I’m just back from a great workshop on US Ignite and GigU, held at Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland this week. I sat in on the US Ignite track — and got to hear many excellent presentations from folks with exciting ideas (and teams at the ready!) for developing gigabit applications. Each team summarized the novelty of their idea(s), how ultra-broadband connectivity is key to success, feasibility, benefits, and metrics for evaluation. In many cases, the ideas and teams emerged from a brainstorming session that took place during the first US Ignite workshop held in Washington, DC, on May 16 — just under a month ago. Areas of particular emphasis […]
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.
US Ignite & GigU Workshops: “Living the Future Today”
June 11th, 2011 / in research horizons, workshop reports / by Erwin Gianchandani“Hollywood Spurs Surge in Computer Science Majors”
June 11th, 2011 / in pipeline, policy / by Erwin GianchandaniThere’s a great article in today’s New York Times describing the recent rise in enrollments in computer science — spurred in part by “Hollywood’s portrayal of the tech world, as well as celebrity entrepreneurs like Steven P. Jobs of Apple and [Mark] Zuckerberg [of Facebook] who make products that students use every day.” On the rise in enrollments: The number of computer science degrees awarded in the United States began rising in 2010, and will reach 11,000 this year, after plummeting each year since the end of the dot-com bubble in 2004, according to the Computing Research Association, which tracks enrollment and degrees… The number of students who are pursuing the degree […]
IBM Researchers Create High-Speed Graphene Circuits
June 10th, 2011 / in Research News / by Erwin GianchandaniFrom a story published on The New York Times‘ website late yesterday: IBM researchers said Thursday that they had designed high-speed circuits from graphene, an ultra-thin material that has a host of promising applications, from high-bandwidth communication to a new generation of low-cost smartphone and television displays. The IBM advance, which the researchers reported in the journal Science, is a circuit known as a broadband frequency mixer that was built on a wafer of silicon. Widely used in all kinds of communications products, the circuits shift signals from one frequency to another. In the Science paper, the IBM researchers describe a demonstration in which they deposited several layers of […]
Akamai Chief Scientist Talks Theory
June 10th, 2011 / in big science, conference reports, research horizons / by Erwin GianchandaniOver the past few weeks, we’ve been highlighting on this blog several of the excellent talks from the “Computation and the Transformation of Practically Everything” symposium held at MIT earlier this year. The symposium — part of MIT’s 150th anniversary celebration — described how computer science is changing the world. This week, we showcase another talk, this one by Tom Leighton, the Co-Founder and Chief Scientist of Akamai Technologies — a global leader in web acceleration and performance — and a Professor of Applied Mathematics at MIT. Leighton described the history of theoretical computer science, including key advances like the RSA encryption protocol, the Viterbi algorithm (which is used today in cell phones, digital TVs, etc., and […]
US Ignite & GigU Plenaries Webcast Today & Tomorrow
June 9th, 2011 / in policy, research horizons, resources, workshop reports / by Erwin GianchandaniThe NSF’s CISE Directorate and the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP) are co-sponsoring a pair of workshops on US Ignite and GigU — initiatives we’ve covered in this space before — at Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland, OH, today and tomorrow. For those interested, you can watch live webcasts of the plenary sessions here (note the timings): – Today 1-2pm EDT (right now!): Kickoff panel with Jim Baller (PSGW), Blair Levin (GigU), and Suzi Iacono (NSF/CISE) – Friday 11:30am-12:30pm EDT: Closing panel with Jim Baller (PSGW), Blair Levin (GigU), and Suzi Iacono (NSF/CISE) (Contributed by Erwin Gianchandani, CCC Director)
NSF Calling for “Connecting Researchers and Public Audiences”
June 9th, 2011 / in resources / by Erwin GianchandaniThe National Science Foundation’s (NSF) Division on Research on Learning (DRL) has announced its intent to fund up to 24 Connecting Researchers and Public Audiences (CRPA) awards in the coming year, enabling the research community to share NSF research (outcomes) with the public through informal learning approaches. Researchers from all disciplines — including computer science — are encouraged to apply. Proposals may be submitted at any time, and each award will be up to $150,000 for up to two years. CRPA — now housed within the DRL’s Informal Science Education (ISE) program — has a history of funding “active researchers to share with the public key features of their research such as […]
