Communications of the ACM
The blog archive provides access to past blog postings from Communications of the ACM and other sources by date.
January 2011
From Schneier on Security
Bioencryption
A group of students at the Chinese University in Hong Kong have figured out how to store data in bacteria. The article talks about how secure it is, and the students even coined the term "bioencryption," but I don't see any …
From Wild WebMink
? Fixing The Chilling Effect of Trademarks
Brazil’s new License for Trademarks (Licen
From Daniel Lemire's Blog
On the monetary value of an education, and bad statistics
The case that education pays is often made by compare the income of people who graduated against the people who did not. The result is compelling: (Source: U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics) But there are numerous problems with…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Robust Robotic Hands
In IEEE: Building a super robust Anthropomorphic robotic hand. An example where the robotic can exceed the human.
From Putting People First
Experientia and Accenture sign memorandum of understanding
Experientia and Accenture are looking at future project opportunities together, after signing a memorandum of understanding this month. The two companies have previously matched their skill sets on a project involving user research…
From Putting People First
Experientia partner Jan-Christoph Zoels speaks at workshop on smart living
On Thursday 3 February, Experientia senior partner in charge of user experience design, Jan-Christoph Zoels, will speak at the TouchHouse. Smart living – Communicating surfaces workshop at the Aedes Network Campus Berlin (ANCB)…
From Wild WebMink
? Fixing The JCP
Oracle Nominates Bruno Souza of SouJava to JCP EC A very astute move by Oracle here. They are proposing that the seat on the Java Community Process Executive Committee vacated by Apache should be filled by the S
From Schneier on Security
REAL-ID Implementation
According to this study, REAL-ID has not only been cheaper to implement than the states estimated, but also helpful in reducing fraud.
States are finding that implementation of the 2005 REAL ID Act is much easier and less expensive…From Computer Science Teacher - Thoughts and Information From Alfred Thompson
2011 U.S. Innovative Education Forum
The Innovative Education Forum (IEF) is part of a worldwide program from Microsoft Partners in Learning. The program recognizes innovative educators and schools implementing 21-century skills in the classroom and the school…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Visualizing Your Professional Network
A clever visualization of your Linkedin Network. Miy network is on the right." ... It's often hard to visualize the connections between your plethora of contacts, more so when they're scattered across the globe. LinkedIn, the…
From Putting People First
Connected they write
Raquel Recuero (blog) is an associate professor at the Departments of Applied Linguistics and Social Communication in Universidade Cat
From BLOG@CACM
What 'Beginning' Students Already Know: The Evidence
Detailed data collection at ETH Zurich over eight years shows what entering computer science students already know in computer usage and programming.
From Putting People First
The ABC of behavioural change
Jodie Moule, a psychologist and co-founder & director of Symplicit, an experience design consultancy based in Australia, describes on Johnny Holland what it takes to change someone
From The Eponymous Pickle
Amazon Delivers
Mashable reports that Amazon is about to start a grocery delivery service. Convenient but pricey.
From The Eponymous Pickle
The Passive vs Active in English
I don't usually cover language details here in this blog. When I took writing courses in the enterprise I was taught to carefully avoid the 'passive voice', and use the more powerful 'active'. Near canonical resources like…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Industrial Engineering of Business Services
The term ' Industrial Engineering' struck me in an Ecommerce Times article. IE is part of my background, and I have seen it applied in many areas, even services. So why not think about that application in more depth? " .…
From Schneier on Security
Hacking Tamper-Evident Devices
At the Black Hat conference lasts week, Jamie Schwettmann and Eric Michaud presented some great research on hacking tamper-evident seals.
Jamie Schwettmann and Eric Michaud of i11 Industries went through a long list of tamper…From The Eponymous Pickle
Recorded Future Applications
Curious about investment and other applications using recorded future? They link to a blog and podcast on the subject that is informative.
From Computer Science Teachers Association
Does "Fewer Failures" Translate to "Greater Success"?
I was watching the local (New jersey) news channel earlier this school year when something caught my attention: "The percentage of failing grades in a NJ school district fell by approximately 42.5%." Wow! Here's what I could…
From Schneier on Security
Brute-Force Safecracking
This safecracking robot tries every possible combination, one after another:
Combination space optimization is the key. By exploiting of the mechanical tolerances of the lock and certain combination "forbidden zones", we reduced…From Computational Complexity
Why My Kids Trust Wikipedia
Guest post from Annie and Molly Fortnow Our teachers used to tell us not to use Wikipedia because anybody can edit it and therefore it isn't trustworthy. A couple of years ago we decided to test it out. [Not with my knowledge…
From Computer Science Teacher - Thoughts and Information From Alfred Thompson
Interesting Links 24 January 2011
I have a good bunch of links this week. Actually a wide variety of them. I hope you find some of use to you.
Microsoft
From Wild WebMink
Another RockStar at ForgeRock
You’ll recall that ForgeRock (where I work) launched the OpenIDM project back in October. One of the key control points in enterprise software is the provisioning or IDM software. It
From BLOG@CACM
Peer Instruction For Seeing What Students Know (and Don't)
Peer Instruction is an important pedagogical approach that is promoted by physics education researchers. I'm trying it for the first time in my CS class, and it's giving me new insight into my students.
From The Eponymous Pickle
Foodspotting What You Eat
FoodSpotting: Intriguing idea for Foodies like me. You take a picture of a plate of food on an IPhone App where you are and add a capsule review. I have known a number of people that do this informally in Facebook and elsewhere…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Kitchen Cooking Autonomously?
Well, sort of. Gorenje's IChef is another example of a kitchen of the future idea we experimented with and examined many examples of. It fails the same way that automated clothes washing does. The complicated part of cooking…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Technology Isolating People
In the Guardian. There is lots of writing lately on how how technologies can increasingly isolate people. It can bring far apart people together, but also isolate people that are in close proximity. Like many things, it can…
From Wild WebMink
links for 2011-01-23
Oops: No copied Java code or weapons of mass destruction found in Android | ZDNet Ed Burnette takes a look at the allegation from a lobbyist that Google is guilty of copyright infringement in Android and finds it is at best trivial…
From Putting People First
Social networking under fresh attack as tide of cyber-scepticism sweeps US
Twitter and Facebook don’t connect people
From The Eponymous Pickle
IBM History
Video of 100 years of IBM and related Technology History.