Communications of the ACM
The blog archive provides access to past blog postings from Communications of the ACM and other sources by date.
January 2010
From Wild WebMink
links for 2010-01-13
Google doubtless understands that the Chinese government don't respond well to public statements like this. I expect them to get far less diplomatic…
From My Biased Coin
Algorithms and Data Structures : Course Goals
Richard Lipton has an excellent blog post up right now on "What should a course on complexity theory cover?" where he describes what he is putting in his graduate course and what he expects students to get out of it. It seemed…
From Putting People First
The world in 2020: A glimpse into the future
Ten years ago we thought wireless was another word for radio, Peter Mandelson’s career was over
From My Biased Coin
New Harry Lewis Opinion at HuffPo
Harry Lewis has a new opinion piece up at Huffington Post. The title,Larry Summers, Robert Rubin : Will The Harvard Shadow Elite Bankrupt The University And The Country?gives some idea of where he's coming from...
From The Eponymous Pickle
FAQ's About Google Wave
Frequently asked questions about Google Wave. Very good. I have played with Google Wave a bit, and get the general idea, but not why it will make my life easier or more productive.
From The Eponymous Pickle
Shops Looking for You
In Martin Lindstrom's newest newsletter, video of some of his views on what has come to be called augmented reality. Why Search For Shops When The Shops Can Search For You? Tokyo, Japan. Nothing has made access to brands easier…
From Schneier on Security
The Power Law of Terrorism
Research result #1: "A Generalized Fission-Fusion Model for the Frequency of Severe Terrorist Attacks," by Aaron Clauset and Frederik W. Wiegel.
Plot the number of people killed in terrorists attacks around the world since…From Computational Complexity
Guest Post on ICS 2010 (2 of 3)
Innovations in Computer Science 2010 (post #2)
Guest Post by Aaron Sterling
This is the sequel to my previous post on ICS 2010, the new theoretical computer science conference whose Call for Papers emphasized conceptual…
From Putting People First
The New York Times on gestural interfaces
The New York Times reports on “natural” gestural interfaces in an article entitled “Giving Electronic Commands With Body Language”: “In the coming months, the likes of Microsoft, Hitachi and major PC makers will begin selling…
From Computer Science Teacher - Thoughts and Information From Alfred Thompson
Kodu Game-Creation Tool for Kids Adapted for the PC
I love Kodu and I’ve written about it before (my Kodu blog posts) and I am regularly asked “when can I get Kodu for the PCs in my classroom?” Well now there is a public beta of the PC version out (Kodu announcement) and it doesn’t…
From Computer Science Teacher - Thoughts and Information From Alfred Thompson
Computer Engineer Barbie?
Those wonderful people who bring you Barbie (remember the version that said “Math is hard?”) are collecting votes for Barbie's next career. There are five options up for the vote: Environmentalist, Surgeon, Architect, News Anchor…
From Schneier on Security
The Comparative Risk of Terrorism
Good essay from the Wall Street Journal:
It might be unrealistic to expect the average citizen to have a nuanced grasp of statistically based risk analysis, but there is nothing nuanced about two basic facts: (1) America is…From Putting People First
Denmark Leads the way in Digital Care
Using medical devices and notebook computers, Danish patients can see doctors without leaving home, and have the information automatically logged into electronic records. The New York Times reports. “Several studies, including…
From Putting People First
A MobileActive.org whitepaper on scaling mobile services for development
Katrin Verclas of MobileActive.org has published a whitepaper entitled “Scaling Mobile Services for Development: What Will It Take?”. The paper, originially commissioned for the World Economic Forum, discusses the opportunities…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Thoughts on a Minority Report Interface
A Minority Report Interface shown at CES. When I see Minority Report style gestural interfaces I wonder if this kind of interaction with jump the physical process. It seems now the thinking is always the bottleneck. There are…
From The Computing Community Consortium Blog
Computer Engineer Barbie!
Barbie has had over 120 careers!
From Putting People First
Yahoo studies social science
Yahoo Labs is beefing up its ranks of social scientists, adding highly credentialed cognitive psychologists, economists and ethnographers from top universities around the world, reports the San Francisco Chronicle. “In the last…
From Putting People First
The bridge between cultures and design
Microsoft’s Joe Fletcher contributed an intriguing article on software UX in India and China on the ever more interesting Johnny Holland site: “Over roughly the last 10 years, China and India have given way to a huge rise in…
From Putting People First
The service design era
In a two-part series, Korea’s JoongAng Daily newspaper looks at the rise of service design and the notion that modern product designers need to look well beyond the physical form of their projects. For years, the design field…
From Schneier on Security
My Second CNN.com Essay on the Underwear Bomber
This one is about our tendency to overreact to rare risks, and is an update of this 2007 essay.
I think we should start calling them the "underpants of mass destruction."
From The Eponymous Pickle
Ten Companies to Collaborate around Insight
From Research, an interesting concept, including competitors: ' ... Diageo, Johnson & Johnson, Microsoft and Procter & Gamble are among 10 companies taking part in an ambitious project that invites brands to work together on…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Metro overtakes Tesco
Metro has overtaken Tesco as the word's second largest retailer in sales.
From Daniel Lemire's Blog
The end of
In the late sixties and seventies, we wanted universities to become more accessible. We founded the Open University, the Universit
From Michael Nielsen
Biweekly links for 01/11/2010
Carl Zimmer: Science Writing Workshop Later This Month
Carl Zimmer is teaching a one-week science writing workshop for science grad students.
Martin Rees: A Level Playing Field
“In 2002, three Indian mathematicians (Manindra…From Daniel Lemire's Blog
Actual programming with HTML and CSS (without javascript)
I usually stick with academic or research issues, but today, I wanted to have some fun. Geek fun. While W3C describes Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) as a mechanism for adding style (e.g. fonts, colors, spacing) to Web documents…
From Computational Complexity
Guest Post on ICS 2010 (1 of 3)
Innovations in Computer Science 2010 (post #1)
Guest post by Aaron Sterling
This is the first of three posts about ICS 2010, the much-discussed "concept conference," which took place at the Institute for Theoretical Computer…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Small Business Labs
Always interesting Small Business Labs posts on employee satisfaction, boomer retirement and small business formation.
From The Eponymous Pickle
Linking Weather to Marketing
A favorite topic is how some retailers and manufacturers can link demand planning to weather. We studied this possibilities as early as the 1970s. Obvious relationships exist if you are selling umbrellas or cold remedies. Wal…
From Schneier on Security
768-bit Number Factored
News:
On December 12, 2009, we factored the 768-bit, 232-digit number RSA-768 by the number field sieve. The number RSA-768 was taken from the now obsolete RSA Challenge list as a representative 768-bit RSA modulus. This result…From Computer Science Teacher - Thoughts and Information From Alfred Thompson
Interesting Links 11 January 2010
I’m headed to Tuesday night. I’m looking forward to helping with some Expression Web workshops and spending time at the Microsoft booth. I’m also hoping to meet a lot of people face to face. One of the events I am looking tojswiatek…