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 Schneier on Security
The Commercial Speech Arms Race
A few years ago, a company began to sell a liquid with identification codes suspended in it. The idea was that you would paint it on your stuff as proof of ownership. I commented that I would paint it on someone else's stuff,…
From Wild WebMink
links for 2009-10-16
From Computational Complexity
Typecasting Again
Lance: Welcome to our second typecast on the last full day of Dagstuhl. I may not see Bill for a while so we'd thought we'd get in one more chat before we go our separate ways.
From The Noisy Channel
Third Annual Workshop on Search in Social Media (SSM 2010)
I’m proud to announce that Eugene Agichtein, Marti Hearst, and Ian Soboroff have invited me to help organize the upcoming Workshop on Search in Social Media (SSM 2010). The workshop will take place in conjunction with the ACM…
From My Biased Coin
Welcoming Myself to CACM
I'd like to welcome myself to the Blogroll for the Communications of the ACM! My colleague Greg Morrisett suggested I get my blog into the CACM Blogroll, so a few e-mail messages later, and apparently I'm in. Just goes to show…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Responding to Social Media : Sidewiki
Google has recently added a toolbar capability called Sidewiki, which allows anyone to add comments, information or respond to any site. Previous attempts to do this kind of thing have not worked well. Pharma and other enterprises…
From The Eponymous Pickle
TDWI: Business Intelligence as a Service
I see that TDWI has added a number of new white papers, case studies and other resources on Business Intelligence as a service, have not begun to tap their sources. You will recall I took a first look at BI SaaS recently with…
From Schneier on Security
Camouflaging a WWII Factory
Great pictures.
From Computational Complexity
Thanks for the Fuzzy Memories
In the 1990's Manindra Agrawal and V. Arvind published a paper claiming that if SAT is reducible to a (non-uniform) weighted threshold function then P = NP. Their proof relied on the following splitting lemma:
For all n,…
From The Noisy Channel
Are Duplicate Tweets Spam?
From The Eponymous Pickle
Average Consumer is Gone
From Jeff Mills, VP of Client Marketing and Client Management at Thinkvine. If the average consumer does not exist, and is continually evolving, we need solutions that can model that consumer more precisely. See their site'…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Linkedin APIs
I still recommend Linkedin first for people that are new to the use of social networking in business. Yet it is not open in the sense of being able to easily get information to other applications. In fact in the few conversations…
From Schneier on Security
The Bizarre Consequences of "Zero Tolerance" Weapons Policies at Schools
Good article:
Zachary's offense? [He's six years old.] Taking a camping utensil that can serve as a knife, fork and spoon to school. He was so excited about recently joining the Cub Scouts that he wanted to use it at lunch.…From Wild WebMink
links for 2009-10-15
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I can understand the challenges, but I can usually cope with Glaswegian. Now, Ulster Irish is another matter.
From The Noisy Channel
Innovation at Huffington Post: Data-Driven Headlines
The other day, I was suggesting to one of my colleagues that Endeca’s software could help authors write better (translate, more SEO-friendly) headlines. The details of that discussion are proprietary, but I’m sure you can imagine…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Data Mining Group
The Data Mining Group, based on recent experiences, this is a very good idea: ' ... The Data Mining Group (DMG) is an independent, vendor led consortium that develops data mining standards, such as the Predictive Model Markup…
From My Biased Coin
New Book on Concentration Bounds
I spent an hour or more today perusing the book Concentration of Measure for the Analysis of Randomized Algorithms, by Devdatt Dubhashi and Alessandro Panconesi (that Alessandro was kind enough to send me). It's a very nice,…
From Schneier on Security
1777 Steganography
From Computational Complexity
Bill and Lance's Excellent German Adventure
Lance: Because we don't have a good microphone, Bill and I decided to have our first typecast. Hi Bill.
From The Eponymous Pickle
Viewing Product Placement
The Times of London looks at Martin Lindstrom's view of how to do product placement right. American Idol used as an example for the application of neuroscience principles. Subscribe to his newsletter.
From The Eponymous Pickle
Wristband Location Tags
I see that Ekahau, whose specialty has been WiFi based location methods, has come out with a wristband format tag that has meter and less accuracy. We looked at these methods of tracking in innovation center and retail contexts…
From Wild WebMink
links for 2009-10-14
The work done by legal firm Carter-Ruck on behalf of their client Trafigura will (hopefully) go down in the annals of viral marketing history. Great analysis…
From The Noisy Channel
Go Shopping, Be Social
If you’re into search startups, then today’s a great day to check out what a couple of them are up to.
From Apophenia
Postdoctoral Researchers, Microsoft Research
If you're graduating with a PhD from a computer science program, applying to be a researcher or postdoc at Microsoft Research might seem obvious. But what I've learned is that few students in nearby departments are even aware…
From BLOG@CACM
Economic Crisis and Computer Science
A personal view of the role of computer science in economic crisis.
From Schneier on Security
The Current Status of P Versus NP
Excellent survey.
From The Eponymous Pickle
Bar Code Scanning for the iPhone
I finally took a look at the Redlaser barcode scanner from Occipital for the IPhone, released earlier this year. It is a $1.99 application that downloads quickly. It uses the camera on my 3G Iphone and then interprets that picture…
From BLOG@CACM
Collaborating Across Boundaries
In a global world, collaboration and communicating with colleagues in different geographical locations is becoming critically important. What kinds of tools can we build to address some of these challenges?
From The Eponymous Pickle
Bing Doing Well.
I used Bing a number of times in comparison to Google search, but then stopped. Word is it is doing better that expected. Will give it some more tries.
From The Eponymous Pickle
Flu Suit
Idea Connection sends along a link to word of a Flu-Fighting business suit. Treated, it says, to kill the H1N1 virus. I have considerable doubt.