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Archive for June, 2012

CSTB Releases Study on “Computing Research for Sustainability”

June 29th, 2012

The National Academies’ Computer Science and Telecommunications Board (CSTB) released this morning a new report – Computing Research for Sustainability – laying out an overall framework for computing research for sustainability, including recommendations for long-term research objectives and directions. The report, which was prepared by the CSTB’s Committee on Computing Research for Environmental and Societal Sustainability, describes how “innovation in computing will be essential to finding real-world solutions to sustainability challenges like electricity production and delivery, global food production, and climate change.”

As UCLA computer science professor and committee chair Deborah Estrin noted as part of today’s announcement, “These problems are as complex as they are important; we need to engage deeply across disciplines to have any hope of meeting global sustainability challenges. The urgency of these problems means that we must begin to deploy our ‘best-of-breed’ approaches immediately to put our critical societal infrastructures on a digital plane. This will give us a chance to start creating opportunities for transformative efficiency gains, deep scientific understanding, and informed evolution of the associated political and economic systems.”

According to the National Academies’ official press release (following the link):

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Posted in big science, research horizons, resources

If Digital, Then Tracking: Big Data Analytics in Practice — And What it Means

June 29th, 2012

Yesterday we blogged in this space about a ‘big data’ briefing held in downtown Washington, DC, earlier this week, one that emphasized the exponential growth in data that we are witnessing with each passing day. IBM Research’s David McQueeney noted how corporations recognize there are huge opportunities if they can “master the tsunami of data.”

Well, what about something as simple as one’s e-reader? We can assume these days that if a device is digital, then it is tracking and storing information about its user. So how can an e-reader help businesses grow — and what are the consequences for consumers?

The Wall Street Journal has published an interesting article — “Your E-Book is Reading You“ – detailing how smart analytics are helping the Barnes & Nobles of the world learn more about their customers. From the article (following the link):

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Posted in big science, policy, research horizons, research news

“One Big Step for Big Data”: IBM, LLNL Partner

June 28th, 2012

On Wednesday afternoon, before a standing-room-only audience in downtown DC, IBM Corp. held a briefing titled “Big Data: The New Natural Resource.” During it, David McQueeney, vice president for software at IBM Research, described how corporate leaders increasingly appreciate the move toward ‘big data’ — but the field itself has not yet reached a point at which it can efficiently capture, integrate, and analyze these data and make results available to decision makers in a timely fashion.

Yet decision makers know that a huge opportunity is presenting itself, if only they can “master the tsunami of data,” as McQueeney said.

Indeed, McQueeney noted that the tidal wave of data is only getting larger day by day, thanks to the ubiquity of transactions, sensors, documents, reviews, and social networks, not to mention weather global events, etc. There is an increasing realization in corporate board rooms throughout the country that putting accurate analyses into the hands of the decision makers can achieve game-changing scenarios, such as helping a doctor predict premature newborns before they happen, helping large stores determine to whom to offer coupons, or helping technical call centers determine solutions even before a customer even calls in.

And that’s why Wednesday’s event also served as the venue for IBM’s announcement of a new partnership with the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) that broadens an existing, long-running collaboration in high-performance computing (HPC). The partnership, called “Deep Computing Solutions,” will reside within LLNL’s High Performance Computing Innovation Center (HPCIC). From IBM’s news release (after the jump):

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Posted in big science, research horizons, research news