Communications of the ACM
The blog archive provides access to past blog postings from Communications of the ACM and other sources by date.
January 2017
From insideHPC
Podcast: Engineering Practical Machine Learning Systems
In This Week in Machine Learning podcast, Xavier Amatriain from Quora discusses the process of engineering practical machine learning systems. Amatriainis a former machine learning researcher who went on to lead the recommender…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Idea Networking
Simple thought. Via Columbia B School.
Get Ahead with "Idea Networking"
When opportunity takes too long to arrive, it's time to go out and find it. ... by William Duggan
Excerpted from The Seventh Sense by William Duggan. Copyright…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Achieving a Flow State
Examined the ideas of psychologist Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi's 'Flow' way back. And now read a piece in medium by John Boitnott that points to work saying that multitasking is killing our brains. Gives some ideas about achieving…
From Putting People First
Two perspectives on the role of ethnography in innovation
Why Venture Capital Needs Ethnographers: Making Meaningful Innovation in the Startup Sphere by Julia Katherine Haines, Google- December 20, 2016 The power of ethnographic methods and ethnographic thinking is not about finding…
From Putting People First
The complexity of plastic bags
As societies face increasingly complex problems, design is emerging as the tool to solve some of Asia’s biggest issues. Through field trips with designers skilled in human-centered design, the team behind Ethnographers’ Field…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Watson goes Mobile
In ADTMag:
IBM Goes Mobile with Watson By David Ramel
For two years, IBM has provided the cognitive computing capabilities of its Watson Analytics service via a Web interface, and now it's gone mobile. ...
It can analyze and
It…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Cleverbot Converses
Cleverbot was again brought to my attention. We had examined some of its predecessors in the 90s as a means for trialing conversational bot applications. And then I just saw a whimsical demonstration of this shown here: "…
From insideHPC
Supercomputing Sheds Light on Leaf Study
A new study led by a research scientist at the Department of Energy’s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) highlights a literally shady practice in plant science that has in some cases underestimated plants’ rate…
From insideHPC
Video: Diversity and Inclusion in Supercomputing
Dr. Maria Klawe gave this Invited Talk at SC16. "Like many other computing research areas, women and other minority groups are significantly under-represented in supercomputing. This talk discusses successful strategies for
…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Microsoft Chatbot Called Zo
More emergent chatbots. Another excursion into AI like capabilities. Still needs help.
Microsoft takes another shot at an AI chatbot with Zo
Microsoft has fielded a preview of another AI chatbot, Zo.ai, but so far is limiting…
From The Eponymous Pickle
More Smart Refrigerators
More (expensive) smart refrigerators are out there, and looking inwardly. Cool looking and a conversation piece.
LG put Alexa in a refrigerator and it seems like a great idea
The company's Smart InstaView fridge puts Amazon's
…
From The Eponymous Pickle
The Non Elegance of the Refrigerator Cam
Had seen the idea proposed many times, never successfully. Really a specific kind of sensor. Now add image recognition to it to get inventory. It was pointed out to me that there are many practical problems with such a sensor…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Bots Growing Up
Thoughtful piece. I agree, what I saw in integrated bots last year was not impressive. Far to easy to get the results to be poor or even highjacked. Context integration and management will be necessary. Our own experiments…
From Gödel's Lost Letter and P=NP
Snow And Theory
The 25th Anniversary of the ACO Program Cropped from src1 & src2 in gardens for karma Prasad Tetali and Robin Thomas are mathematicians at Georgia Tech who are organizing the Conference Celebrating the 25th Anniversary of the…
From Schneier on Security
Friday Squid Blogging: Simple Grilled Squid Recipe
Easy recipe from America's Test Kitchen. As usual, you can also use this squid post to talk about the security stories in the news that I haven't covered....
From The Eponymous Pickle
Making Roads Smarter
Roads need to get smarter too. Infrastucture needs to act as part of an Internet of Things. An article from CACM:
States Wire Up Roads as Cars Get Smarter by The Wall Street Journal ... To prepare for the day when self-driving…
From insideHPC
Video: How an Exoplanet Makes Waves
In this video, a new NASA supercomputer simulation depicts the planet and debris disk around the nearby star Beta Pictoris reveals that the planet's motion drives spiral waves throughout the disk, a phenomenon that greatly increases…
From insideHPC
New Site Compares Docker, Singularity, Shifter, and Univa Grid Engine Container Edition
A new site developed by Tin H compares the HPC virtualization capabilities of Docker, Singularity, Shifter, and Univa Grid Engine Container Edition. "They bring the benefits of container to the HPC world and some provide very…
From Schneier on Security
The Effect of Real Names on Online Behavior
Good article debunking the myth that requiring people to use their real names on the Internet makes them behave better....
From insideHPC
Reflecting on the Goal and Baseline for Exascale Computing
Thomas Schulthess from CSCS gave this Invited Talk at SC16. "Experience with today’s platforms show that there can be an order of magnitude difference in performance within a given class of numerical methods – depending only
…
From insideHPC
Experts Weigh in on 2017 Artificial Intelligence Predictions
In this presentation from Nvidia, top AI experts from the world's most influential companies weigh in on predicted advances for AI in 2017. “In 2017, intelligence will trump speed. Over the last several decades, nations have
…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Google Assistant: More Assistant Embedding
In this week's CES we saw lots of examples of the embedding Alexa in platforms and devices. But its not only about Alexa, Google Assistant, the brains behind the Google Home, is stepping out as well. CWorld provides some early…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Lego Extends into Games
Been a longer follower of Lego, its toys and its use as a thinking tool, for adults and children. This new piece In Knowledge@Wharton looks at the move forward in its business model. Good detailed piece. Lets continue…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Predicting a Video Future
See this as a kind of proto advertising. Predicting purchase in the customer journey AI can create videos of the future An MIT lab algorithm can predict how a scene will play out. Is this further applicable? In Engadget…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Secure Model of IOT with Blockchain
In Technology Review with link to paper:
A Secure Model of IoT with Blockchain
The Internet of Things is a fast-growing, increasingly complex network of connected devices. This excerpt from an Open Mind article touches on blockchain…
From Apophenia
Hacking the Attention Economy
For most non-technical folks, “hacking” evokes the notion of using sophisticated technical skills to break through the security of a corporate or government system for illicit purposes. Of course, most folks who were engaged…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Baidu's Little Fish Assistant
In Yahoo News: 
Las Vegas (AFP) - Chinese internet colossus Baidu is out to make a splash with 'Little Fish,' a family robot that is a voice-controlled virtual valet akin to Amazon Echo or Google Home.
Baidu showed off "Little
"I…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Age of Analytics for Strategy
In the McKinsey Global Institute:
The age of analytics: Competing in a data-driven world
By Nicolaus Henke, Jacques Bughin, Michael Chui, James Manyika, Tamim Saleh, Bill Wiseman, and Guru Sethupathy
Big Data's potential just keeps…
From The Computing Community Consortium Blog
South Big Data Hub Roundtable- Translational Data Analytics for Environmental Health: Sensors, Cloud Computing, and Patients
The South Big Data (BD) Hub is proud to present a monthly series on emerging data science challenges, featuring researchers, innovators, and industry from the South Hub. One area of emphasis for the South BD Hub, among others…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Kuri Moving Home Robot
I attended an introductory presentation on Bosch's Kuri home robotic system today. This is a two foot high moving robot with eyes. The eyes it have an embedded video camera, so can transfer HD images it sees to a smartphone…