In 2009, President Obama issued a Memorandum on Transparency and Open Government.  That memorandum has been followed by additional memorandums and Executive Orders resulting in the Open Government Initiative.  As a result of this initiative, governments (both federal and local) are releasing data feeds, which have enabled the creation and use of new applications, from real-time accurate traffic information to localized crime reporting. While the Initiative is presented as “an unqualified good” there are some questions about the impact on citizens.  As such, the Berkeley Center for Law & Technology and Microsoft have issued an RFP to further explore the technical, legal, and regulatory implications of Open Data.  From the solicitation: The […]

The 15th Annual Microsoft Research Faculty Summit is taking place July 14-15, 2014 in Redmond, WA.  There is an exciting program planned with topics including computing devices and the Internet of Things, hardware-software co-design, data visualization, crowdsourcing applications, machine learning, and the algorithms that underlie emerging fields, such as computational neuroscience.  If you’re not going to be in Redmond, you can still be a part of the action, as the event will be live streamed for all to see. Last year’s Research Faculty Summit was a huge success, you can read about in this blog post by Ed Lazowska.  This year looks to be just as promising!