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USACM News & Activities (more)
June 30, 2009

Policy Highlights from Communications of the ACM - June 2009 (Vol. 52, No. 6)

Here are some items in the June issue of Communications of the ACM that have policy relevance. As always, much of the content in CACM is premium content, and free content one month may require a subscription or fee the next. You need to be a member of ACM or subscriber to CACM to access such content online.

News

Micromedicine to the Rescue, Don Monroe

A description of how potential advances in targeted drug delivery can be facilitated through molecular-scale computing.

Content Control, Leah Hoffman

Notes on advances in access control technology, one means of combatting intellectual property theft.
(more…)

Link | 11:44 am ET
 
June 24, 2009

USACM Selects Final Council Members

As part of its elevation from committee to council, USACM recently completed elections for at-large seats on its Council. The voting members of the Council are the USACM Chair, any Co-Chairs, the ACM President or President’s Designee, Chairs of all Subcommittees, and six At Large members.

The full membership of USACM Council is as follows:

  • Eugene Spafford (USACM Chair)
  • Annie Antón (USACM Vice-Chair)
  • Edward Felten (USACM Vice-Chair)
  • Bill Aspray (At Large)
  • Charles Brownstein (Former USACM Chair)
  • Lorrie Cranor (At Large)
  • Jeremy Epstein (At Large)
  • Stuart Feldman (ACM Past President/President’s Designee), ex officio
  • Juan Gilbert (At Large)
  • Andrew Grosso (Law Subcommitee Chair)
  • Harry Hochheiser (Accessibility Subcommittee Chair)
  • Jim Horning (At Large)
  • Paul Hyland (Intellectual Property Subcommittee Chair)
  • Douglas W. Jones (Voting Subcommitee Chair)
  • Jeanna Matthews (SIG Representative)
  • David Robinson, (Open Govenrment Subcommittee Chair)
  • Bobby Schnabel (Chair, Education Policy Committee), ex officio
  • Stuart S. Shapiro (Secuirty and Privacy Subcommittee Chair)
  • Barbara Simons (Former USACM Chair)
  • Ollie Smoot (At Large)
  • Emil Volcheck (SIG Representative)
  • John White (ACM CEO), ex officio
  • Cameron Wilson (ACM Director of Public Policy), ex officio
Link | 4:37 pm ET
 
June 6, 2009

Policy Highlights from Communications of the ACM - May 2009 (Vol. 52, No. 5)

Here are some items in the May issue of Communications of the ACM that have policy relevance. Remember, much of the material in CACM is considered premium content, and what may be free content during the month of the issue might slip behind a password wall. You will need to be a member of ACM or a subscriber to CACM in order to access this material online.

The May issues featured the first series of excerpts from Blog@CACM, where 13 bloggers regularly write on a variety of issues. The associated blogroll includes the ACM Tech Policy Weblog.

News

Matchmaker, Matchmaker, David Essex

A short update on the state of computational advertising, the algorithms that help place advertisements, which has policy implications with respect to privacy of consumer information.

Viewpoints

Law and Technology
The Network Neutrality Debate Hits Europe, Pierre Larouche

The author provides the European perspective on the network neutrality debate, noting the different policy issues and technical constraints that make that debate different from what is happening in the United States.
(more…)

Link | 3:03 pm ET
 
Tech Policy Weblog (more)
June 30, 2009

Track Federal IT Spending Online

Chief Technology Officer Vivek Kundra unveiled the IT Dashboard yesterday. The focus of this website is providing detail on all information technology investments by the various federal agencies. It’s a graphics-intensive effort, with charts and graphs at your disposal to help examine individual projects, individual agencies, and comparisons across projects and agencies.

What’s covered by the website, according to the FAQ:

The IT Dashboard displays data received from agency reports to the Office of Management and Budget (OMB), including general information on over 7,000 Federal IT investments and detailed data for nearly 800 of those investments that agencies classify as “major".

(more…)

Link | 2:10 pm ET
 
June 22, 2009

Hill Tech Happenings, Week of June 22

June 25

Hearing:

The House Science and Technology Committee will hold a hearing on cybersecurity activity at NIST and the Department of Homeland Security.
2 p.m., 2318 Rayburn Building

Link | 11:09 am ET
 
June 15, 2009

Hill Tech Happenings, Week of June 15

June 16

Hearing:

The Research and Science Education and the Technology and Innovation Subcommittees of the House Science and Technology Committee will hold a joint hearing on agency responses to the recent cybersecurity review. Witnesses include personnel from the National Science Foundation, the National Institute for Standards and Technology, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, and the Department of Homeland Security.
2 p.m., 2318 Rayburn Building

Meeting:

The Department of Health and Human Services’ Health IT Policy Committee will meet. The public can participate via web or audioconference. Click the link for more details.
10 a.m., 200 Independence SW,

June 18

Hearing:

The Commerce, Trade and Consumer Protection Subcommittee of the House Energy and Commerce Committee will hold a hearing on behavioral advertising.

Link | 9:29 am ET