Encyclopedia of Computer Science and Technology

212 government funding of computer researchIn 2007 Google acquired DoubleClick for $3.1 billion.Although the combination of the leading search companyand a major online advertising service provoked concernsabout a possible monopoly, the acquisition was approved byU.S. and European regulators.While Google continues to be a subject of both admirationand debate, it is clear that it has placed powerful toolsand enormous new resources in the hands of Web usersaround the world.Further ReadingBattelle, John. The Search: How Google and Its Rivals Rewrote theRules of Business and Transformed Our Culture. New York:Portfolio, 2005.Davis, Harold. Google Advertising Tools: Cashing In with AdSense,AdWords, and the Google APIs. Sebastapol, Calif.: O’Reilly,2006.Kopytoff, Verne. “Who’s Afraid of Google? Firms in Silicon Valleyand beyond Fear Search Giant’s Plans for Growth.” SanFrancisco Chronicle. May 11, 2007, p. A-1. Available online.URL: http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2007/05/11/MNGRIPPB2N1.DTL. Accessed September 22, 2007.Marshall, Perry, and Bryan Todd. Ultimate Guide to GoogleAdWords: How to Access 100 Million People in 10 Minutes.Irvine, Calif.: Entrepreneur Media, 2007.Vise, David A., and Mark Malseed. The Google Story: Inside theHottest Business, Media and Technology Success of Our Time.Canada: Random House/Delta, 2006.government funding of computer researchWhile the popular version of the story of the informationage tends to focus on lone inventors in garages or would-beentrepreneurs working out of college dorm rooms, many ofthe fundamental technologies underlying computers and networkshave been the results of government-funded projects.ENIAC, the first operational full-scale electronic digitalcomputer, was an Army Ballistic Research Laboratoryproject developed during and just after World WarII. Early computers were also sponsored and used by thearmy and navy in areas such as guided missile development,and in national laboratories such as Los Alamos,where nuclear weapons were being developed. (Later theAtomic Energy Agency and its successor in the Departmentof Energy would play a similar role in obtaining computers,in particular developing an appetite for the more powerfulmachines—see supercomputer.)The Office of Naval Research (ONR) played an importantrole in developing the underlying theory and design forcomputer architecture (see von Neumann, John), as wellas sponsoring many of the early conferences on computerscience, helping the discipline emerge.As the cold war got underway, an increasing amountof funding went to military-related technology. Since computerswere becoming essential for designing or operatingcomplex technologies in aerospace, weapons systems, andother areas, it is not surprising that computer scientistshave received a significant share of government researchdollars.A pattern of cooperation emerged between governmentagencies and companies such as Univac and particularlyIBM, who were creating the computer industry. AT&T BellLaboratories (see Bell Labs) received support for communicationsand semiconductor technology. Leading-edgeresearch funded for military purposes tended to turn upfive or ten years later in new generations of commercialproducts.Begun in the late 1950s, one of the biggest defense computingprojects was the ambitious (but only marginally successful)SAGE automated air defense system. It began withWhirlwind, the first computer designed for multitaskingand continuous, real-time operation and data storage usingmagnetic core memory. Equally innovative were the userconsoles, which pioneered such features as CRT-based outputand a touch interface using a light pen.Defense Advanced ResearchProjects Agency (DARPA)Established in 1958 and sometimes known as the AdvancedResearch Projects Agency (ARPA), this agency through itsInformation Processing Technology Office has funded orcontributed to some of the most important developments ofthe information age, including:• time-sharing computer and operating systems (MITProject Mac)• packet-switched networks; the Internet (implementedas ARPANET)• NLS, an early hypertext system (see hypertext)• artificial intelligence topics including speech recognitionARPA was unusual as a government agency in its agilemanagement. Managers were given considerable latitude tobring together the most innovative computer scientists andturn them loose with a minimum of bureaucratic oversight.Funding Academic Research andComputer ScienceAlthough military-related research has been the largestportion of government funding for computer science, othergovernment agencies have also played important roles.Vannevar Bush worked tirelessly to create a new nationalresearch infrastructure, and this eventually bore fruit inthe National Science Foundation (NSF). Starting in the1960s the NSF began with a focus on providing computersupport for the sciences, but soon concluded that universityresearchers were being crippled by lack of both computersand people who could design software. The agencybegan to directly support the funding of university computerpurchases and the development of computer scienceprograms. By 1970 the NSF was also supporting the developmentof computer networks as a way for institutions toshare resources. NSF funding for computer science andrelated activities continued to grow. In the mid-1980s NSFset up the National Center for Supercomputing Applications(NCSA), which in turn set up regional centers from whichresearchers could tap into supercomputer power through ahigh-speed network.