Declan Butler gave me a heads-up on this weeks Nature Web focus: the future of computing. All the articles are freely available on-line, curiously this is due to sponsorship from Microsoft. It appears that Microsoft maybe shifting some of their focus to scientific computing, the Nature web special came out of the Microsoft 2020 Science initiative. I previously came across this Microsoft research paper: Scientific Data Management in the Coming Decade which address many of the issues we confront with biological data management. Microsoft research has come up before on nodalpoint.
A couple of highlights from the special: Can computers help explain biology? and Vernor Vinge's The creativity machine.
Comments
Towards 2020 science: modelling and predicting in biology
The associated call for proposals from Microsoft makes an interesting read. Microsoft are inviting proposals which are aimed at creating prototypes of new kinds of conceptual and technological tools - tools that are motivated by a specific need in scientific research and with the potential to significantly advance science.
Microsoft Research have been very active in whats called e-science in the UK, for example Jim Gray wrote the aforementioned 2020 Computing: Science in an exponential world.
There is also some bloke called Bill Gates who works at Microsoft and likes to point out that computation is transforming the sciences.
Keep pushing that message
I'd also point readers to the editorial (not free), which can be summarised as (1) computer science should be a basic research skill for all scientists and (2) we should be active community participants rather than passive users. A message that all Nodalpoint contributors have known for at least 5 years, but I guess we just have to keep pushing the agenda.
Microsoft as an agent for the future of research just terrifies me beyond description.