News tagged with computer scientists

New mathematical framework formalizes oddball programming techniques

Two years ago, Martin Rinard's group at MIT's Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory proposed a surprisingly simple way to make some computer procedures more efficient: Just skip a bunch of ...

Technology / Computer Sciences

created May 23, 2012 | popularity 4.5 / 5 (19) | comments 16 | with audio podcast

Internet voting still faces hurdles in US

Shop online. Bank online. Why not vote online?

Technology / Other

created May 24, 2012 | popularity 4 / 5 (2) | comments 8

Why rumors spread fast in social networks

Information spreads fast in social networks. This could be observed during recent events. Now computer scientists from the German Saarland University provide the mathematical proof for this and come up with a surprising explanation.

Other Sciences / Mathematics

created May 21, 2012 | popularity 4 / 5 (2) | comments 0

Computer scientist cracks mysterious 'Copiale Cipher'

The manuscript seems straight out of fiction: a strange handwritten message in abstract symbols and Roman letters meticulously covering 105 yellowing pages, hidden in the depths of an academic archive.

Technology / Computer Sciences

created Oct 25, 2011 | popularity 4.8 / 5 (26) | comments 21 | with audio podcast

Kilobots - tiny, collaborative robots - are leaving the nest (w/ video)

(PhysOrg.com) -- The Kilobots are coming. Computer scientists and engineers at Harvard University have developed and licensed technology that will make it easy to test collective algorithms on hundreds, or ...

Electronics / Robotics

created Nov 21, 2011 | popularity 4.4 / 5 (24) | comments 15 | with audio podcast

Harvard group takes complexity out of video face replacement (w/ video)

(PhysOrg.com) -- From Facebook to YouTube to on the fly film projects, the presentation of content that entertains or instructs or both draws on visual tools, ranging from simple to complex. Novice as well ...

Technology / Computer Sciences

created Dec 05, 2011 | popularity 4.8 / 5 (5) | comments 3 | with audio podcast report

Next generation of algorithms inspired by problem-solving ants

(PhysOrg.com) -- An ant colony is the last place you'd expect to find a maths whiz, but University of Sydney researchers have shown that the humble ant is capable of solving difficult mathematical problems.

Biology / Plants & Animals

created Dec 10, 2010 | popularity 3.7 / 5 (27) | comments 11 | with audio podcast

DARPA Shredder Challenge sizzling but no winner yet

(PhysOrg.com) -- With only days left until the December 4 Shredder Challenge deadline, DARPA is still asking the sharpest-minded computer scientists and simply the curious if anyone among them has the skills ...

Technology / Computer Sciences

created Nov 22, 2011 | popularity 4.5 / 5 (2) | comments 1 | with audio podcast report

Computer mimics nature by watching TV (w/ Video)

(PhysOrg.com) -- Computer scientists at the University of Bath have developed a new way of making life-like animations of trees using video footage of the real thing.

Technology / Computer Sciences

created Jan 28, 2010 | popularity 4.9 / 5 (7) | comments 3 | with audio podcast

Computer scientists make progress on math puzzle

(PhysOrg.com) -- Two UT Dallas computer scientists have made progress on a nearly 4-decade-old mathematical puzzle, producing a proof that renowned Stanford computer scientist Don Knuth called "amazing" in his communication ...

Other Sciences / Mathematics

created Oct 28, 2010 | popularity 4.5 / 5 (23) | comments 7 | with audio podcast

Cybersecurity experts begin investigation on self-adapting computer network that defends itself against hackers

(Phys.org) -- In the online struggle for network security, Kansas State University cybersecurity experts are adding an ally to the security force: the computer network itself.

Technology / Computer Sciences

created May 10, 2012 | popularity 1 / 5 (1) | comments 0

'Dark silicon' to improve smartphone battery life

(PhysOrg.com) -- A new smartphone chip prototype under development at the University of California, San Diego will improve smartphone efficiency by making use of "dark silicon" - the underused transistors ...

Technology / Computer Sciences

created Sep 01, 2010 | popularity 4.6 / 5 (10) | comments 3 | with audio podcast

Computer scientists form mathematical formulation of the brain's neural networks

As computer scientists this year celebrate the 100th anniversary of the birth of the mathematical genius Alan Turing, who set out the basis for digital computing in the 1930s to anticipate the electronic age, they still quest ...

Technology / Computer Sciences

created Apr 02, 2012 | popularity 4.2 / 5 (19) | comments 9 | with audio podcast

Google PageRank-like algorithm dates back to 1941

(PhysOrg.com) -- When Sergey Brin and Larry Page developed their PageRank algorithm for ranking webpages in 1998, they certainly knew that the seeds of the algorithm had been sown long before that time, as ...

Technology / Computer Sciences

created Feb 19, 2010 | popularity 4.6 / 5 (13) | comments 5 | with audio podcast report

Computer scientists develop an interactive field guide app for birders

A team of researchers led by computer scientist Serge Belongie at the University of California, San Diego, has good news for birders: they have developed an iPad app that will identify most North American birds, with a little ...

Technology / Software

created May 08, 2012 | popularity 5 / 5 (1) | comments 0

Computer science

Computer science (or computing science) is the study of the theoretical foundations of information and computation, and of practical techniques for their implementation and application in computer systems. It is frequently described as the systematic study of algorithmic processes that describe and transform information. According to Peter J. Denning, the fundamental question underlying computer science is, "What can be (efficiently) automated?" Computer science has many sub-fields; some, such as computer graphics, emphasize the computation of specific results, while others, such as computational complexity theory, study the properties of computational problems. Still others focus on the challenges in implementing computations. For example, programming language theory studies approaches to describing computations, while computer programming applies specific programming languages to solve specific computational problems, and human-computer interaction focuses on the challenges in making computers and computations useful, usable, and universally accessible to people.

The general public sometimes confuses computer science with vocational areas that deal with computers (such as information technology), or think that it relates to their own experience of computers, which typically involves activities such as gaming, web-browsing, and word-processing. However, the focus of computer science is more on understanding the properties of the programs used to implement software such as games and web-browsers, and using that understanding to create new programs or improve existing ones.

For more information about Computer science, read the full article at Wikipedia.
This text uses material from Wikipedia and is available under the GNU Free Documentation License.