Communications of the ACM
The blog archive provides access to past blog postings from Communications of the ACM and other sources by date.
January 2013
From The Female Perspective of Computer Science
Interactive Storytelling: Slides from CUSEC 2013
Here are my slides from yesterday's talk at CUSEC 2013. There are normally embedded videos in the slides; this version links to the videos online instead.
View this…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Data to Predicted Events and Decisions
Can the future be predicted by tracking Twitter? A government project that addresses this. In a recent post I mentioned work that I have been tracking track and utilizing to help analysts think about future events. But notMuch…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Ads Based on Mood and Body Language
Ads and emotion. A popular thought in the media these days. Technology companies are thinking about it as well: " ... In an application filed in December 2010 but just made public last week, Microsoft sought to patent an advertising…
From Computer Science Teacher - Thoughts and Information From Alfred Thompson
Microsoft Achieve 2013: EduTech Family Summits
A friend asked me to pass this along so I am doing so. I’m hoping to make the event in Boston (Boston – January 26, 2013 Register now!) which is coming up soon myself.
Microsoft Achieve 2013: EduTech Family Summits for teachers…From The Eponymous Pickle
Zakta is on the Technology List to Watch
I have long followed Zakta's approach for collaborative search and enabling social intelligence. I see they have been declared one of the ten technology companies to watch in 2013. Inside Analysis Writes: " ... Zakta: Semantic…
From Computer Science Teachers Association
Game Design Competition: The National STEM Video Game Challenge
Competitions engage students, build excitement, and can push CS learning to higher levels. Here is an opportunity to enthuse your students with a competition using familiar classroom tools. No need to learn a new game development…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Tide Pods to Roll Worldwide
Announced in the local press. Tide Pods to go global. I mention this because I was involved in early research in this area of discontinuous innovation, which used a model of enterprise knowledge and how it could be used to…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Past and Near Future of Wearable Computing
I recently mentioned our own enterprise experimentation with wearable computing for maintenance tasks. Consumer oriented wearables are gaining excitement from the emergence of Google Glass. I see now that Recorded Future has…
From Schneier on Security
Man-in-the-Middle Attacks Against Browser Encryption
Last week, a story broke about how Nokia mounts man-in-the-middle attacks against secure browser sessions.
The Finnish phone giant has since admitted that it decrypts secure data that passes through HTTPS connections -- including…From The Eponymous Pickle
Agility as Part of the Process
Thinking more about retail bookstores. An article in the HBR online about keeping agility as part of your process. It may cost to do that, but in a volatile world that may well be influenced by changing technology, it will…
From Putting People First
World’s “tech elite” named to interaction design board
From the press release: Today the Interaction Design Foundation, the IDF, has announced its new executive board. The executive board includes Donald Norman; Bill Buxton, Principal Researcher at Microsoft Research; Ken Friedman…
From Putting People First
Living the Quantified Self life
Festooned with digital accessories that track everything from his heart rate to his footsteps to his sleep patterns, Vanity Fair writer James Wolcott has plugged into the Quantified Self movement. Farewell to gut instinct, and…
From Putting People First
Interview with Catalina Naranjo-Bock, UX design researcher
This week Danielle Arad interviewed Catalina Naranjo-Bock, UX design researcher, on key UX issues that are trending today in technology. Catalina is a hybrid user experience designer and researcher who has collaborated with creative…
From Schneier on Security
Essay on FBI-Mandated Backdoors
Good essay by Matt Blaze and Susan Landau.
From Computational Complexity
Rise of the Engineer
I rarely watch TV commercials anymore but its NFL playoff time and during a game last weekend, the following Ford commercial caught my eye.
From Computer Science Teacher - Thoughts and Information From Alfred Thompson
Back To The Classroom
The last few months have been interesting as I’ve been looking at different career options. One of the things I realized right away was that I missed teaching. But of course the middle of the school year is not the time to look…
From The Eponymous Pickle
OpenField Creative Dynamic Media Delivery
A former colleague of mine Scott Frondorf pointed me to his new company: OpenField Creative. We worked together on gamification concepts. They have a great set of dynamic examples of work for major clients at their site, check…
From The Eponymous Pickle
The Last Big Bookseller
Excellent detailed article in Knowledge @ Wharton: Under Strategic Management:Barnes & Noble, the Last Big Bookseller Standing: But for How Long? After a disappointing holiday season, Barnes & Noble leadership must decide…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Amazon Industrial and Scientific
My wife Joy runs a store through Amazon. I have become amazed by the variety of goods sold there. Here are Amazon mark downs in industrial and scientific goods. In my younger days I used to get many catalogs, like that of…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Linking Biological Cells and Electronics
A long time interest. How can biological systems be connected to digital ones? Especially for sensor applications. But also for control. IEEE has followed this in some detail. " ... Researchers at those institutions…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Structure of the Social Web
eCairn points to a video of the structure of the social web, and the value of using that infrastructure. Instructive. We visited the Santa Fe Institute around 2000, well before artificial social networks existed, to look at…
From Wild WebMink
FOSS WYWO Week 2
My weekly FOSS link roundup on ComputerWorld UK for those not following me on Twitter.
From The Female Perspective of Computer Science
If Only All Conferences Could Be As Accommodating As CUSEC
I'm speaking at the Canadian University Software Engineering Conference (CUSEC) tomorrow in Montreal. I need to spend some time giving the conference organizers a huge public kudos not only for the fact that women make up a…
From Putting People First
Telling “Stories”: Experientia designs domestic energy consumption monitors (videos)
Videos showcasing two sustainability-related projects are now on Experientia’s YouTube channel. The videos, showing the Ecofamilies and Stories projects respectively, both focus on monitoring domestic energy consumption in different…
From Wild WebMink
About The Java Flaw
Finding the missing details of the zero-day exploit that made the US government tell people to disable Java in the browser was hard. There were plenty of people echoing the advice and commenting on it, but no-one much explaining…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Google Spectacles Arriving
The long anticipated Google Glass head mounted displays are finally on the horizon with events being held for developers. Looking at this for a client. In Fast Company.
From Schneier on Security
Cheating at Chess
There's a fascinating story about a probable tournament chess cheat. No one knows how he does it; there's only the facts that 1) historically he's not nearly as good as his recent record, and 2) his moves correlate almost perfectly…
From Putting People First
Rob van Kranenberg’s comprehensive global Internet of Things action plan
Rob Van Kranenburg, a member of the EU Expert Group on the Internet of Things, has published a provocative comprehensive global Internet of Things action plan, as input for the inaugural meeting of the Internet of Things World…
From Putting People First
Helsinki Design Lab closing in June 2013
Marco Steinberg, who directs the strategic design efforts of the Finnish Innovation Fund Sitra, announced last week that Sitra’s Helsinki Design Lab will close in June 2013. Helsinki Design Lab is an initiative by Sitra to advance…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Teaching Human Language to Computers
A talk with futurist Ray Kurzweil, now with Google, on a favorite topic. I emphasize the task of 'teaching', rather than just programming. And understanding the ability to then reason in a useful hierarchical way. Teaching…