Participation in Animation10 should top the more than 800 schools across the United Kingdom that registered for last year’s competition, according to the University of Manchester. The organizers believe the animation competition will help attract more young people to computing. Students between the ages of seven and 19 will compete to create short, animated films, using the Alice, Scratch Adobe Flash, Greenfoot, or Serif software packages. Winners will receive prizes such as laptops, digital cameras, and MP3 players. Students have until April 1, 2010, to enter the contest, and Manchester will announce the winners on May 3. “We need to encourage the brightest and the best of the young generation to engage in the challenges facing computing–not just to use computers, but to invent the next generation of hardware and software,” says Manchester’s Toby Howard. “And we hope this competition will go some way to raising the profile of computer science amongst children in a fun and exciting way.”

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The U.S. Federal Communications Commission (FCC) is considering aggressive moves to claim its authority over consumer access to the Internet as part of the Obama administration’s plan to treat broadband Internet as a national infrastructure similar to phone lines or the broadcast spectrum. Recently, a federal appeals court questioned the limits of the FCC in a 2008 case involving the Internet and cable firm Comcast, bringing the issue to a head. The judges questioned whether the FCC had acted outside of its authority when it ordered Comcast to stop blocking subscribers from accessing specific file-sharing services. Although the case is still being heard, analysts predict the FCC will lose, derailing its attempts to oversee Internet access. FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski has been pushing for net neutrality, but a loss in the Comcast case could undermine his authority. “If the court removes the legal basis for the current approach to broadband, the commission may be compelled to undertake a major reassessment of its policy framework … or Congress will have to act,” says the FCC’s Colin Crowell. That could mean that the FCC will put broadband services back into a category with phones services, reversing policies from the past decade.

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The European Union-funded Bilateral Research and Industrial Development enhancing and integrating Grid Enabled technologies (BRIDGE) program links European and Chinese computing grids to enable researchers to carry out joint research. The BRIDGE program already has produced results in drug development, aircraft design, and weather prediction. The project was inspired by China’s rapid growth in research and development. “If Europe does not want to lose ground, the response can only be to synchronize with these developments,” says BRIDGE’s Gilbert Kalb. The BRIDGE researchers say the project has created a foundation for the kind of multinational cooperation that is required to solve global problems.

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A seminar hosted by Science|Business focused on what needs to be done to make information technology (IT) more environmentally friendly. The cross-pollination of various disciplines, including computer science, economics, and psychology, was deemed crucial. Cooperation and dialogue between industry, academia, policymakers, and consumers also is essential. Another need highlighted at the seminar is the provision of more accurate and consistent predictive models, while the European Investment Bank’s Juan Alario stressed the importance of information to make financing an “enabling instrument” for green IT and energy efficiency. The European Union’s plan to solve the economic crisis has recognized three sectors–the auto industry, construction, and manufacturing–deserving of research support to enhance energy efficiency. Meanwhile, the user-friendliness of IT products must be augmented if more energy-efficient technologies are to be widely adopted. The ubiquitous proliferation of computers creates the challenge of harnessing, organizing, and absorbing all the information they collect so that it can be applied productively.

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Carlos III University of Madrid (UC3M) researchers have developed SIMulator for Business Administration (SIMBA), business simulation software that can mimic how a market behaves as companies make different business decisions. “It can be utilized from a competitive point of view since different companies can compete against each other to improve their own results,” says UC3M’s Fernando Fernandez. SIMBA uses different variables, including products, markets, client segments, technology, languages, currency, and socio-economic environments, to create a realistic simulated business environment. SIMBA also can be used as a tool for students who are studying the business world. The companies involved in a simulation can be controlled by humans or by computer programs using artificial intelligence. “This increases the complexity of the simulated market and creates the possibility of carrying out multi-player simulations, where some players are human, but where others are controlled by computer programs built by artificial intelligence techniques,” Fernandez says.

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