HPC Happenings
Cray Captures $43 Million in Military Contracts
HPCwire
The U.S Department of Defense has just revealed eight new major contracts for a diverse range of agencies, including the Army, Air Force, Navy, and Defense Logistics Agency. All told, the DoD laid down word on over $212 million in new investments. In the midst of large equipment contracts for Lockheed Martin, medical and surgical equipment, and steel armories, one name stood out from the rest due to its relevance here. Cray has been was awarded a $21,800,000 modification to a current contract to acquire a “balanced, commercially available, production-grade high performance computing systems to conduct complex, large-scale scientific calculations at the U.S. Air Force Research Laboratory DoD Supercomputing Resource Center.” The project is expected to be complete in July of 2018 with work will be performed at Wright-Patterson, Air Force Base, Ohio and via the Army Corps of Engineers in Huntsville, Alabama, which is where the project originates. To read further, please visit http://www.hpcwire.com/2014/02/03/cray-grabs-43-million-military-contracts/.
IBM to Open New Innovation Centers in Africa
IBM today announced it is further expanding its operations across Africa with the opening of two new IBM Innovation Centers in Lagos, Nigeria and Casablanca, Morocco. These new centers aim to spur local growth and fuel an ecosystem of development and entrepreneurship around Big Data and Analytics and cloud computing in the region. Approximately one in every two medium to large businesses in both South Africa and Kenya already use the cloud. In Nigeria, cloud usage is expected to more than double to 80 percent of businesses by the end of next year. At the same time, organizations around Africa are looking for ways to improve their analytics skills and more accurately tap into the data being produced by mobile devices and tablets – and, better anticipate the needs of their customers by delivering improved services. To read further, please visit http://www.hpcwire.com/off-the-wire/ibm-open-new-innovation-centers-africa/.
One Year, 7,000 Xeon Phi Cards: The TACC Experience
he Intel Xeon Phi, which was just branded and officially launched back in November 2012, is already behind some leading research at one of the U.S.’s premier scientific computing centers. According to leaders at the Texas Advanced Computing Center (TACC), the coprocessor has made significant bounds into a wider array of applications over the last year. The Stampede supercomputer at the Texas Advanced Computing Center (TACC) was the first large-scale system to deploy the Phi at massive scale. We spoke with Dan Stanzione, acting director at TACC (replacing Jay Boisseau, who retired from the center in January) about the Dell-integrated system, which has around 100,000 processors and 2.2 petaflops of performance within the base Xeon system alone. In addition to this, Stampede has a number of specialized subsystems, including a large shared memory system, GPUs to support on-system visualization as well as GPU computing. The approximately 7,000 Xeon Phi cards added another 7.5 petaflops of performance, bringing the system to #7 on the most recent Top 500 list at around 10 petaflops. To read further, please visit http://www.hpcwire.com/2014/02/03/one-year-7000-xeon-phi-cards-tacc-experience/.
SDSC’s Industry Partners Program (IPP) Webinar Series
February 13, 11am – 12noon PST
SDSC’s Industry Partners Program is hosting a series of webinars covering topics of interest in big data, high performance computing, information management, visualization, and others. Webinars are free and open to all interested parties. Registration is required. The Data Value Project summarizes a 16-month research project on data value and enterprise productivity. Short will discuss the use-case studies and field survey research, and outline plans to establish a test environment at SDSC to perform validation and scaling tests of simulated valuation models. To register, please visit: http://www.sdsc.edu/Events/ipp_webinars/index.html.
HPC Conference Calls for Participation
CCGrid 2014 - Call for Papers for Doctoral Symposium
14th IEEE/ACM International Symposium on Cluster, Cloud and Grid Computing
May 26-29, 2014 - Chicago, Illinois
The Doctoral Symposium of the IEEE/ACM International Symposium on Cluster, Cloud and Grid Computing (CCGrid) provides a forum for students in all areas of Cluster, Grid and Cloud research to obtain visibility, feedback and advice on their Ph.D. dissertation topics and research career. The Symposium promotes fruitful interactions and networking between student researchers at a similar stage in their careers. The program committee consists of experts in the field who will provide their valuable feedback to the ongoing research work of participating students. Selected students will showcase their work in front of an audience of both their peers and researchers and will also be invited to present their work as a poster in the poster exhibition of CCGrid. The Symposium will present a Best Paper Award, where jury researchers will take into account the paper, the presentation, and the poster for each submission. Doctoral symposium papers can be submitted at https://www.easychair.org/conferences/?conf=ccgridphd2014.
