initiative

Obama unveils $100 million brain research project

Touting the economic as well as scientific benefits of investing in basic research, President Obama today unveiled a new initiative to study the human brain that he called "the next great American project."

"Ideas are what power our economy," Obama said at an event in the East Room of the White House. "We've been a nation of dreamers and risk takers. We do innovation better than anybody else, and that makes our economy stronger."

In his proposed 2014 budget, Obama will call for investing $100 million to launch the BRAIN (Brain Research through Advancing Innovative Neurotechnologies) Initiative … Read more

Dropbox reportedly preparing for IPO later this year

Dropbox has already been in the planning stages and holding meeting with banks about turning into a public company during the second half of 2013, according to Quartz.

Based on unnamed sources said to be "briefed on the talks," Quartz suggested that the cloud storage provider is ready for an initial public offering now following the debut of its new business products.

Earlier this week, Dropbox rolled out several new features and a new console for IT administrators as it attempts to ramp up its enterprise efforts.

The additional set of services for businesses certainly makes Dropbox look … Read more

U.S. trade court sides with Apple in complaint against Samsung

An administrative law judge for the U.S. International Trade Commission has sided with Apple in its patent complaint against Samsung.

In an initial determination filed today (PDF), Judge Thomas Pender said that Samsung is, in fact violating one of Apple's iPhone design patents, as well as three software feature patents. However no violation was found with claims from two other Apple patents.

The ruling, which could lead to sales bans of those products in the U.S., is preliminary and needs to be approved by the ITC's full six-member commission.

In a statement, Samsung said the decision … Read more

White House aims to boost U.S.-made high-tech materials

"Made in USA." That's a designation that President Barack Obama and dozens of American companies, universities, and research labs want to apply to a new generation of high-tech materials, the White House said today.

As part of its Materials Genome Initiative, the Obama administration and partners in business, academia, and national labs are pushing the fast and efficient development and utliization of a wide range of new advanced, American-made materials. The goal is to cut the time it takes to discover, develop, and deploy these new materials in half, the White House said.

The theory behind the … Read more

Why science really needs big data

In years past, the go-to tools for researchers were specific to their field, whether it was a telescope or a microscope. Increasingly, it's computers and big data sets.

The White House today announced a $200 million big-data initiative to create tools to improve scientific research by making sense of the huge amounts of data now available. The programs are needed to improve the technologies for getting insight from complex and large sets of digital data, according to the White House.

"The initiative we are launching today promises to transform our ability to use Big Data for scientific discovery, … Read more

Where disaster recovery plans fall short (video)

When a disaster hits, preparation is key. It used to be said that you should have three days' worth of food, water, and other basic supplies. Now it's said to be seven days' worth.

Martin Griss, the director of Carnegie Mellon Silicon Valley and the Disaster Management Initiative, recently spoke at NASA's Disaster Resiliency Panel held at Moffett Field in Mountain View, Calif. In the video, he explains how to build technologies that will make a difference for individuals and their communities when disaster strikes.

This video originally appeared on SmartPlanet with the headline "Disaster recovery: Where city and community plans are falling short.&… Read more

Cutting the cord...in an iPhone case

LAS VEGAS--One of my favorite parts of CES is getting beyond the shiny new smartphones and tracking down the quirky mobile accessories that hide in far corners of the enormous show floor.

Sadly, I had to wait until the last day of CES to start exploring, so I was very fortunate to bump into the founders of CaseInity at the CNET stage (I guess they figured it was a likely place to find CNET editors lurking about).

Based in Philadelphia, CaseInity is developing a unique and very convenient case for the iPhone 4 and 4S called Cord-on-Board. Beyond just protecting … Read more

U.S. betting on concentrated solar

The Department of Energy has decided to invest $60 million over the next three years to develop and commercialize concentrated solar technology, Energy Secretary Steven Chu announced yesterday afternoon.

This investment comes out of the U.S. government's SunShot Initiative, a plan to reduce the cost of solar energy in the U.S. by 75 percent in order to make it more cost effective and competitive with other energy sources, according to Chu.

What is interesting about this particular funding is that the DOE seems to have listened to the critics of concentrated solar and gotten very specific about … Read more

Zynga delaying IPO?

Social-gaming site Zynga may delay its initial public offering until November as a result of the current turmoil in the stock market, according to the New York Post.

Zynga was looking to raise up to $1 billion by going public as early as September. But citing sources "with knowledge of Zynga's plans," the Post said the company has been concerned by the stock market's recent up-and-down ride, prompting it to back off on its IPO for now.

Launched in 2007, Zynga has turned into a force for online social gaming with such popular titles as FarmVille, … Read more