Computing Research Policy Blog


Posts categorized under: R&D in the Press

DARPA Management Issues Cost Agency $32 Million


Noah Shactman has an interesting post on the Danger Room Blog at Wired noting that the Pentagon has “reprogrammed” $32 million of DARPA funding, including $2 million from the Information and Communications Technology account because of DARPA’s inability to attract program managers and spend the money allocated it. From the Reprogramming Action (pdf) report: “DARPA […]

A Closer Look at the RAND Report on U.S. Competitiveness in S&T


[Dustin Cho is CRA’s new summer fellow from the Tisdale Fellowship Program, which has been bringing college students to Washington, DC, for internships that explore current public policy issues of critical importance to the high-tech sector. Dustin is a recent graduate of Yale University with a degree in political science and an interest in the […]

Chronicle, Citing RAND Report, Claims U.S. S&T is A-OK


Two recent pieces in The Chronicle of Higher Education riff off a just-released report by the RAND Corporation to make the case that those who have argued that U.S. science and technology dominance is at risk in a globally competitive world are exaggerating. Richard Monastersky writes in “Despite Recent Obits, U.S. Science and Engineering Remain […]

2008 NSF/AAAS Visualization Challenge


The saying is that a picture is worth a thousand words. Well, NSF and AAAS agree and are sponsoring the sixth annual Science and Engineering Visualization Challenge. There are five awards categories: Photographs/Pictures, Illustrations/Drawings, Informational/Explanatory Graphics, Interactive Media, and Non-Interactive Media. The deadline for entries is May 31. The premise of the Challenge is that […]

Microsoft-Intel Investment in University Research Motivated by DARPA’s Lack of Support


The joint investment announced yesterday by Microsoft and Intel in two university research centers (one at Berkeley and one at University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign) in order to work on solving the challenges of multi-core computing is all over the news, but there’s an aspect of the story that’s been hasn’t been highlighted sufficiently. The NY […]

Craig Barrett’s Upset About the Omnibus (and who can blame him?)


Craig Barrett, Chairman of Intel, comes out swinging over the debacle that was the FY 08 Omnibus Appropriations Act and it’s impact on federal support for the physical sciences, computing, mathematics and engineering, in a piece that runs today in the San Francisco Chronicle (which should get Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s (D-CA) attention). The whole piece […]

The Long Nose of Innovation


There’s an interesting piece running now in BusinessWeek by Microsoft Researcher Bill Buxton that capitalizes on the buzz around the concept of the “long tail” in business by arguing that there’s an equally important “long nose” in business innovation that represents the long period of research and development that’s required to bring innovative products to […]

Supercomputing Boost Expected Online Next Year


A Washington Post article today talks about the first petascale supercomputers expected to come online next year. The article points out the vast areas of other fields, which are assisted by computing at such a large scale including geography, medicine, and even financial markets. Here’s a sample: The first “petascale” supercomputer will be capable of […]

The Chronicle on Cyber-Enabled Discovery and Innovation


Questions about NSF’s new $52 million Cyber-enabled Discovery and Innovation initiative? The Chronicle of Higher Education is hosting a “Brown Bag” discussion on the topic with CDI program director Sirin Tekinay on Thursday, November 8th, at noon ET. You can submit your questions now and Sirin will join the discussion on Thursday with answers. As […]

Two Information Week Articles of Interest


Two recent Information Week articles are of interest. The first article discusses the Commission on Professionals in Science and Technology’s newly released report regarding the IT workforce and the need to increase the representation of women and minorities to keep America competitive. This was a theme at the recent conferences in Florida, the Richard Tapia […]