AlCoB 2014
July 1-3, 2014 - Tarragona, Spain
Extended Submission Deadline – February 11, 2014
AlCoB aims at promoting and displaying excellent research using string and graph algorithms and combinatorial optimization to deal with problems in biological sequence analysis, genome rearrangement, evolutionary trees, and structure prediction. The conference will address several of the current challenges in computational biology by investigating algorithms aimed at: 1) assembling sequence reads into a complete genome, 2) identifying gene structures in the genome, 3) recognizing regulatory motifs, 4) aligning nucleotides and comparing genomes, 5) reconstructing regulatory networks of genes, and 6) inferring the evolutionary phylogeny of species. For more information, please visit http://grammars.grlmc.com/alcob2014/.
ICNC-FSKD 2014
August 19-21, 2014 – Xiamen, China
Extended Deadline – March 10, 2014
Submitting to IEEE Xplore/EI Compendex/ISI
ICNC invites you to submit a paper to the upcoming 10th International Conference on Natural Computation (ICNC 2014) and the 11th International Conference on Fuzzy Systems and Knowledge Discovery (FSKD 2014). As with the past ICNC-FSKD conferences, all papers in conference proceedings will be submitted to both EI Compendex and ISTP (ISI Proceedings), as well as IEEE Xplore. Extended versions of selected best papers will appear in ICNC-FSKD special issues of Knowledge-Based Systems(Impact Factor: 4.104) and Neural Processing Letters (Impact Factor: 1.240). ICNC-FSKD 2014 is technically co-sponsored by the IEEE Circuits and Systems Society (pending). For more information and submission guidelines, please visit http://icnc-fskd.xmu.edu.cn/.
Call for Submissions - Extreme Scaling Workshop 2014
August 14-15, 2014- University of Colorado, Boulder
Submission Deadline - May 1, 2014
The National Science Foundation-funded Blue Waters and eXtreme Science and Engineering Discovery Environment (XSEDE) projects are hosting the 8th Extreme Scaling Workshop. The conference committee seeks submissions of excellent quality addressing the challenges of using, designing, deploying, or integrating infrastructure for both big data analysis and large-scale computation to facilitate scientific discovery. The Extreme Scaling Workshop 2014 will showcase the discoveries, innovations, and achievements of those who use, build, and/or support advanced architectures at extreme scales around the world. The workshop will also provide a forum among researchers, professional staff, students, HPC center staff, and representatives from funding agencies to explore and discuss current successes and challenges as well as future needs and plans. For more information, including submission topics, please visit https://www.xsede.org/web/xscale/xscale14.
.Call for Papers - Understanding Interventions 2014 Conference
May 16-18, 3025 - Baltimore, Maryland
Abstract Submission Deadline – March 3, 2014
Besides providing a forum for interventions research dissemination and collegial exchange, there are several workshops that provide technical assistance in securing funding, managing effective programs, evaluation strategies, and the conduct of interventions research. You are invited to participate in these activities as well as suggest topics for exploration from which you and your colleagues might benefit, including areas in which you have demonstrated expertise. Please visit the conference website at http://understanding-interventions.org/.
Upcoming Conferences, Workshops and Webinars
Cyberinfrastructure for Non-Research-Intensive & EPSCoR Institutions|
February 18-19 2014 - Kansas City, Missouri
Broadening the Reach: A Cyberinfrastructure Program for Non-Research-Intensive and EPSCoR Institutions is an NSF funded Internet2 project aimed at supporting the enhancement of campus network infrastructure and external connectivity of small colleges and universities and schools in EPSCoR states having notable research projects, even though the institution may not be primarily research-focused. The program will consist of three Broadening the Research Workshop and up to 30 tiger team campus visits. The workshop is aimed at campus IT professionals at small colleges and universities and schools in EPSCoR states who are responsible for the planning, design and implementation of the campus IT infrastructure in support of research and teaching activities, as well as at those on campus familiar with the research and teaching activities and priorities. For complete information on the program, location, hotel information and registration details, please visit http://www.broadeningthereach.net/
Rice University 2014 Oil & Gas HPC Workshop
March 6, 2014 – Houston, Texas
The Oil and Gas HPC Workshop, hosted annually at Rice University, is a premier meeting place for engaging in discussion focused on high performance computing and computational science and engineering for the oil and gas industry. The program committee is pleased to invite you to participate in the 7th annual workshop and encourages you to submit abstract(s) for consideration for the technical program. For more information, please visit http://rice2014.og-hpc.org/?utm_source=Oil+%26+Gas+HPC+Workshop+Community&utm_campaign=6928632946-Rice_2013_OG_HPC_Call4Abstracts&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_59170dce43-6928632946-31504533
ACM HPDC 2014
June 23-27, 2014 - Vancouver, Canada
The ACM International Symposium on High-Performance Parallel and Distributed Computing (HPDC) is the premier annual conference for presenting the latest research on the design, implementation, evaluation, and the use of parallel and distributed systems for high-end computing. For more information, please visit http://www.hpdc.org/2014/.
