This blog post is from Jacob Chakareski, Assistant Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering at the University of Alabama. Virtual and augmented reality (VR/AR) hold tremendous potential to advance our society. Together with another pair of emerging technologies, 360° video and holographic video, they can suspend our disbelief of being at a remote location or having remote objects/people present in our immediate surrounding, akin to virtual human/object teleportation. Presently limited to offline operation and synthetic content and targeting gaming and entertainment, VR/AR are expected to reach their potential when deployed online and with real remote scene content, enabling novel applications in disaster relief, the environmental sciences, transportation, and quality of […]

The following is a letter to the community from James Kurose, Assistant Director, and Erwin Gianchandani, Deputy Assistant Director, of the National Science Foundation (NSF) Directorate of Computer & Information Science & Engineering (CISE).   Dear CISE Community, As the 2018-2019 academic year begins, we wanted to take a moment to highlight an important expansion of our broadening participation in computing (BPC) efforts. As a preface, let’s begin, though, by reflecting on the great strides that our community has made in improving access to computer science education at the K-12 level.  Just two years ago, The College Board launched a new Advanced Placement® (AP®) exam, Computer Science Principles (CSP).  Over 50,000 students took the exam […]

The National Science Foundation (NSF) needs YOU to help create the Big Ideas of the future! The NSF 2026 Idea Machine is a competition to help set the U.S. agenda for fundamental research in science and engineering. Participants can earn prizes and receive public recognition by suggesting the pressing research questions that need to be answered in the coming decade, the next set of “Big Ideas” for future investment by the NSF. It’s an opportunity for researchers, the public and other interested stakeholders to contribute to NSF’s mission to support basic research and enable new discoveries that drive the U.S. economy, enhance national security and advance knowledge to sustain the […]

The National Science Foundation‘s Division of Materials Research (DMR), the Division of Mathematical Sciences (DMS), the Division of Electrical, Communications and Cyber Systems (ECCS), and the Office of Advanced Cyberinfrastructure (OAC) seek to rapidly accelerate quantum materials design, synthesis, characterization, and translation of fundamental materials engineering and information research for quantum devices, systems, and networks. The new program of Enabling Quantum Leap: Convergent Accelerated Discovery Foundries for Quantum Materials Science, Engineering, and Information (Q-AMASE-i) aims to support these goals by establishing Foundries with mid-scale infrastructure for rapid prototyping and development of quantum materials and devices. The new materials, devices, tools and methods developed by Q-AMASE-i will be shared with the science […]

Shwetak Patel, from the University of Washington, contributed to this post.  Would you like to know how much energy your living room TV is using when it is running? What about when how much it uses while still plugged in and turned “off”? How about checking to see if your newborn baby has jaundice using your smartphone? Would that be helpful? All these practical applications are now possible using a smart sensor in the home and on your phone. The National Science Foundation Science Nation recently went to the Computing Community Consortium (CCC) council member Shwetak Patel’s lab to learn how to use smart sensors to create a breakdown of […]

The next WATCH talk, called Why the Census Bureau Adopted Differential Privacy for the 2020 Census of Population, from John M. Abowd, Chief Scientist and Associate Director for Research and Methodology at the U.S. Census Bureau, is Wednesday, June 6th 2018, Noon-1PM EST. Dr. Abowd was the lead author of the Computing Community Consortium (CCC) white paper on Privacy-Preserving Data Analysis for the Federal Statistical Agencies in January 2017.  John M. Abowd is Associate Director for Research and Methodology and Chief Scientist at the United States Census Bureau and the Edmund Ezra Day Professor of Economics, Professor of Statistics and Information Science at Cornell University. At the Census Bureau, he leads a directorate of research centers, each devoted […]