Published: May 2008,  Issue: Vol. 20/No.3, Download as PDF

Archive of articles published in the May 2008, Vol. 20/No.3 issue.

BLS Predicts Strong Job Growth and High Salaries for IT Workforce through 2016


In its employment projections for 2006-2016, the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) predicts that professional level IT occupations will continue to enjoy high salaries and more than twice the growth rate as the overall workforce. Every two years, BLS releases workforce projections covering a 10-year period. The definition for the ‘professional IT workforce’ used here is that used by the Department of Commerce’s Office of Technology Policy.

Ricoh Innovations, Inc. California Research Center


The California Research Center (CRC) of Ricoh Innovations, Inc. is quickly approaching its 20th anniversary. Founded in 1989, CRC’s charter was to perform fundamental research to ensure the technological future of Ricoh. Ricoh is a manufacturer of office equipment, including copiers, printers and electro-optics, and is a global remote management service provider.

Snowbird and the Big Data Avalanche


As I write this column, a late spring snow has settled over Seattle, covering my freshly mown lawn. This prompted me to think about the upcoming CRA Conference at Snowbird, Utah. Every two years, the chairs of the Ph.D.-granting departments of computer science and engineering, as well as the leaders of government and industrial laboratories, gather at Snowbird to discuss all aspects of the state of computing— research, education, recruiting, diversity and inclusion, government and industrial policies, and collaboration. The Snowbird meeting a great opportunity for networking—the social kind—meeting new and old friends, exchanging ideas and experiences and sharing best practices.

Milestone Week in Evolving History of Data-Intensive Computing


The last week of March 2008 saw the emergence of a significant new era in the world of data-intensive scalable computing. Co-sponsored by the Computing Community Consortium (CCC) and Yahoo!, the first ever Hadoop Summit took place on March 25 in Santa Clara, followed by the first Data-Intensive Computing Symposium on March 26 at the Sunnyvale headquarters of Yahoo!

African-American Researchers in Computing Sciences: A Model for Broadening Participation


According to the most recent Computing Research Association (CRA) Taulbee Survey, African-Americans represent 1.3 percent of all computing sciences faculty. Nationally, across all disciplines, African-Americans represent 5.2 percent of all academic faculty. The African-American Researchers in Computing Sciences (AARCS) program was funded by the National Science Foundation’s Broadening Participation in Computing (BPC) program in 2006. It aims to narrow the gap between computing science faculty and the national average by eliminating disbeliefs, concerns and misunderstandings about graduate school, research, and computing sciences faculty among African-American undergraduate computing sciences majors.