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Tag: National Science Foundation

  • Mozilla Invites Developers To Build Apps From The Future

    Mozilla joined forces with the National Science Foundation in June for Ignite. The project asked for app ideas from the general public that would help humanity in a positive way. These apps were to be envisioned with the “faster, smarter Internet of the future” in mind. The winning ideas have now been announced, and Mozilla now wants to make the ideas a reality.

    Mozilla announced that the development round of Ignite is now open. The winning ideas from the Brainstorming Round have been decided, and Mozilla is sitting on $485,000 in funding to help turn these ideas into real apps that will help humanity embrace the future.

    The list of winning ideas are all worthy goals that any altruistic developer would love to help with. The ideas range from helping firefighters save lives to creating smart streets to compliment the driverless cars that will soon dot the roadways of California.

    Here’s the full list of winning Mozilla Ignite ideas:

    Real-Time Emergency Response Observation and Supervision
    Real-time 3D Interactive Telepresence
    Remote Process Control Using a Reliable, Real-Time Protocol
    Long-Term Monitoring and Crisis Management System
    High Quality Open Source Web Conferencing
    Kinect Health 3D
    Smart Streets for Smart Cars
    The Rashomon Project: “Multi-Perspective Chronology”

    These ideas are just the beginning of something greater. The National Science Foundation has said that their goal is the creation of 60 “transformative apps” over the next three to five years. It’s an ambitious project that may just succeed if Web technologies and Internet speeds continue to grow at their current rate.

    Interested developers can submit their bid to help start building one of the above apps right now. They can also submit entirely new ideas for the next round of funding. Mozilla and the NSF are in this for the long run. You can help shape the future of the Internet and how it impacts our lives in a positive way. Might I suggest an app that displays pictures of cute animals to give depressed office workers a glimmer of hope in their otherwise abysmal existence.

  • Mozilla And National Science Foundation Unite For Mozilla Ignite

    Mozilla is probably the biggest proponent, outside of Google, of the power of the Web. They don’t believe in closed platforms or proprietary software. They believe in a future where everything is powered by a simple Web browser. To help advance that future, the non-profit is announcing a new contest.

    Mozilla and the National Science Foundation will be announcing a new program – Mozilla Ignite – at the White House tomorrow. It will challenge “designers, developers and everyday people” to “build applications for the faster, smarter Internet of the future.” What kind of applications? The two organizations want apps that will benefit humanity in areas like education, healthcare, transportation, manufacturing, public safety and clean energy.

    “Mozilla believes in the power of the open internet and the power of distributed, community-based innovation,” said Mozilla’s Executive Director, Mark Surman. “This is an invitation to designers, developers and civic thinkers to create software that shapes the future and helps their communities.”

    Mozilla and the NSF are hosting Mozilla Ignite as part of the much larger US Ignite Initiative that was announced today by the White House. The goal is to “explore what’s possible through ultra-fast broadband networks.” As part of that exploration, Mozilla will be providing cash prizes to the winners.

    How do you enter? The first part of the contest is the “Brainstorming Round” where people will submit ideas of how to use the Internet as a means of social advancement over the next decade. Anybody can submit and discuss ideas during this round.

    Mozilla and the NSF will then select the very best of the ideas to receive funding and support. From there, participants will join together at hackathons and other events with the latest in Internet technology to test out their ideas. After all of the prep work is out of the way, the teams will compete for over $500,000 to make their ideas a reality.

    If you want to get started on the Internet of the future right now, you can submit ideas through Mozilla’s site. The deadline for submission is August 23. There are already two ideas that have fantastic potential. You can expect future proposals to be even better.

  • NYU Robot-Control iPhone App; NSF Science Festival

    For the second year in a row the National Science Foundation (NSF) has chosen to feature research and innovations from the Polytechnic Institute of New York University (NYU-Poly) Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering Department in its USA Science and Engineering Festival. This year it’s an app for iOS and Android that controls robots via voice activation and other simple user interface to control robotic functions.

    Here’s how the Science and Engineering Festival describes the display:

    “Learn about advances in human-robot interaction technology through engaging and educational projects, such as mobile robots, a robotic manipulator, a smart home, and laboratory automation testbeds. Experience innovative uses of pervasive communication and computing devices, such as iPhone and iPad, to intuitively interact with physical objects by exploiting on-board sensors, rich graphics, touch, gesture, and sound recognition capabilities of iPhone and iPad. Human-robot interaction will feature a robotic manipulator following movements of a human-operator wearing a smart jacket.”

    The technology research effort was funded by the NSF and is geared toward providing technology solutions for people with disabilities.

    Vikram Kapila, NYU-Poly professor who leads the app project, explains:

    “If robots are to be pervasive, they will have to be easy to use.”

    “The iPhone and Apple’s other mobile devices are so intuitive that children and adults alike don’t need instructions to use them,”

    “Couple that with their built-in sensors, and you have the perfect platform upon which to build interfaces to interact with robots.”

    Check out this video on the first USA Science and Engineering Festival:

    Here’s a couple images, via Flickr, featuring Vikram’s iLabArm app and iLabBot app:

    robot app 1

    robot app2