Communications of the ACM
The blog archive provides access to past blog postings from Communications of the ACM and other sources by date.
October 2009
From The Eponymous Pickle
Perception in the Brain's Clock
Fascinating piece in New Scientist about how the brain's clock changes our perception and view of reality. Mentioned is the classic 'wagon wheel illusion', ' ... Perhaps the most fundamental question neuroscientists are investigating…
From Apophenia
Some thoughts on Twitter vs. Facebook Status Updates
The functional act of constructing a tweet or a status update is very similar. Produce text in roughly 140 characters or less inside a single line text box and click a button. Voila! Even the stream based ways in which the text…
From Wild WebMink
links for 2009-10-25
From The Eponymous Pickle
Blob Robot
IRobot, best known for its Roomba floor sweep ing robot, has developed a prototype robot for DARPA that can fit into tight spaces via its morphable form. Robotic forms do not need to be anthropomorphic. More in IEEE Spctrum…
From Wild WebMink
We Have An Ombudsman
Just a quick reminder to anyone who believes Sun has done something bad in the community; we do have a community ombudsman service. Send e-mail to ombudsman@sun.com with your complaints and they will be investigated.
From The Eponymous Pickle
Social Media Counter
A display of changes in social media over time. The specifics are not that useful, but it is an impressive representation of how many people are engaging with social media.
From The Eponymous Pickle
ROI of Data Mining
A good post on the high ROI for data mining in innovative organizations. Contains a good set of examples that have worked in this space that are instructive. It is always best to know what you are looking for.
From My Biased Coin
Major (and Minor) Happenings : Gu-Yeon Wei
I'm thrilled to announce that my colleague Gu-Yeon Wei, in EE here at Harvard, received tenure. I feel this is worth a mention because:1) Strangely, people sometimes seem to forget we have EE here are Harvard. They shouldn't…
From The Eponymous Pickle
IPhone versus Blackberry Shoppers
Retailers discover differences between IPhone and Blackberry users. By Evan Schuman in Storefrontbacktalk.
From Schneier on Security
Friday Squid Blogging: Steampunk Squid Cake
From Schneier on Security
Friday Squid Blogging: Draw-a-Squid Contest
Draw a squid, win Jeff Vandermeer`s Ambergris novels.
From Computer Science Teachers Association
Members Build Membership in CSTA
Have you ever wondered about the other members of CSTA? Questions like "Where are the other members?" or "Who are the other members?"
One of the best ways to grow membership in an organization is by word of mouth. In the last…From The Eponymous Pickle
On the Spot Shopper Data Mining
This blog emerged from connections nurtured at our innovation centers. One of the topics we covered for years was how to talk to the shopper as they roamed the aisles. It has covered topics like smart carts, specialized hand-held…
From Computational Complexity
Notes on Dagstuhl
A few notes on Dagshul which Lance and I were at last week.
From The Eponymous Pickle
Business Apps Economy
BusinessWeek short video and article: Inside the App Economy. Great introduction to the whole notion of both mobile and social networking applications. More about reaching the customer than I had imagined. Money is being made…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Statistical Learning Book
Mike Cristiani of MIG points out that the book: The Elements of Statistical Learning: Data Mining Inference and Prediction, by Hastie, Tibshirani and Friedman Second Edition.is available free as a PDF. Based on a scan this is…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Converge Magazine
An education oriented site and mag whose tagline is: Education is Destiny.
From The Eponymous Pickle
ESPN Partners with WIMI
WIMI, The Wharton Interactive Marketing Initiative reports that they have established a partnership with ESPN. Press release and details here.
From The Female Perspective of Computer Science
ISMAR09: Human Factors and User Interfaces
There were more than a few good papers presented at ISMAR this year on human factors and user interfaces. Here's just a taste of them. See the conference schedule for information about authors and their affiliations.Using Augmented…
From The Eponymous Pickle
You Can't Charge for it
Content is no longer king, or at least you can't often charge for it. So is community king now? So says Judy Shapiro in AdAge. That has been true for quite some time. Only a few examples of for-fee distribution of knowledge itself…
From Schneier on Security
"Evil Maid" Attacks on Encrypted Hard Drives
Earlier this month, Joanna Rutkowska implemented the "evil maid" attack against TrueCrypt. The same kind of attack should work against any whole-disk encryption, including PGP Disk and BitLocker. Basically, the attack works…
From BLOG@CACM
Impact of the Social Web on Computing Research
Scientists from diverse fields are feeling the impact of Social Web systems and are publishing research papers that characterize, model, prototype, and evaluate such systems. Researchers are seeing a surge of new research on…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Interactive Table for Environment Center
John Curran, long-time correspondent, has sent along pictures of some excellent work that his company MCosm did at the Dupont Environmental Education Center, which opened a week ago in Delaware. I had previously seen some excellent…
From Computational Complexity
Need a Roomate for a Conference?
(Guest Post by Dave Doty pointing to a blog by ***SORELLE*** which points to a roomate finding service for conferences.)
Sorelle has announced a new roommate finding forum for conferences: http://conferences.proboards.com…
From The Female Perspective of Computer Science
ISMAR09: Workshop on Handheld Augmented Reality Games
This was a great workshop given by Blair MacIntyre from Georgia Tech on mobile augmented reality games. I got a lot out of it, from being reminded of some solid game design topics to getting new ideas about the game I wantjust…
From The Eponymous Pickle
More of Web Searchable
In an ongoing progression, more of the web has become searchable. Google has announced that Twitter updates will soon be added to search results. How will they be ranked? Starting this week Bing has also added a Twitter search…
From Computer Science Teachers Association
Congress Declares Computer Science Week!
Computer science education reform is going to come in fits and starts working on issues from the top down (national media, federal policy, etc.) and the bottom up (in schools, districts, states, etc.). This week the "top down"…
From Schneier on Security
James Bamford on the NSA
James Bamford -- author of The Shadow Factory: The NSA from 9/11 to the Eavesdropping on America writes about the NSA's new data center in Utah as he reviews another book: The Secret Sentry: The Untold History of the National…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Ontologies Explained
Ontology is one of those words that you do not hear in common parlance. As a result it often gets a blank stare if you dare to use it in management meetings. I have been there. You can probably understand that when you notice…
From Daniel Lemire's Blog
Open Access is the Short-Sighted Fight
My colleague Stevan Harnad thinks it is silly to boycott for-profit journals. My ex-colleague Stephen Downes admits to being a boycotter, but he claims not to be silly. Both of them are silly.
Stephen Downes has worked outside…