We’ve blogged about this topic before, but there’s another terrific article about Internet pioneer and California Institute for Telecommunications and Information Technology (CalIT2) founding director Larry Smarr in the March/April 2012 issue of MIT’s Technology Review: Back in 2000, when Larry Smarr left his job as head of a celebrated supercomputer center in Illinois to start a new institute at the University of California, San Diego, and the University of California, Irvine, he rarely paid attention to his bathroom scale. He regularly drank Coke, added sugar to his coffee, and enjoyed Big Mac Combo Meals with his kids at McDonald’s. Exercise consisted of an occasional hike or a ride on a stationary bike. “In Illinois […]

From Computerworld: Scientists at IBM Research today said they have achieved a major advance in quantum computing that will allow engineers to begin work on creating a full-scale quantum computer.   The breakthrough allowed scientists to reduce data error rates in elementary computations while maintaining the integrity of quantum mechanical properties in quantum bits of data, known as qubits.   The creation of a quantum computer would mean data processing power would be exponentially increased over what is possible with today’s conventional CPUs, according to Mark Ketchen, the manager of physics of information at the IBM’s TJ Watson Research Center in Yorktown Heights, NY.  

Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) Director Regina Dugan recently sat on an panel sponsored by Washington Post Live, the live journalism arm of The Washington Post Co. The panel — titled “Innovation and Ideas” — was part of a special series on American Competitiveness: What Works in which corporate executives, political leaders, economists and other experts charted a path for U.S. competitiveness, describing big obstacles — as well as reasons for optimism. As part of a special section in last week’s Post summarizing the panels, Dugan penned a piece describing her view of ideas and innovation — and touched on a recent breakthrough enabled by advances in computing. Here it is (after the jump):

In recent weeks, open innovation company InnoCentive has launched a pair of competitions with significant R&D questions requiring advances in computing. One is focused on data-driven solutions for enabling “smart systems” in our cities, while the other seeks the development of simple, cost-effective, and consistent tools to improve diagnosis and monitoring of people with Alzheimer’s disease. In conjunction with The Economist, InnoCentive’s smart systems challenge calls for “clever data-driven visualizations that show how improvements to a public utility or infrastructure would improve the health, happiness, safety, aesthetics, etc., of a community” (more following the link).

The Air Force Office of Scientific Research (AFOSR) has announced plans for its annual Spring Review, featuring work funded by AFOSR over the past year, as well as discussion of trends and plans for future basic research programs of interest to the Air Force. This year’s Spring Review will be held March 5-9 in Arlington, VA. The first two days of the event will be focused on the efforts of the Mathematics, Information, and Life Sciences Directorate, with talks spanning information and complex systems, decision making, and dynamical systems, control, optimization, and computational mathematics. Relevant portions of the schedule appear following the link:

The National Science and Technology Council (NSTC) issued a new National Strategic Plan for Advanced Manufacturing on Wednesday, documenting “the fundamental importance of advanced manufacturing” to the nation’s competitiveness and security and setting forth key objectives and priorities for Federal policy in this space. Among the objectives: Accelerating investment, especially by small- and medium-sized manufacturers; Making the education and training system more responsive to the demand for skills; Optimizing Federal advanced manufacturing R&D investments by taking a portfolio perspective; Increasing total public and private investments in advanced manufacturing R&D; and Fostering national and regional partnerships among all stakeholders in advanced manufacturing. Of particular interest are four categories of investments that “help to position […]