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.

Interbot’s Robot Takes Top Honors at the First RoboBowl

October 19th, 2011 / in research horizons, Research News / by Erwin Gianchandani

Interbots’ consumer robot for autism therapy took the top prize last Thursday at the nation’s first-ever next-generation robotics venture competition. The event, called RoboBowl Pittsburgh (it was held at Carnegie Mellon University), was co-sponsored by the Robotics Technology Consortium and Innovation Accelerator, and sought “to find and foster startup and early-stage companies seeking to develop products and services that address unmet and underserved market needs” in the healthcare sector. Interbots — selected out of five finalists by a panel of judges that included leading roboticists and healthcare professionals from around the country — will receive $20,000 for its top finish. According to the official entry description, Interbots has leveraged recent research findings to create an affordable consumer robot […]

“How Google’s Self-Driving Car Works”

October 18th, 2011 / in big science, research horizons, Research News / by Erwin Gianchandani

Stanford University professor Sebastian Thrun and Google engineer Chris Urmson — the brains behind Google’s autonomous vehicle project — explained how the self-driving cars work and showed off videos of successful road tests during a recent keynote at the 2011 IEEE/RSJ International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems in San Francisco. According to IEEE Spectrum, which has complete coverage of the keynote: Google’s fleet of robotic Toyota Priuses has now logged more than 190,000 miles (about 300,000 kilometers), driving in city traffic, busy highways, and mountainous roads with only occasional human intervention. The project is still far from becoming commercially viable, but Google has set up a demonstration system on its campus, using driverless golf […]

“Improving Brain-Computer Interfaces”

October 17th, 2011 / in big science, research horizons, Research News / by Erwin Gianchandani

A Science Nation story published today describes a public-private partnership funded in part by the National Science Foundation (NSF) that is attempting to link mind and machine to ultimately improve the living conditions of those with “locked-in syndrome” — a malady in which people with normal cognitive brain activity suffer severe paralysis, often from injuries or an illness such as Lou Gehrig’s disease. From the Science Nation article (see a video after the jump!):

Administration Seeking Input on National Bioeconomy Blueprint

October 17th, 2011 / in big science, policy, research horizons / by Erwin Gianchandani

Last month, the President announced plans to develop a National Bioeconomy Blueprint, describing government-wide steps “to harness biological research innovations to address national challenges in health, food, energy, and the environment.” And earlier this month, the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP) issued a Request for Information (RFI), seeking input on how best to develop such a blueprint, including: strategies to meet grand challenges in lean budget times; commercialization and entrepreneurship opportunities to open new markets; research and development investments in areas that will provide the foundation for the bioeconomy; enhancements of workforce training to prepare the next generation of scientists and engineers for the bioeconomy jobs of the […]

First Person: “One of My Most Exciting Internship Experiences”

October 16th, 2011 / in resources / by Erwin Gianchandani

Editor’s note: As we’ve previously noted in this space (see here and here), the National Science Foundation (NSF) is soliciting applications for its 2012 East Asia and Pacific Summer Institutes for U.S. Graduate Students (EAPSI). Shwetak Patel — an Assistant Professor of Computer Science & Engineering at the University of Washington who was recently named a MacArthur Fellowship — participated in the 2005 EAPSI program, visiting Jun Rekimoto at the Sony Computer Science Laboratories (CSL), while a Ph.D. student at Georgia Tech. Here Shwetak describes his experiences — and encourages others in computer science (and related fields) to apply. One of my most exciting internship experiences came in 2005 as a part of the NSF EASPI program. Through […]

Announcing the 2011 Computing Innovation Fellows

October 14th, 2011 / in CIFellows / by Erwin Gianchandani

With support from the National Science Foundation, the Computing Community Consortium (CCC) today named 20 talented recent Ph.D.s in computer science and allied fields 2011 Computing Innovation Fellows (CIFellows). These exceptionally talented researchers — from 18 different Ph.D.-granting colleges and universities — are beginning one- to two-year postdoctoral positions at 17 academic and industrial research institutions nationwide. They join a total of 107 others who have been supported through the CIFellows Project since 2009, as part of a short-term effort to forestall a permanent loss of research talent due to the financial crisis and subsequent economic downturn. The 2011 CIFellows were competitively selected from 177 applicants spanning 76 Ph.D.-granting colleges and […]