Reed's Ruminations: The Past, Present, and Future
Reflections on science, technology, and computing — leavened by personal experience
Category: Innovation
-
Planting Seeds in the Field of Knowledge
In these challenging economic times, U.S. universities are under great stress – economically, politically and socially. It is tempting for those of us in computing to ignore these issues. Like agriculture and engineering before us, I believe computing has a social responsibility to be an active and enthusiastic partner in helping chart the nature of…
-
Digital Inclusion
An economic and cultural chasm, a digital divide, separates the digitally connected from those who lack the ways or the means to join the digital community. In a knowledge economy, the separated are cut off from a plethora of services, educational materials, and business prospects.
-
Broadband: Oxygen for a Digital World
Broadband networks, wired and wireless, are the oxygen that lets the world of devices and services breathe. However, the air remains perilously thin. For many, digital inclusion remains a dream, rather than a reality.
-
Analog Computing: Time for a Comeback?
Use of the word “computer” conjures certain images and brings certain assumptions. One of them, so deeply ingrained that we rarely question it, is that computing is digital. It’s time to reconsider analog computing as an element of computer system design, particularly in a world of near threshold voltage designs, dark silicon, exascale computing and…
-
Surrounded By Opportunities
Our run of good luck is over. We need new, integrated design methodologies and rich collaborations that consider end-to-end design and capability. In many ways, this is a return to the past.
-
It Is Fall: There Must Be Clouds
Today, I testified to the Subcommittee on Technology and Innovation of the U.S. House of Representatives Committee on Space, Science and Technology. The topic of the hearing was “The Next IT Revolution?: Cloud Computing Opportunities and Challenges.” This is an exciting time, when computing can be a great equalizer, providing access to the world’s knowledge…