs+ Bank — which seeks to provide low-income and disconnected youth access to these opportunities. This is the first ever White House Code Sprint and we’re excited to see what innovative apps you build over the next seven days. There is no ideal app, but keep in mind that our […]
Towards Smarter Cities and Homes
April 2nd, 2012 / in research horizons, Research News / by Erwin GianchandaniThis week’s Science magazine features two perspectives (subscription required) authored by three computer scientists — Diane Cook (Washington State University), Michael O’Grady (University College Dublin), and Gregory O’Hare (University College Dublin) — describing visions for future “smart” homes and cities and, notably, the computing research challenges that must be addressed for these visions to become reality. In the first piece about smart homes, Cook writes: Individuals spend most of their time in their home or workplace; for many, these places are their sanctuaries. Over the course of the 20th century, technological advances have helped to enhance the comfort and shelter provided by our homes. Insights gained from capturing and modeling behavior in these places may be useful in making […]
