National Science Foundation - News, Features, and Slideshows

News

  • White House launches strategy to lead world in quantum

    The White House yesterday launched a national strategy for Quantum Information Science (QIS) in a bid to secure global leadership in “the next technological revolution”.

    Written by George Nott25 Sept. 18 10:49
  • Obama rolls out initiative to boost US supercomputer capability

    US President Barack Obama has signed an executive order setting up the National Strategic Computing Initiative that will adopt a coordinated strategy involving multiple government agencies, academia and the private sector for the development of high-performance computing systems.

    Written by John Ribeiro30 July 15 15:52
  • House bill slashes research critical to cybersecurity

    A U.S. House bill that will set the nation's basic research agenda for the next two years increases funding for computer science, but at the expense of other areas important to cybersecurity.

    Written by Patrick Thibodeau23 April 15 07:14
  • Flashy, storage-happy supercomputers due in 2015

    Supercomputing speed is typically boosted by adding more processors, but two new systems funded by the National Science Foundation due to go live next January will take an unconventional approach to speed up calculations and data analysis.

    Written by Agam Shah13 March 14 20:24
  • Story time: Researchers picture way better password memory scheme

    Once upon a time some Carnegie Mellon University researchers came up with a scheme to use stories and pictures to help users live happily ever after by creating and remembering dozens of passwords – and avoiding use of the exact same passwords for multiple sites.

    Written by Bob Brown04 Dec. 13 17:23
  • Fed shutdown forces NSF websites to go dark

    The partial U.S. government shutdown that began Tuesday morning counts the National Science Foundation websites and applications, and those who would use them, as victims.

    Written by Bob Brown01 Oct. 13 21:59
  • Harvard, MIT join on artificial intelligence research

    The National Science Foundation has awarded a $25 million grant to Harvard and Massachusetts Institute of Technology to study how the brain creates intelligence and how that process can be replicated in machines.

    Written by Sharon Gaudin09 Sept. 13 18:16
  • Should U.S. limit China-government influenced IT systems?

    New federal restrictions now preclude four U.S. agencies from buying information-technology (IT) systems from manufacturers "owned, directed or subsidized by the People's Republic of China" due to national-security concerns. But is this a smart tactic?

    Written by Ellen Messmer03 April 13 15:21
  • Harvard researchers underwhelmed by peer influence on Facebook

    Most people make friends with others online who have common interests, but it's rare for people's interests to rub off on others, according to new research out of Harvard University based on an examination of four years’ worth of Facebook data.

    Written by Bob Brown21 Dec. 11 03:24
  • Twitter research: It's where the money and action is

    Two professors from Wellesley College’s Department of Computer science have been awarded a nearly half million dollar National Science Foundation grant to build an application that gauges the trustworthiness of information shared on social networks, and in particular Twitter.

    Written by Bob Brown12 Nov. 11 03:30
  • Kneber botnet strikes again, targets gov't agencies

    A botnet fingered for stealing a treasure trove of information last year has struck again, harvesting sensitive documents from dozens of government agencies and contractors, according to a pair of security experts.

    Written by Gregg Keizer05 Jan. 11 08:23
  • How 'smart antennas' could boost Wi-Fi performance

    We've all had the problem of going into a crowded Starbucks and suffering through a substandard Wi-Fi signal, most likely caused by too few access points and too many end users. But what if Wi-Fi antennas could do a better job of detecting how many devices were in a given room and could push data out to them more rapidly on a one-by-one basis? That's what researchers at Gonzaga University are trying to accomplish by testing "smart antenna" technology in their new research lab that just received a federal research grant worth nearly $1.2 million from the National Science Foundation. In this interview, we ask Gonzaga electrical engineering associate professor Steve Schennum to outline the basics of smart antenna systems, to describe how they'll improve Wi-Fi performance and to describe how a smart antenna lab would help out small wireless companies.

    Written by Brad Reed20 Oct. 10 09:09
[]