The Boston Globe has a piece on the apparent disposition of some TIA-related (DARPA .pdf) work in the wake of Congress’ move last year to eliminate DARPA funding for the controversial program. The program, an attempt to “design a prototype network that integrates innovative information technologies for detecting and preempting foreign terrorist activities against Americans,” […]
Business Week is running a special report on US R&D policy and how America may be slipping down the curve compared with other countries. Some choice quotes: For anyone concerned about strengthening America’s long-term leadership in science and technology, the nation’s schools are an obvious place to start. But brace yourself for what you’ll find. […]
Wired has an eye-opening article on a draft letter circulated by the California Attorney General’s office to other state attorneys general that suggests peer-to-peer software producers are making a “dangerous product” and that the failure of technology makers to warn consumers could constitute a deceptive trade practice. More intriguing is that Wired obtained a copy […]
Just a quick link to a worrisome Washington Post story about a Justice Department petition to the FCC urgently requesting the agency intervene to require internet service providers to allow easier access to their networks for wiretapping purposes. The news article suggests that Justice is asking for technological changes to the network in order to […]
Hands Off! That Fact Is Mine (from Wired Magazine courtesy of Phil Bernstein) A nice introduction to the issues for non-technical types. [Peter Harsha adds: CRA has joined with USACM in educating Members of Congress about the potentially serious impact the bill could have on legitimate research. More details soon…. USACM also has an excellent […]
In a piece about the outsourcing phenomenon and its impact on computer science students, and Microsoft’s Bill Gates’ recent tour of UIUC, Carnegie Mellon, Cornell, MIT, and Harvard trying to drum up enthusiasm for the discipline, the NY Times cited CRA’s Taulbee Survey as evidence of the declining numbers of undergraduates in comp sci. Despite […]
Thanks to Ellie Young of USENIX for passing this along: The SCO Group, Inc. (SCO) has recently sued IBM and Novell and launched broad attacks on the legality of and the economic justification for so-called open source licensing, including the free licensing of Linux. (see http://www.osaia.org/letters/sco_hill.pdf) As an organization dedicated to advancing the skills and […]
The last two days have featured a number of congressional hearings of interest to the computing research community. Here’s a brief summary: Senate VA-HUD Appropriations Subcommittee, Thursday – OSTP Director John Marburger, NSF Interim Director Arden Bement, and National Science Board Director Warren Washington testified before subcommittee chair Sen. Kit Bond (R-MO) and Ranking Member […]
Thanks to all who attended CRA’s annual Computing Leadership Summit. We were treated to a great series of talks from: John Sargent, Senior Policy Advisor, Technology Administration, US Department of Commerce. Sargent went over a fascinating set of statistics he and his colleagues at the Technology Administration have managed to pull out of Bureau of […]
Another perspective on the outsourcing issue, from an editorial in The News & Observer on February 2nd. Makes the point that even as some computing programming jobs have headed offshore, a large number of “heavy industry” jobs, including the manufacturing of vehicles, computers, electronics and other machinery have actually been “insourced” because “U.S. is still […]
