Communications of the ACM
The blog archive provides access to past blog postings from Communications of the ACM and other sources by date.
January 2012
From Schneier on Security
Federal Judge Orders Defendant to Decrypt Laptop
A U.S. federal judge has ordered a defendent to decrypt her laptop.
From The Eponymous Pickle
Fusing, Visualizing Data About How We Live
Always interesting and ground breaking Ken Karakotsios gives us a peek into his project about fusing data and visualization. He says that this will be coming to an iPad near you in 2012. I believe it. We used him as a valued…
From The Eponymous Pickle
On Predictive Analytics
Good piece in SAS Voices About conversations with Olivia Parr-Rud on predictive analytics and innovative leadership. Some of her publications also look very interesting. Links in the article.
From Daniel Lemire's Blog
Open access journals in Computer Science
Open access journals make articles freely available. Some of them even allow the authors to keep the copyright of their work. It would seem that they offer a compelling alternative to traditional journals, especially if you hope…
From Schneier on Security
Supreme Court Rules that GPS Tracking Requires a Warrant
The U.S Supreme Court has ruled that the police cannot attach a GPS tracking device to a car without a warrant.
From The Eponymous Pickle
Agile Business Intelligence
I see that the Tableau Software blog has a piece on agile business development, and a recent Aberdeen Group study, asking the question: How Agile is your BI Solution?" ... Aberdeen has illuminated the need for agile BI as a…
From Michael Nielsen
On Elsevier
Elsevier is the world’s largest and most profitable scientific publisher, making a profit of 1.1 billion dollars on revenue of 3.2 billion dollars in 2009. Elsevier have also been involved in many dubious practices, including…
From Wild WebMink
Back To The Library?
There’s a big market for digital books, but I think they’re being sold badly.
From Computer Science Teacher - Thoughts and Information From Alfred Thompson
Inviting ALL EDUCATORS to share their GREAT IDEAS
I love sharing by educators. It is one clear way that I believe we can all make education work better. So this announcement seemed like something I had to share.
The NEA Foundation, Microsoft US Partners in Learning Seek…
From Putting People First
Inclusive Design
The Norwegian Design Council has published a new resource site about inclusive design, to inform and communicate how this approach can be used as a strategy for innovation and development of more user-friendly products and services…
From Computational Complexity
Ernst Specker (1920-2011)
Martin F
From Putting People First
The ethnography of robots
Heather Ford spoke with Stuart Geiger, PhD student at the UC Berkeley School of Information, about his emerging ideas about the ethnography of robots.
From Putting People First
Does corporate ethnography suck?
In this first piece, Sam Ladner examines the different temporal conceptions of ethnographic fieldwork in industry and academia: “Academics frequently criticize corporate ethnography simply as
From The Computing Community Consortium Blog
An interesting interview with Alex Szalay, Professor of Physics and Astronomy at Johns Hopkins University
From Schneier on Security
Research into an Information Security Risk Rating
The NSF is funding research on giving organizations information-security risk ratings, similar to credit ratings for individuals:
Existing risk management techniques are based on annual audits and only provide a snapshot ofHistorically…From Putting People First
State of Interaction Design: Diverging, by David Malouf
In anticipation of the upcoming IxDA Interaction12 Conference taking place in Dublin, Ireland February 1
From Putting People First
The shift from watching TV to experiencing TV
As more and more devices in your home get connected to the Internet, the user experience becomes increasingly important. The people at ReadWriteWeb announce that over the coming months they will be exploring the world of User…
From Computer Science Teacher - Thoughts and Information From Alfred Thompson
We Need A Wider Conversation on CS Education
There is an active conversation going on in the UK about computing education. From the Royal Society report (Shut down or restart?: The way forward for computing in UK schools) to Op-ed pieces in newspapers to blogs people are…
From Putting People First
The city as interface. Digital media and the urban public sphere
On 23 January 2012, Martijn de Waal defended his Ph.D. thesis
From Putting People First
The psychology of persuasion
All human societies are alive with the battle for influence. Every single day each of us is subject to innumerable persuasion attempts from corporations, interest groups, political parties and other organisations. Each trying…
From Putting People First
Business ethnography as a key strategy for international brands
Two interesting posts by Danish photographer and visual ethnographer Jacob Langvad Nilsson: Business ethnography as a key strategy for international brands When penetrating new markets, two critical mistakes seem to repeat themselves…
From Putting People First
Book: Applying Anthropology in the Global Village
Applying Anthropology in the Global Village Edited by Christina Wasson, Mary Odell Butler and Jacqueline Copeland-Carson Left Coast Press – November 2011 – 326 pp. Hardback (978-1-61132-085-5) Paperback (978-1-61132-086-2) The…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Maps in Data Visualization
Examples of the use of geographical maps in visualizations. Examination of the types is useful. " ... Maps are probably the biggest subsection of visualization types. There are many variations on map types, each with its own…
From Computer Science Teachers Association
Fun versus Rigor: Getting Students Ready for the Next Level
One of my goals this year was to make my CS course more fun for my students. I felt as if (and received feedback from students that) some of my programming assignments became drudgery, due to my strict adherence to correct documentation…
From Wild WebMink
People
My postings from here and ComputerWorldUK are often reposted at opensource.com by the folk at Red Hat who run the site. They are once again running a “People’s Choice” ballot for all there usual authors, and I’d be rather pleased…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Customer Loyalty Data as Asset
I was recently introduced to Aimia: " ... a global leader in loyalty management offering a full suite of services including coalition loyalty proprietary loyalty and loyalty analytics ... " . I think there are some excellent…
From The Computing Community Consortium Blog
USAID Posts Draft RFA with Emphasis Spanning Analytics
USAID is launching what it calls “an exciting and ambitious” program to engage universities and research institutes in novel ways to improve the agency’s (and larger development community’s) ability to define and solve large…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Mainstream Gamification
Computerworld piece on gamification. Some useful statistics and definition of terms. We used many of these game dynamics ideas. These are pretty simple user interface and engagement ideas. The kind of 'games' usually pointed…
From The Eponymous Pickle
MapQuest Vibe
MapQuest Vibe shows you where the hot neighborhoods are. I like the idea of clicking directly to local information via a map.
From The Eponymous Pickle
Vint Cerf on Innovation
We had him speak to us several times and it was always useful. In Innovation Excellence. An early innovator that brought the Internet to the table. As the article suggests it is like talking to Gutenberg about printing. …