Research Features From Across the Country and Around the World
NICS Overcoming Limitations in Studying Energy
Researchers at the National Institute for Computational Sciences (NICS), the Center for Nanophase Materials Sciences at Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL), and the University of South Carolina (USC) have developed a new computational capability to study the dynamics of prospective energy materials under diverse environmental situations. This new method employs quantum mechanics to understand how nuclear effects change the dynamics of nanoscale (microscopic-size) materials. The researchers used the NICS-managed Kraken supercomputer to perform massively parallel modeling and simulation studies in which a graphene (carbon) flake was bombarded by an ensemble of 1,000 hydrogen atoms to examine the likelihood of accumulation (adsorption) of the hydrogen on the porous graphene surface. They found that quantum nuclear effects are responsible for increased adsorption selectivity of deuterium over hydrogen on graphene. Understanding how materials with light nuclei—most especially hydrogen—behave on nanoporous surfaces is essential in the design of new materials for energy science applications. For more information, please visit https://www.nics.tennessee.edu/energy-materials.
Gender Bias in Tech Professions Called a Reality
Investor's Business Daily
Although the technology industry is often a world leader and innovator, it is behind the times in terms of gender equality in the workplace, according to Stanford Law School fellow Vivek Wadhwa. "Things overall are moving in the right direction, except for pockets of resistance in the tech world," says Wadhwa, who plans to publish research about the experiences of 500 women in tech jobs. Women held 57.2 percent of U.S. professional occupations in 2012, according to Department of Labor statistics. However, women account for just 25.6 percent of workers in what the agency calls "computer and mathematical occupations," according to the report. Gender bias in tech is not an issue of overt discrimination, but more about underrepresentation and subtle biases, says the National Center for Women & Information Technology's Catherine Ashcraft. To read further, please visit http://news.investors.com/technology/011014-686036-gender-bias-considered-a-reality-in-tech-industry.htm.
MIT Debuts Online Big Data Course for Tech Pros
Network World
The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) will offer an online big data course for technology professionals as part of its new lineup of Online X professional programs. The course, "Tackling the Challenges of Big Data," will run from March 4 to April 1, and will cover data collection from smartphones, sensors, and the Web. The course also will address data storage and processing, including scalable relational databases, Hadoop, and Spark; analytics such as machine learning, data compression, and efficient algorithms; visualization, and a range of applications. MIT will use the Open edX platform to deliver the course, which will include learning assessments, case studies, discussion forums, and a community wiki as part of the experience. Faculty members from the Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory will teach the course. To read further, please visit http://www.networkworld.com/news/2014/010914-mit-big-data-277564.html?hpg1=bn.
Lawrence Livermore Explores the Shape of Data, Expanding Query-Free Analytics
Government Computer News
Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory is using topological data analysis research to explore new ways of obtaining useful information from extremely large, complex data sets. The lab is working with Stanford University spinoff Ayasdi, which is funded by the U.S. Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency and the National Science Foundation. Ayasdi’s Insight Discovery software handles big data problems by extracting information from very large data sets. The lab, which uses high-performance computing for modeling and simulation in energy, climate change, biological defense, and national security, has developed its own tools in the past but is now looking to commercial technologies, as big data gains momentum in the technology world. In particular, the lab believes its work could benefit from topological data analysis, which studies the shapes and meanings of vast, high-dimensional data sets. To read further, please visit http://gcn.com/articles/2014/01/09/topographical-data-analysis.aspx.
