Communications of the ACM
The blog archive provides access to past blog postings from Communications of the ACM and other sources by date.
January 2019
From The Eponymous Pickle
Computing without Hardware
More broadly does this mean computing can exist out in the electromagnet spectrum without all the hardware? If it can create an analog computer, it can create digital representations. Hmmm Excerpt:
Sculpted Wi-Fi Waves Can…
From updated sporadically at best
The Evolution of What I Call Work: A Google Calendar Memoir
“I never do real work anymore,” a fellow professor used to complain to me.
“People have to be ready to work,” someone once told me about startup hiring.
For better or for worse, conversations often revolve around it. What do you…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Microsoft Patents Minimal Voice Interaction
Clever idea, I can see the whole office whispering. Like to see it in practice. The issue is often brought up when suggesting Voice in an office environment.
Microsoft’s latest patent lets you issue voice commands silently …
From The Eponymous Pickle
Mistaken Assumptions for Blockchains?
In MIT Technology Review: Chain Letter:
... Arvind Narayanan, a computer science professor at Princeton, argued in a widely-shared twitter thread last week that in 2018 “the blockchain/decentralization story fell apart” due to…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Alexa Skills in 2018
Still a remarkable number created, but still not enough in quality or being able to integrate them for increased intelligence. Now a number now being classified as games, additional stats below. Monitization goals and results…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Alexa Asks for Answers
A kind of admission that its hard to create general answers to questions? Further relating to my last post about this kind of approach. Do note its similarity to what you get with Google search, linking to previous questions…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Google Acquires Superpod
Relating to an examination of improved question and answer interacton.
Google secretly acquires Q&A startup Superpod
By Maria Deutscher in SiliconAngle
Google LLC usually publicizes its acquisitions, but there are exceptions.
The…
From insideHPC
Video: Fusion Research on the Summit Supercomputer
In this video, C.S. Chang from the Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory describes how his team is using the GPU-powered Summit supercomputer to simulate and predict plasma behavior for the next fusion reactor. "By using Summit…
From Schneier on Security
Podcast Interview with Eva Gaperon
Nice interview with the EFF's director of cybersecurity, Eva Gaperon....
From insideHPC
Case Study: Deep Learning For Fluid Flow Prediction In The Cloud
In this special guest feature, Wolfgang Gentzsch from the UberCloud writes that a new case study shows how Ai can aid CAE. "Solving computational fluid dynamics (CFD) problems is demanding both in terms of computing power and…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Customizing Computer-Aided Design
Interesting because some of the earliest work we did could be called constrained, innovative design. Most notably in package design, using 3D CAD. Good detail in this space, especially with regard to more modern constraints.…
From Computational Complexity
Today is Thirdsday! Enjoy it while you can!
Fellow Blogger James Propp has come up with a new Math holiday:
Thirsdsday!
The day is Jan 3 (1-3 in America, thought 3-1 in ... Everywhere else?) but only when Jan 3 is a Thursday.
It is a day where we celebrate the magic…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Smart Cities
A toolkit, here just the abstract, good view in the whole article:
Smart Cities: A Toolkit for Leaders
In collaboration with Tata Consultancy Services (TCS), Jan 02, 2019 in K@W:
The definition of a “smart city” is changing.
The…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Illegal Pricing Algorithms
Warnings to developers of algorithms, the data they use, and even the smartest of contracts.
Law and Technology: Illegal Pricing Algorithms By Michal S. Gal
Communications of the ACM, January 2019, Vol. 62 No. 1, Pages 18-20 …
From The Eponymous Pickle
IT battle with Robotic Process Automation
Was unaware this was an important issue, for consideration. With interesting usage statistics. I later noted the quote that " ... for RPA you needed to be very close to the people that understand the process ... ". Well…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Siri and Shortcuts
Just been asked to look at Siri shortcuts as a means of implementing knowledge for both the smarthome and business. Apple is starting to push their ‘shortcuts’ extension to Siri. It is run via an Shortcuts app you download…
From Schneier on Security
Long-Range Familial Searching Forensics
Good article on using long-range familial searching -- basically, DNA matching of distant relatives -- as a police forensics tool....
From insideHPC
Video: Fujitsu Post-K Supercomputer to feature World’s Fastest Arm Processor
In this video, Nicolas Charbonnier from ArmDevices.net interviews Fujitsu engineers working on the Post-K supercomputer in Japan. Based on the Arm-based A64FX from Fujitsu, the Post-K supercomputer will likely be the fastest
…
From insideHPC
Video: Accelerating Ai Outcomes with the NVIDIA DGX Reference Architecture
In this video from DDN booth at SC18, Jacques Bessoudo from NVIDIA presents: Accelerating Ai Outcomes with the NVIDIA DGX Reference Architecture. "DDN is focused on solutions that enable customers to radically accelerate their…
From insideHPC
NERSC: Sierra Snowpack Could Drop Significantly By End of Century
A future warmer world will almost certainly feature a decline in fresh water from the Sierra Nevada mountain snowpack. Now a new study by Berkeley Lab shows how the headwater regions of California’s 10 major reservoirs, representing…
From Computer Science Teacher - Thoughts and Information From Alfred Thompson
Happy New Year 2019
I’ve been thinking about this post for the last several days. My usual practice has been to start the year with a list of thinks I want to watch in CS education during the coming year. As I look at last year’s list (see Looking…
From The Eponymous Pickle
MIT Researches Detecting and Addressing AI Bias
Good job of addressing the issues:
MIT researchers show how to detect and address AI bias without loss in accuracy By Khari Johnson
Bias in AI leads to poor search results or user experience for a predictive model deployed in
In…
From Daniel Lemire's Blog
Memory-level parallelism: Intel Skylake versus Intel Cannonlake
All programmers know about multicore parallelism: your CPU is made of several nearly independent processors (called cores) that can run instructions in parallel. However, our processors are parallel in many different ways. IContinue…
From insideHPC
Video: Managing Data from the Edge to HPC with iRODS
In this video from DDN booth at SC18, Terrell Russell from the iRODS Consortium presents: Managing Data from the Edge to HPC. "The Integrated Rule-Oriented Data System (iRODS) is open source data management software used by research…
From The Eponymous Pickle
AI Understanding Mega-Trends?
Some interesting visualizations of the results. Always interested in seeing the future more clearly. Prediction is powerful.
Inception: AI understands Mega-Trends By Harsha Angeri in Data Driven Investor
Our Artificial Intelligence…