Communications of the ACM
The blog archive provides access to past blog postings from Communications of the ACM and other sources by date.
October 2012
From The Eponymous Pickle
3D Gestures
I have been taking a look at alternatives to the mouse for computer interaction. Came upon report of work by Microsoft labs doing 3D gestural had interaction work. Here in Engadget. So will mouse interaction be replaced…
From The Computing Community Consortium Blog
“Redefining Medicine With Apps and iPads”
Technology and society writer Katie Hafner published an article yesterday on the use of technology as clinical tools in The New York Times: Dr. Alvin Rajkomar was doing rounds with his team at the University of California, San…
From Schneier on Security
Story of a CIA Burglar
This is a fascinating story of a CIA burglar, who worked for the CIA until he tried to work against the CIA. The fact that he stole code books and keys from foreign embassies makes it extra interesting, and the complete disregard…
From Computer Science Teacher - Thoughts and Information From Alfred Thompson
Layers and Layers
Several years ago a teacher asked me to help with a problem one of her students was having. The student had decided to combine all of the semester’s projects into one big program. It was getting a stack overflow and no one had…
From Putting People First
Five new articles on UX Matters
Tips on Prototyping for Usability Testing By Jim Ross, Principal of Design Research at Electronic Ink, Philadelphia, PA, USA Because user research studies peoples’ behavior, the most effective research techniques involve observing…
From Gödel's Lost Letter and P=NP
What’s Blue and White and Red All Over?
Election and debate special from GLL Aram Harrow is both a computer scientist and a physicist—something that makes him unique and special. Few people can explain what a probabilistic Turing Machine is and also what complementarity…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Multiple Government Big Data Initiatives
Information Week on multiple government big data initiatives. And you can add another, the DARPA xData initiative. " ... A trio of federal agencies is looking to engage the American public to garner ideas about how to best…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Private Clouds e-Book
A 74 free e-book. Registration required. There is much confusion on this topic.
From Daniel Lemire's Blog
Will I get a job with this degree?
In Quebec, we have had massive student protests. Students were asking for free higher education. It seems that things have quieted down as the new government has vowed to freeze tuition in constant dollar. Though it is never…
From Computational Complexity
Cruel XOR unusual Punishment
(This post was done with the help of Lane Hemaspaandra and John Purtilo.) The 8th amendment of the US Constitution states Excessive bail shall not be required, nor excessive fines imposed, nor cruel and unusual punishmentsThere…
From Schneier on Security
New Developments in Captchas
In the never-ending arms race between systems to prove that you're a human and computers that can fake it, here's a captcha that tests whether you have human feelings.
Instead of your run-of-the-mill alphanumeric gibberish,Civil…From Putting People First
Videos of keynote presentations at The Web and Beyond 2012
The Web and Beyond is a bi-annual conference organized by Chi Nederland, focused on the practice and business of user experience. On September 26, our 425 attendees saw a full-day, 3-track conference with keynotes and parallel…
From Computer Science Teacher - Thoughts and Information From Alfred Thompson
Interesting Links 8 October 2012
It’s the Columbus Day holiday in the US. Or as we call it in my family Leif Landed First day. Either way a lot of schools have a holiday today. I’m traveling today so I prepared this post yesterday. Some of you will read it
A…From The Noisy Channel
HCIR 2012: A Personal Report
Human-computer information retrieval (HCIR) is the study of information retrieval techniques that integrate human intelligence and algorithmic search to help people explore, understand, and use information. Since 2007, the HCIR…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Peapod's Virtual Store
In PopAI: More on Peapod's Virtual stores, including a good video of it in operation. " ... The campaign stretches all across the U.S., littering 100 subway stations with digital billboards mimicking mini-grocery aisles displaying…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Where is Artificial General Intelligence?
We expected Artificial General Intelligence (AGI) to follow quickly when we formed an artificial intelligence team and lab in the late 1980's. Surely once we started to build incremental intelligence into the expert systemsTeknowledge…
From The Female Perspective of Computer Science
NSF Funding Opportunities and Effective Proposal Writing Strategies (GHC12)
Even though I'm a Canadian grad student, the Grace Hopper session on National Science Foundation (NSF) opportunities was very relevant to me. As my collaborators and I try to put together a team and plan for my Gram's House,…
From My Biased Coin
Allerton Panel
This year was the 50th Annual Allerton Conference on Communication, Control, and Computing (website). Hard to believe it's been around that long. I think my first year there was 1999, and while I haven't gone every year, I've…
From The Female Perspective of Computer Science
Go Lean, Go Agile: Are We There Yet? (GHC12)
The concept of agile development has always fascinated me, particularly because I haven't had the opportunity yet to work on an agile team. (This despite having done five 4-month co-op terms during my undergrad.) So, thepanel…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Research Mind Mapping
I have used IThoughtsHD for some time as a mind mapping tool. The main reason for choosing it was that it was usable as an iPad App and could readily communicate with other concept mapping formats. Mind/Concept Mapping is an…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Tesla's Lab is Saved
An example of unappreciated genius. Nikola Tesla. Wireless and energy transmission pioneer. I have seen the ruins of his lab from afar. I have stayed in a room on the NYC New Yorker hotel, close by the room he lived in until…
From The Eponymous Pickle
The Emergence of Precision Retailing
Tailoring promotions to mobile shopper needs in the store. ReadwriteWeb critically calls it SAP's Creepy New Retail Software Uses Big Data To Make You Buy More Stuff.Predicted it was inevitable. We have thought about it for…
From Computer Science Teacher - Thoughts and Information From Alfred Thompson
The Problem With Courses
Lots of interesting side comments come up during some curriculum discussions. At a recent meeting of the CS 2013 task force one of the committee members made a statement to the effect that maybe part of the problem was having…
From The Computing Community Consortium Blog
The Importance of Federal Funding to Research
Steve Lohr from the New York Times published an article today titled, “The Seeds That Federal Money Can Plant,” which explains the importance of federal funding to scientific research and development. The article highlights Luis…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Disney 3D Printing
An example of using 3D printing to create simple displays and sensors. " ... Aside from simple displays, the process can also be used to produce a variety of sensors, using changes in a path of infrared light to detect movements…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Teradata and Tibco Spotfire
This press release recently came up in some research " ... Tibco Spotfire Announces Expanded Partnership with Teradata to Offer Extreme Data Discovery and Analytics ... Spotfire Harnesses Teradata for Executing Complex Calculations…
From The Eponymous Pickle
On Education and Trust
Correspondent and frequent consultant to our enterprise Jerry Michalski gives his first talk at TED, in Copenhagen. On education on trust.
From The Eponymous Pickle
Augmented Reality Accelerates
In CWorld: Augmented Reality Accelerates. I visited a lab this week that was building novel augmented reality work for local enterprises. More specifics on that later. The empowerment of the shopper has heightened the interest…
From Putting People First
Making mobile phones work for the poor
In this BBC article, David Edelstein, a leader in the mobile for development space, argues that human networks are the essential ingredient for mobile phones to improve the lives of the poorest. “Focusing on the technology betrays…
From Putting People First
Understanding the sensing city
Consultant Roger Dennis, who identifies himself as “serendipity architect”, has been writing a series of posts on meetings he had related to the sensing city. Together they give a good overview of some of the most recent initiatives…