Computers Slowly Getting in Touch With Our Feelings
San Diego Union Tribune
Computer scientists are quickly developing new technology involving sensors, applications, and wearable devices to monitor and interact with people. In an interview, Rajesh Gupta, chair of the University of California, San Diego's (UCSD) department of computer science and engineering, discussed the progress being made in machine learning and artificial intelligence. "Your smartphone knows who you are, where you are, where you've been, and a lot about what you're doing," Gupta says. In addition, he says computers are beginning to elicit emotional responses from users. For example, UCSD researcher Javier Movellan is combining information from voice, images, skin, and device-usage patterns to determine users' moods. However, despite all of these advances, Gupta says operating systems will have to behave more like people if they are going to be widely accepted and used. "That means scientists will have to improve the computer's ability to synthesize verbal and nonverbal emotional cues, like a person's laughter or a shrug, or their posture," he notes. To read further, please visit http://www.utsandiego.com/news/2014/jan/13/tp-computers-slowly-getting-in-touch-with-our/.
Educator News and Opportunities
No Girls, Blacks, or Hispanics Take AP Computer Science Exam in Some States
Education Week
No female, African American, or Hispanic students took the Advanced Placement (AP) computer science exam in some states in 2013, according to Georgia Institute of Technology computing outreach director Barbara Ericson, who compiled state comparisons of College Board data. In Mississippi and Montana, no students in any of the three categories took the AP computer science exam last year, although the College Board notes that Mississippi only administered one of the exams and Montana only administered 11. Eleven states had no African-American students taking the exam, and eight states had no Hispanic students taking the test. Among the 30,000 students who took the exam last year, less than 20 percent were female, about 3 percent were African American, and 8 percent were Hispanic, according to the College Board website. Females, African Americans, and Hispanics also had lower pass rates than white males on the exam, Ericson says. AP computer science courses "are more prevalent in suburban and private schools than in urban, poor schools," says Ericson, noting that only 17 states currently accept computer science as a core math or science credit. The College Board is committed to increasing access to rigorous computing courses and is working with national organizations, nonprofits, and the private sector to expand access, says spokesperson Deborah Davis. To read further, please visit http://blogs.edweek.org/edweek/curriculum/2014/01/girls_african_americans_and_hi.html/
Girls Who Code - Apply now for Summer Teaching Opportunity
Girls Who Code is on the hunt for smart, inspiring and talented computer science instructors and teaching assistants for its 2014 Summer Immersion Programs. If you're passionate about computer science education and want to change lives and help close the gender gap in the tech sector, we want you. The ideal candidate is an empathetic and enthusiastic individual with a BA or BS in Computer Science and teaching experience (e.g. classroom teaching, tutoring, TAing). Interested candidates should send a cover letter and resume to jobs@girlswhocode.com.
STEM Competition Announced: eCYBERMISSION
The U.S. Army Education Outreach Program (AEOP) sponsors research, education, competitions, internships and practical experiences designed to engage and guide students and teachers in science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) education. One of the AEOP programs called eCYBERMISSION offers a free web-based STEM competition for students to promote self-discovery and to recognize the real-life applications of science, math and technology. Using either the scientific inquiry method or the engineering process, students form teams of three to four students and propose a solution to a real problem in their communities, competing for state, regional and national awards. This is a great opportunity for teachers to integrate technology and science across subject areas and grade spans. eCYBERMISSION is also looking for dedicated individuals over the age of 18 with a background or interest in STEM—to serve as a virtual judge for the program. Working online through the eCYBERMISSION website using structured judging criteria, volunteers work independently to evaluate and score projects. For more information, please visit http://www.ecybermission.com/.
We May Be 100 Years Behind in Making Computing Education Accessible to All
BLOG@CACM
Just how far behind other STEM disciplines are we in computing education? Unlike mathematics and the sciences, we don't have teachers in every school. We don't have a wide range of well-defined, standards-based curricula for elementary and primary levels with supportive materials available to every teacher. In the United States, there are few pre-service teacher professional development programs available at Schools of Education, and few states can offer a credential or license to teach that says Computer Science teacher. How long does it take to build up all that stuff? To read further, please visit http://cacm.acm.org/blogs/blog-cacm/171475-we-may-be-100-years-behind-in-making-computing-education-accessible-to-all/fulltext?otl=NGlzdhQO#.UvFNnVylGms.email.
CSTA 2014 Keynotes Announced
July 14-15, 2014 - St. Charles, Illinois
Yasmin Kafai is a researcher, co-developer, author and professor of learning sciences at the University of Pennsylvania. She earned her doctorate from Harvard University and is a Fellow of the American Education Research Association. Michael Kölling is a professor at the School of Computing, University of Kent, in Canterbury, UK. He holds a PhD in computer science from Sydney University and has worked in Europe and Australia. He is also an author and lead-developer of educational programming environments and a Fellow of the UK Higher Education Academy. Learn more on their conference page at http://csta.acm.org/ProfessionalDevelopment/sub/CSTAConference.html.
