Communications of the ACM
The blog archive provides access to past blog postings from Communications of the ACM and other sources by date.
January 2015
From Putting People First
In the age of the Internet of Things, all products are software products
Esko Kilpi, the principal of Esko Kilpi Ltd, a leading research and consultancy firm focusing on the art of interaction, science of social complexity and the design of digital work, writes about how the value of a product is…
From Putting People First
Behavioural Economics and Health: Nudging Toward a Culture of Wellness
Behavioural Economics and Health: Nudging Toward a Culture of Wellness Report by David Verbeeten The Conference Board of Canada, 52 pages, January 15, 2015 This report explores “nudging,” a new, cost-effective policy tool than…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Structural Data Objects
Interesting piece. I recall working on something like this for the construction of a competitive analysis database. Though it was not called a structural data object. Maintenance of an unexpectedly varying structure became…
From ACM-W supporting, celebrating and advocating for Women in Computing
January (web)
Welcome from the ACM-W Chair
Welcome to the January 2015 issue of ACM-W Connections. It has been a year since we first introduced Connections and I want to once again think the wonderful volunteers who make it happen every month…From The Eponymous Pickle
Science and Art of Segmentation
A favorite topic. Segmentation. Classically a large amount of analytical effort in CPG has been put into this topic. Is it science or art? It is, both I agree. But the specifics of this art and how it interacts with design…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Patterns in Traffic Flow
Interesting piece in the BBC on the hidden ways of traffic flows. A favorite topic. In paricular how groups of entities act and interact. Here it is more about transportation flows. We also worked the problem, but in retail…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Semiconductor Opportunities in the Internet of Things
Very good piece from McKinsey. Lots of opportunity here in the semicondictor industry. " ... The data amassed from these devices can then be analyzed to optimize products, services, and operations. Perhaps one of the earliest…
From Putting People First
[Book] Inventing the Muslim Cool
At Experientia we believe in the importance of understanding cultural differences, no matter how wide they might be. There is not much qualitative research, it seems, that aims at understanding the lived experience of Muslim…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Stand Alone Loyalty Systems
Can Loyalty Marketing fulfill its promise? Good examination of the topic. Ultimately it can achieve its promise through the natural integration of its data with other data resources.Without that it remains simplistic.
From Schneier on Security
New NSA Documents on Offensive Cyberoperations
Appelbaum, Poitras and others have another NSA aticle with an enormous Snowden document dump on Der Spiegel, giving details on a variety of offensive NSA cyberoperations to infiltrate and exploit networks around the world. There's…
From Putting People First
Texting is family glue for the 21st century
Recent research from the University of Kansas looks at the way technological advancements influence interpersonal communication, with a focus on familial relationships. The study tested whether the number of media used by families…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Creating Cognitive Applications with the Watson API
Creating Cognitive Applications Powered by IBM Watson: Getting started with the APIby Kevin Haverlock, Sridhar Sudarsan" ... Cognitive computing systems are built to learn from how they are used and adapt to their processing.…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Only Data Science Skill you Need
In Data Science Central. A simplistic view. But true in a sense that it is the most important skill you should have. Being able to come to understand and solve real business problems. Yet it is also efficient to have specialists…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Microsoft Shuts Down Silicon Valley Research Lab
(In September) Unfortunate to hear, visited a number of times. Is it because they feel they don't need a physical place to do research, or are they breaking it down into regional locations? Reminds me of our ongoing argument…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Power of Dark Data
A favorite topic. Though I see my definition is broader. It is data that is not used. Maybe that is not accessible, but even that we do not know about. The Big Data solution proposed is often Store it all! But that creates…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Distributed Information Processing
A lengthy article that gives cues to how we can use biological models for computation. Video."... Biological systems, ranging from the molecular to the cellular to the organism level, are distributed and in most cases operate…
From Schneier on Security
Friday Squid Blogging: "Squid Jiggin' Ground"
Classic song written by Arthur Scammell and performed by Hank Snow. As usual, you can also use this squid post to talk about the security stories in the news that I haven't covered....
From U.S. Public Policy Committee of the ACM
Administration Includes Computing Initiatives In State of The Union Preview
This week the Obama Administration has been previewing some of the topics the President will cover in his State of the Union address. That speech will take place next Tuesday, January 20, at 9 p.m. Eastern. (If you watch the…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Continuous POV Cameras For Compliance
It has been called lifelogging, a means to record continuous clips of point-of-view images as you work or play. It was suggested and tested for easily gathering information about in-store conditions. The Narrative-2 is a recent…
From Schneier on Security
My Superpower
For its "Top Influencers in Security You Should Be Following in 2015" blog post, TripWire asked me: "If you could have one infosec-related superpower, what would it be?" I answered: Most superpowers are pretty lame: super strength…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Evolution of Wearables
Thad Starner, who we followed from his days at MIT, now a Prof at Ga Tech, discusses the history and evolution of wearbles. In Computing Now. Excellent details are included. " ... Thad Starner, who has been wearing a "homebrew"…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Interceptor Towers
In Popsci: Phony cell phone towers. This has been reported on for some time, with more details emerging.
From The Eponymous Pickle
Internet of Things and Big Data
Is it all about data and leveraging analytics. And an architecture to support them.In OReilly: " ... The Internet of Things (IoT) has a data problem. Well, four data problems. Walking the halls of CES in Las Vegas last week,…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Mining Massive Databases
Vincent Granville started the discussion "Mining Massive Datasets - Coursera Course (Stanford)" in the group Analytics Courses on AnalyticBridge. Now looking at the scale of databases more closely.
From Schneier on Security
Common Risks in America: Cars and Guns
I have long said that driving a car is the most dangerous thing regularly do in our lives. Turns out deaths due to automobiles are declining, while deaths due to firearms are on the rise: Guns and cars have long been among the…
From Putting People First
Case study: Service innovation in the public sector
Case study: Service innovation in the public sector Service Design Network site This case study is based on a series of public sector projects commissioned by the Chamber of Commerce in conjunction with local governments in two…
From Putting People First
Videos online of Service Design Global Conference 2014
On 7-8 October around 650 global thought leaders and practitioners from sectors such as hospitality, insurance, retail, telecommunications, finance, IT and healthcare gathered in Stockholm for the 7th Service Design Global Conference…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Thinking Moments of Truth with Google
I recall that we introduced Google to the moment of truth mantra, and they popularized the zero aspect. Just now in Thinking With Google, a collection of their writings on the topic. Twenty-one articles. A worthwhile way to…
From Schneier on Security
3-1-1 for Encryption
An excellent idea: 311 for encryption. RSA, DSA, and ECDSA must be 3.4 ounces (100bits) or less per container; must be in 1 quart-sized, clear, plastic, zip-top bag; 1 bag per message placed in screening bin. The bag limits…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Open Source Application of Natural Language
Natural language, our use of communications like text and speech and documents to communicate with other people, would be the ideal way to communicate with computers. Yet there are still complexities of its use that are difficult…