As noted in a previous post, Mattel has been running a web-based contest to choose Barbie’s next career. The results are in! “You voted! We listened!!” (Even if “you” is a bot …) The winner of the popular vote is … Computer Engineer Barbie! The New York Times reports: “Barbie has come a long way since 1992, when the blond bombshell of a doll was programmed to say, ‘Math class is tough.’ Barbie, whose various careers have taken her from aerobics instructor to supermodel to business executive, will next be a computer engineer, a career chosen by half a million Barbie fans.” Read the full article here.
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.
FOSS Workshop Day 3 Wrap-up
February 12th, 2010 / in research horizons, resources, workshop reports / by Ran Libeskind-HadasThe Free/Open Source Software workshop wrapped up today. Discussion focused on a number of topics, including: – Translation into other domains of software – Software engineering practice – Collaboration issues in FOSS – Learning and education challenges/opportunities – Evolution of products, projects, practices and processes – Research infrastructures A report from the workshop will be developed in the coming weeks and posted on the CCC Web site. John L. King, CCC Council Liaison
FOSS Workshop, Day 2
February 11th, 2010 / in research horizons, resources, workshop reports / by Ran Libeskind-HadasThe attendees at the CCC-supported workshop on Free/Open Source Software met today at UC Irvine’s Bren School of Information and Computer Sciences to work in break-out groups on a refined classification scheme for open-source software development. The group will work tomorrow morning to synthesize the results of today’s efforts into elements that can be reported out. John L. King, CCC Council liaison
FOSS Workshop Kicks Off: Day 1
February 10th, 2010 / in research horizons, resources, workshop reports / by Ran Libeskind-HadasForty-five people met today in Newport Beach, CA for the first day of a three-day workshop supported by the CCC on Free/Open Source Software. For more background information, see http://www.cra.org/ccc/foss.php (Note that about five participants who were supposed to come were snowed in by the big storms in the east, and couldn’t make it.) Today’s discussion was structured around four perspectives on FOSS, with moderators, main presenters, and discussants: Users/Producers: Moderator — Greg Madey (Notre Dame University); Main Presenter — Ralph Morelli (Trinity College); Discussants — Stormy Peters (GNOME Foundation), John Wallin (George Mason University). Human-Centered Computing: Moderator — Walt Scacchi (UC Irvine); Main Presenter: Chris Kelty (UCLA); Discussants — […]
Nominations Sought for Extraordinary Student Stories Award
February 6th, 2010 / in Uncategorized / by Ran Libeskind-HadasThe Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation is sponsoring an award for K-12, undergraduate, graduate students, and recent graduates who have done something remarkable to address the Grand Challenges our world faces. The National Academy of Engineering has identified 14 specific NAE Grand Challenge problem areas in Sustainability, Health, Vulnerability, Joy of Living. Many of these problems potentially have a significant computational component. If you know of a student has already made a special contribution in one of these areas, please nominate them!Nominations may REUSE existing materials such as videos, essays, articles, business plans, posters, presentations, photo essays or can be newly created. Nominations are due 1 March 2010. There are $15,000 in cash […]
Peter Lee on the future of DARPA, and the Transformational Convergence Technology Office
February 4th, 2010 / in Uncategorized / by Ed LazowskaFive months ago, Peter Lee took a leave of absence as Head of the Computer Science Department at Carnegie Mellon University to begin a stint at DARPA as the Director of the new Transformational Convergence Technology Office (DARPA/TCTO). TCTO is re-establishing basic research programs in a broad range of rapidly emerging computing-enabled technology areas such as social media, synthetic biology, high-performance computing, and networking, as well as employing a diverse range of innovation strategies including broad community programs, competitions/challenges, and crowd sourcing. Peter spoke on DARPA and TCTO at the University of Washington on February 2. The talk is inspiring and informative. Watch the streaming video here.