2014 Lunar Workshop for Educators
July 14-18, 2014 - NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Maryland
NASA's Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter, or LRO, mission is sponsoring a workshop for educators of students in grades 6-9. This workshop will focus on lunar science, exploration and how our understanding of the moon is evolving with the new data from current and recent lunar missions. The Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter has allowed scientists to measure the coldest known place in the solar system, map the surface of the moon in unprecedented detail and accuracy, find evidence of recent lunar geologic activity, characterize the radiation environment around the moon and its potential effects on future lunar explorers and much, much more! For more information and to register for the workshop, visit http://lunar.gsfc.nasa.gov/lwe/index.html.
New Education Publications Available from the National Science Foundation, National Institutes of Health, and the American Association for the Advancement of Science
This guide provides effective practices for anyone -- university faculty, K-12 teachers, administrators and others -- who wants to create a project that partners science, technology, engineering and mathematics, or STEM, professionals with K-12 teachers on a sustained basis. These recommendations came from the community of faculty members, graduate students, K-12 teachers, program managers and evaluators who participated in the National Science Foundation Graduate STEM Fellows in K-12 Education program from 1999 through 2012. While the focus in this volume is on STEM graduate students partnering with teachers, the ideas and strategies presented are useful for any groups developing teacher-scientist partnerships. To view an online version of the guide, please visit http://www.gk12.org/2013/06/10/the-power-of-partnerships-a-guide-from-the-nsf-gk-12-program/. For a hard copy of the guide, contact Betty Calinger at bcalinge@aaas.org.
Successful 'Hour of Code' Computer Tutorials Prompt Effort to Change School Policies
The Washington Post
The success of the Hour of Code initiative has motivated founders Hadi Partovi and Ali Partovi to harness the momentum and use it to expand computer science education in elementary and secondary schools. More than 20 million people around the world took part in the Hour of Code, 17 million of them in the United States, half of which were female. The Hour of Code was inspired by the fact that of the U.S.'s 42,000 schools, only about 3,400 offer computer science classes. "There's an assumption because students are using this technology, they have the knowledge to build this technology, and they don't," says Computer Science Teachers Association executive director Chris Stephenson. The Partovi brothers raised $10 million to create code.org, a nonprofit organization aimed at changing policy on the federal, state, and local levels to expand access to computer science in K-12. To read further, please visit http://www.washingtonpost.com/local/education/successful-hour-of-code-computer-tutorials-prompts-effort-to-change-school-policies/2014/01/14/f224f112-7d5f-11e3-95c6-0a7aa80874bc_story.html.
Student Engagement and Opportunities
Receive a Travel Grant to Attend XSEDE 14
July 13 – 18, 2014 - Atlanta, Georgia
Submission Deadline – April 14, 2014
- Meet other Scholars in special session at XSEDE14 and via an online community throughout the year.
- Join a select community of over 100 former XSEDE Scholars.
- Network with other academicians and leaders in the XSEDE research community.
- Learn about research, internships, fellowships, and career opportunities.
This program is open to graduates and undergraduates with solid academic backgrounds. Students majoring in computational science (computer science, applied mathematics, and high performance computing applications) and all STEM degrees who seek training and exposure to high performance computing and XSEDE resources are sought. To apply, please visit http://bit.ly/1drMGeI.
Research Experience for Undergrads in Interdisciplinary Program in High Performance Computing
University of Maryland - Baltimore, Maryland
Application Deadline – March 1, 2014
Our REU Site at UMBC provides an introduction to all these and applies them to interdisciplinary research projects. They expect some background in programming, but the program has been successful for students with only a sophomore class standing. All details, including examples of past summers and a detailed description of the mechanics from a student perspective, at http://www.umbc.edu/hpcreu/.
2014 Space Life Sciences Training Program
Applications are currently being accepted for the 2014 Space Life Sciences Training Program at NASA's Ames Research Center in Moffett Field, California. This program provides junior- or senior-level undergraduate students with professional experience in space life science disciplines. The primary goal of this challenging 10-week summer program is to train the next generation of scientists and engineers, enabling NASA to meet future research and development challenges in the space life sciences. participants receive a stipend and housing accommodations for the summer. Applicants must maintain a 3.2 or higher grade point average and must be U.S. citizens.
