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 Putting People First
How a simple smartphone can turn your car, home, or medical device into a deadly weapon
The day is not far off when the manipulation of medical devices will be done routinely by punching keys on a smartphone, writes Charles C. Mann in Vanity Fair, putting an individual’s internal organs in the hands of every hacker…
From The Eponymous Pickle
More Networked Refrigerators
At CES, Samsung once again pushes the smart refrigerator, " ... Technology has helped solve many problems for us. We make phone calls and read emails from wherever we are (most of the time) using cellphones, and record our…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Smartphones as Lifephones
In the NYT: Smartphones as life's remote controls. Sufficient and increasingly necessary to make efficient decisions. And are becoming able to control our world. An overview of this claim.
From My Biased Coin
Government 1310 -- What's New?
So, as many of you may remember, Harvard had a rather embarrassing cheating scandal flare up at the start of the academic year, involving over 100 students. To be clear, that's the number apparently involved in investigations…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Pinning Criminals
An example of using Pinterest to place pictures of wanted criminals and provide other policing information. Apparently this has been useful. Have looked at related examples of using the Internet for lost children and liability…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Embedded Household Displays
A roundup by Engadget from CES about how technology would be embedded in the future. Samsung says screens in household appliances. I saw predictions of this as early as 2000 in our innovation centers. Where I preached it as…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Defending Native Ads
Interesting question from CES. Reach and scale versus engagement on banner ads versus native ads. Panelists respond to the question.
From Computer Science Teachers Association
HS Computer Club Works with the Community
In our most recent CSTA Central NJ Chapter meeting one of our members shared activities that her HS computer club enjoyed. Our chapter members were very excited about possibly duplicating the activity that Carolyn describes below…
From Schneier on Security
Friday Squid Blogging: Giant Squid Video
Last week, I blogged about an upcoming Discovery Channel program with actual video footage of a live giant squid. ABC News has a tantalizingly short sneak peak.
As usual, you can also use this squid post to talk about the security…From U.S. Public Policy Committee of the ACM
Google and the Federal Trade Commission Reach Agreements
On January 3rd, the Federal Trade Commission completed its antitrust review of Google. After 19 months of investigation, the Commission announced that Google will make changes to its search and other business practices in order…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Is Innovation no Longer Driving Growth?
In the Economist: A pessimistic view that is challenged. With some useful statistics along the way. " ... Has the world run out of ideas? ... Some economists argue the colossal gains of the past two centuries were driven
…From The Computing Community Consortium Blog
The Computing Community Consortium: A Force Multiplier for CRA
The following is an article published in the January 2013 edition of Computing Research News. If you would like receive CRN via email, you can sign up here. The Computing Community Consortium: A Force Multiplier for CRA By Ed…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Charmin Site and US Currency
A popular legal blog takes a look at the 'Charmin Corporate Site', and makes comments about the symbolism between basic Charmin functionality and currency. Is this a positive meme for a CPG product? I say yes.
From The Eponymous Pickle
Singularity Rising
Moore's law and Artificial Intelligence. What does it mean to be 'smart' for machines? A new book: Singularity Rising. describes the problem. What will the singularity, in whatever form it may take, mean to human beings…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Walgreen's Mobile Strategies
An overview of what Walgreen is doing and experimenting with. I have followed them for some time and their implementation is very good. Includes mention of Foursquare and inventory assessment Apps. " ... Rich Lesperance leads…
From Daniel Lemire's Blog
Government regulations… as software
Socialists accuse me of being a libertarian. Libertarians accuse me of being a socialist. I am actually a pragmatist: I believe that we should set things up to maximize our collective well being. Government regulations are complicated…
From Wild WebMink
An Open Source Take-Over
By poaching the key developer from VMware, Red Hat has made a chess move derived from extensive experience of open source. It’s gained control over future development of the Vert.x project, triggered a move to independent governance…
From The Computing Community Consortium Blog
Generating Revenue from MOOCS
Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) made available by organizations like Coursera, an online education company that offers free college courses, are gaining popularity at lightning speed. An article in the New York Times details…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Blaming the Dewey Decimal Innovation Problem
A good piece in Fast Company about how innovation can go wrong based on the infrastructure and culture that it exists in. We used this example of classification and the resulting silos many times when we spoke about the silos…
From Schneier on Security
Experimental Results: <i>Liars and Outliers</i> Trust Offer
Last August, I offered to sell Liars and Outliers for $11 in exchange for a book review. This was much less than the $30 list price; less even than the $16 Amazon price. For readers outside the U.S., where books can be very…
From Computer Science Teacher - Thoughts and Information From Alfred Thompson
STEM Modeling Challenge–Florida Virtual School
I saw this announcement on the Advanced Placement Computer Science teacher forums and thought it worth sharing.
Let’s Raise the Bar for STEM Education! Whether you are interested in Science, Technology, Engineering, Art…From Putting People First
How research misses the human behind the demographic
Deutsch’s Douglas Van Praet discusses how focus-group feedback, and the whole notion of the consumer, are misguided and how research should focus on understanding the unconscious and improving human lives. “How [market] research…
From Putting People First
Intel’s ‘Women and the Web’ report
From the press release: Intel Corporation released a groundbreaking report on “Women and the Web,” unveiling concrete data on the enormous Internet gender gap in the developing world and the social and economic benefits of securing…
From Wild WebMink
WYWOA
(While You Were Out, Again) Today I have a roundup of the digital rights stories that caught my eye over the break, on ComputerWorldUK.
From CERIAS Blog
On Student Projects, Phoenix, and Improving Your IT Operations
Back in about 1990 at Purdue University, I was approached by an eager undergrad who had recently come to Purdue. A mutual acquaintance (hi, Rob!) had recommended that the student connect with me for a project. We chatted for …
From The Eponymous Pickle
Hotspex
Recently met with Shane Skillen of Toronto based Hotspex. Also a link to some of their work in 2012.Hotspex delivers provocative marketing research insights that help our clients confidently make informed and inspired decisions…
From Wild WebMink
See You At FOSDEM?
I’ll once again be attending Europe’s most important open source developer event, FOSDEM, I’m honoured to have had two talks accepted this year. Both are on Saturday afternoon: Should We Embrace App Stores? (15:00 in the Legal…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Neuromarketing at the NRF
I see that Sands Research has a number of neuromarketing based activities and information pointers for the upcoming NRF meeting on January 13- 15 NYC. More about that in their newsletter. Always chock full of information…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Disney's RFID Wristbands
Disney is planning to use opt-in RFID wristbands to replace ticketing and other behavioral tracking interactions in its parks. Reported on here in Computerworld. With the usual concerns about tracking. This will help Disney…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Manufacturing the Future
Excellent report from McKinsey on the future of manufacturing. While many think of manufacturing as an old line industry, it is still a key method to get things made and delivered while still a massive contribution to global…