Most entrepreneurs with a pioneer product face a common set of challenges - knowing how their product would be received in the market, finding the best strategy to advertise it and identifying the initial set of “seed users” who would use the product and provide feedback on its improvements. In the age of social media where information diffuses at massive speeds, how should one identify the set of users who have the maximum influence in reaching out to a larger crowd? In a recent collaborative study, researchers at the Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore and IBM India Research Labs have studied how information diffuses on social networks and have identified strategies to answer this question.

Computer scientists at the Database Systems Lab, Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore, have developed an innovative tool called “CODD” for testing “big data” applications. This novel tool can help database programmers test and validate software that work on big data. CODD stands for "Constructing Dataless Databases".

An international team of researchers has proposed a framework for identifying, characterizing and visualizing cosmic filaments in the universe. The proposed framework would help astronomers identify and visualise the multi-scale structure of cosmic filaments in the universe, and examine their interaction with other cosmic structures. This collaborative effort consisted of professors and student researchers from Kapteyn Astronomical Institute, University of Groningen, Netherlands, and the Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore.

The current age is called the “Information Age”. People want “information” on their fingertips. Information here may mean a variety of things: mails and messages, news, financial transactions, railway bookings and more. Some people may also need more specialized or personalized forms of information. However, in a developing country like India, not everyone can afford a personal computer with internet access. On the other hand, India has also seen a remarkable proliferation of mobile phones across much of the society, and across most age groups. The new generation of such phones, called smartphones, not only provide regular internet access, but also a platform for users to create new programs (popularly called “App”s) for specialized and personalized services. Dr. Aditya Kanade, Scientist and Assistant Professor of Computer Science in Indian Institute of Science (IISc), Bangalore is working on the design and implementation issues of smartphone apps. In his words, the widespread adoption of smartphones is a step at democratizing information access.