Published Work

I've bylined several hundred articles, reviews, columns, news pieces, and departments, dating back to 1995 when I started working in publishing as an editor at eMedia in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Since then, I've written for many other publishers and publications, both in-house and on a contract basis, mostly focusing on the impact of emerging technologies.

I've posted a few samples here of my published writing. To see some print projects, please visit http://kirk.kroeker.net/print.htm.

The Rise of Molecular Machines
The field of molecular computing is achieving new levels of control over biochemical processes and fostering sophisticated connections between computer science and the biological sciences. (read the article)

Modeling Chaotic Storms
Scientists say improvements to extreme-weather prediction are possible with new weather models and a reinvention of the modeling technologies used to process them. (read the article)

Improving Brain-Computer Interfaces
Researchers are demonstrating advances in restorative BCI systems that are giving paralyzed individuals more effective ways to communicate, move, and interact with their environment. (read the article)

A Breakthrough in Algorithm Design
Computer scientists at Carnegie Mellon University have devised an algorithm that might be able to solve a certain class of linear systems much more quickly than today’s fastest solvers. (read the article)

A New Benchmark for Artificial Intelligence
Computers are unable to defeat the world’s best Go players, but that may change with the application of a new strategy that promises to revolutionize artificial intelligence. (read the article)

Weighing Watson's Impact
Does IBM’s Watson represent a distinct breakthrough in machine learning and natural language processing or is the 2,880-core wunderkind merely a solid feat of engineering? (read the article)

Biology-Inspired Networking
Researchers have developed a new networking algorithm, modeled after the neurological development of the fruit fly, to help distributed networks self-organize more efficiently. (read the article)

Remembering Jean Bartik
Jean Jennings Bartik, born Betty Jean Jennings in 1924, died in Poughkeepsie, New York, on March 23, 2011 at the age of 86. Bartik, notable to computer historians as one of the original six programmers on the ENIAC project, received several honors and awards in her later life to commend her for the pioneering work she did in a nascent field that would later be called software. (read the article)

Engineering Sensation in Artificial Limbs
Advancements in mobile electronics have led to several prosthetics innovations in recent years, but providing reliable touch sensations to users remains an elusive goal. (read the article)

Grid Computing's Future
Outreach programs and usability improvements are drawing many researchers to grid computing from disciplines that have not traditionally used such resources. (read the article)

Gayatri Buragohain on Women and Technology in India
Gayatri Buragohain, India’s ACM-W Ambassador and a member of the ACM India Council, is an outspoken advocate for young women in India who are interested in technical careers but face an opportunity deficit due to legacy gender bias. (read the article)

Mainstreaming Augmented Reality
Advancements in computer vision, object recognition, and related technologies are leading to new levels of sophistication in augmented-reality applications and presenting new ways for humans to relate to the natural world. (read the article)

Engineering the Web's Third Decade
As Web technologies move beyond two-way interactive capabilities to facilitate more dynamic and pervasive experiences, the Web is quickly advancing toward its third major upgrade. (read the article)

Alternate Interface Technologies Emerge
Researchers working in human-computer interaction are developing new interfaces to produce greater efficiencies in personal computing and enhance miniaturization in mobile devices. (read the article)

Electronic Paper's Next Chapter
The technological challenge for researchers working on the next generation of electronic paper is to render color as brightly as traditional paper, without increasing power requirements or end-user costs. (read the article)

Medical Nanobots
Researchers working in medical nanorobotics are creating technologies that could lead to novel health-care applications, such as new ways of accessing areas of the human body that would otherwise be unreachable without invasive surgery. (read the article)

Face Recognition Breakthrough
By using sparse representation and compressed sensing, researchers have been able to demonstrate significant improvements in accuracy over traditional face-recognition techniques. (read the article)

Toward Native Web Execution
Several software projects are narrowing the performance gap between browser-based applications and their desktop counterparts. In the process, they’re creating new ways to improve the security of Web-based computing. (read the article)

Rethinking Signal Processing
Compressed sensing, which draws on information theory, probability theory, and other fields, has generated a great deal of excitement with its nontraditional approach to signal processing. (read the article)

The Evolution of Virtualization
Virtualization is moving out of the data center and making inroads with mobile computing, security, and software delivery. (read the article)

Photography's Bright Future
Researchers working in computational photography are using computer vision, computer graphics, and applied optics to bring a vast array of new capabilities to digital cameras. (read the article)

Living Machines
Researchers of molecular computing and communication are focusing on the type of breakthroughs needed to make the vision of ultrasmall, biocompatible computers a reality. (read the article)

Finding Diamonds in the Rough
Spectral graph theory has proven to be very useful for text search and retrieval and for refining predictive-analysis systems. (read the article)

Writing the Future: Computers in Science Fiction
Science fiction isn't all that different from spec sheets that chart the effects of a new technology on our lives. The main difference is the time it takes to move from product inception to production and adoption. (read the article)