Computing Community Consortium Blog

The goal of the Computing Community Consortium (CCC) is to catalyze the computing research community to debate longer range, more audacious research challenges; to build consensus around research visions; to evolve the most promising visions toward clearly defined initiatives; and to work with the funding organizations to move challenges and visions toward funding initiatives. The purpose of this blog is to provide a more immediate, online mechanism for dissemination of visioning concepts and community discussion/debate about them.


Archive for January 28th, 2012

 

“The Mathematics of Taste”

January 28th, 2012 / in Research News / by Erwin Gianchandani

Ever wondered how companies determine the best flavors and scents for their packaged food, drinks, cleaning products, toiletries, and so many more items? Well, turns out it’s a multibillion-dollar business, with millions of dollars spent every year on R&D, including consumer testing. But if colleagues at MIT have their say, the way of this business could soon change: [Though] the big flavor companies spend tens of millions of dollars every year on research and development, including a lot of consumer testing… making sense of taste-test results is difficult. Subjects’ preferences can vary so widely that no clear consensus may emerge. Collecting enough data about each subject would allow flavor companies to filter […]