Positions may be offered in early February, so students are encouraged to apply early.
For more information about this opportunity, visit http://spacebiosciences.arc.nasa.gov/slstp.
Inquiries about the Space Life Sciences Training Program should be directed to the Kristina Gibbs at kristina.gibbs@nasa.gov.
California Space Grant Consortium 2014 Rocket Project Solicitation
Proposal Submission Deadline – March 17, 2014
The California Space Grant Consortium will provide funding for student team participation in national High Power Rocketry (HPR) competitions this year. We have allocated $10,000 to support up to five student teams at $2,000 per team. The objectives of this funding are to:
- Encourage the formation of student led rocket teams that participate in national rocket competitions and
- Support high-quality hands-on interdisciplinary Science, Technology, Engineering and Math (STEM) team projects.
Please Submit Proposals via email to John Kosmatka, Director, CaSGC (jkosmatka@ucsd.edu) or visit http://casgc.ucsd.edu/?p=5198.
Faculty Opportunities
Blue Waters Faculty Interested in Mentoring
Internship Description Deadline – April 1, 2014
Faculty who would like to mentor an undergraduate student can post descriptions of available positions. Positions can be intended for a particular applicant or opened to all qualified applicants. Undergraduate students should submit an application for consideration. Internship positions and applications can be submitted at: bluewaters.ncsa.illinois.edu/internships
or shodor.org/petascale/participation/internships .
NSF: Prospective New Awardee Guide (February 2014)
In addition to complying with all NSF regulations, recipients of NSF awards are r required to comply with all applicable federal requirements set forth in the Cost Principles, the Uniform Administrative Requirements, and the Federal Audit Requirements. Please familiarize yourself with the information contained within these documents as s soon as possible. Links to these federal regulations may be found on the NSF website at http://www.nsf.gov/bfa/dias/caar/fed.jsp. For the complete guidelines, please visit http://www.nsf.gov/pubs/policydocs/pnag/pnag141.pdf?WT.mc_id=USNSF_109.
American Meteorological Society's Climate Studies Diversity Project
Application Deadline – March 14, 2014
The American Meteorological Society, or AMS, in cooperation with NASA and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, or NOAA, invites faculty members at minority-serving institutions to apply for the AMS Climate Studies Diversity Project. Applicants must be from eligible institutions that plan to offer the full AMS climate studies course. Project participants will have the opportunity to attend two expenses-paid workshops and will learn the latest in climate science and education from NASA, NOAA and university scientists. For more information, visit http://www.ametsoc.org/amsedu/online/climateinfo/diversity.html.
Questions about this opportunity should be directed to onlineclimate@ametsoc.org.
On the Lighter Side – Computational Science News on the Edge
The Right Words to Boost Your Kickstarter Pitch
New Scientist
Georgia Institute of Technology researchers recently studied how effective certain words are in generating donations for Kickstarter campaigns. The researchers used data-mining software to download the pitches from 45,000 Kickstarter projects and analyzed nine million phrases used to persuade would-be donators to part with their money. Using this data, the researchers compiled the top 100 words or short phrases that signaled a project would likely be funded and the top 100 words suggesting it would not. "Those campaigns which follow the concept of reciprocity--that is, offer a gift in return for a pledge--generated the greatest amount of funding," says Georgia Tech researcher Eric Gilbert. However, campaigns that suggested the project was in jeopardy without a donation, such as by using the phrase "even a dollar," often indicated the project would fail. To read further, please visit http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn24868-the-right-words-to-boost-your-kickstarter-pitch.html#.UvV5K_Y2SnA.
Out in the Open: An NSA-Proof Twitter, Built With Code From Bitcoin and BitTorrent
Wired News
Concerned about government surveillance of Internet traffic and social networks, Miguel Freitas aims to create a more secure alternative to Twitter using code from Bitcoin and BitTorrent. Although Twitter pushes back on government efforts to obtain user data, caution should be exercised in placing too much information with a single company, according to Freitas. He is building a decentralized social network called Twister, which no single entity should be able to shut down. Twister blocks users from gaining information about specific other users, such as when they are online, their IP address, and who they follow. Direct and private messages on Twister are protected with the same encryption scheme used by LavaBit. Twister is now available in a test version that runs on Android, Linux, and OSX, and can be configured to work with other operating systems because of its open source code. To read further, please visit http://www.wired.com/wiredenterprise/2014/01/twister/.
