Reed's Ruminations: The Past, Present, and Future
Reflections on science, technology, and computing — leavened by personal experience
Category: News and Events
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Thoughts on 9/11
I had the unusual experience of being on the Capitol Hill of the U.S. during the event. A brief summary of my experience is recounted here.
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Globally Interconnected, Globally Worried
In a world of global interconnectedness, we are united not only by ubiquitious and nearly instantaneous communications but also by coupled economic systems. The European sovereign debt crisis , pressure on the Euro, the fractious debate over raising the United States’ debt limit and the interdependence economies and global trade mean that we truly are…
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TechAmerica Cloud Commission Report
Today, the TechAmerica Foundation released its cloud computing report. I was privileged to be the commercial co-chair, working with a host of industry and academic leaders. The report addresses two key issues, raised by the U.S. Federal CIO and Secretary of Commerce. First, to identify the principles and actions that could accelerate the uptake of…
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Microsoft/NSF Cloud Research Partnership
Today, Microsoft and the U.S. National Science Foundation (NSF) announced the latest awardees for the joint Microsoft-NSF research partnership in cloud computing. All of the award recipients were selected via NSF’s rigorous peer review process, which emphasized the scientific merit of the proposed work. The Microsoft/NSF partnership is but one part of a broader international…
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Explaining Science and Engineering
As I have followed the international news regarding the Japanese disaster, I have been struck by the challenges each news organization has faced in explaining technical concepts. We live in a technological society, where understanding of scientific processes and engineering design balances are essential to informed debate and decision making.
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Intellectual Amplification via Computing
As the recent performance of IBM’s Watson system on the game show Jeopardy! Illustrated, the combination of large-scale data, rich algorithm suites and powerful computing is opening new vistas. Vannevar Bush’s 1940s vision of a Memex, a device capable of storing, indexing and retrieving data from a broad knowledge base, is now within our reach.