Reed's Ruminations: The Past, Present, and Future
Reflections on science, technology, and computing — leavened by personal experience
Category: Current Affairs
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Budgets, Innovation and Opportunity
With research proposal success rates plummeting and Hobbesian choices between research infrastructure and investigator support now necessary, we face major challenges. In the apocryphal phrasing of Ernst Rutherford, “We have no money. We must think.”
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The IT Ecosystem and Global Competitiveness
I recently chaired a U.S. National Academies study on the issues surrounding the end of Dennard scaling and its implications for U.S. industry, defense capabilities and national security. The report, The New Global Ecosystem in Advanced Computing: Implications for U.S. Competitiveness and National Security, was just released. It is a cautionary tale about the Gordian…
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A Plain of Excellence: Dan’s New Adventure
I will be joining the University of Iowa as Vice President for Research and Economic Development and holder of Iowa’s inaugural University Computational Science and Bioinformatics Chair, with joint appointments in Computer Science, Electrical and Computing Engineering and Medicine. For details on this, see the University of Iowa announcement.
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Online Higher Education
I think this is time of profound change, of punctuated equilibrium when the confluence of technologies, social expectations and economic pressures will necessitate substantive change in our university structures and how we deliver educational materials. We must move carefully and thoughtfully, embracing opportunity while diligently preserving that which we cherish and value.
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Reflections on the B20 Meeting
Last week, I have the privilege to participate in the B20 meetings in Los Cabos, a prelude to the G20 economic summit. My takeaway is that the global economic situation is not going to get better any time soon. The Chinese economy is clearly slowing, the Eurozone crisis seems endless, and the U.S. situation is…
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White Spaces: Celebrating the Cambridge Trial
Today, in Cambridge, UK, we celebrated the ten months of experiences and successes from the Cambridge white spaces trial, which was organized by a consortium of companies, including Microsoft. Sometimes called “Super Wi-Fi,” the white spaces can provide wireless coverage for rural areas that are often digitally disenfranchised, support machine-to-machine communication that can enable smart…