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 Schneier on Security
Friday Squid Blogging: Giant Squid Engraving from the 1870s
Neat book illustration.
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
Connect & Develop
Take a look at Procter & Gamble's Connect and Develop Website. " ... This site has been created to help external innovators and companies learn how Connect + Develop SM works. Here you can read about our past successes, our…
From Schneier on Security
When Will We See Collisions for SHA-1?
On a NIST-sponsored hash function mailing list, Jesse Walker (from Intel; also a member of the Skein team) did some back-of-the-envelope calculations to estimate how long it will be before we see a practical collision attack …
From Putting People First
An enchanted Odyssey on your iPad
Article by Francesca Salvadori, Scuolalvento blog Translation from the Italian Technology is probably the last thing that comes to mind when you think about poetry and how it can be captured and transmitted. But this emotional…
From Putting People First
Chris Noessel and Stefan Klocek presentation at D3
In August, Cooper directors Chris Noessel and Stefan Klocek discussed implicit interactions at Device Design Day 2012, organised by Kicker Studio in San Francisco. They also presented a new metaphor or mental model for thinking…
From Putting People First
Ritual and the service experience
The interplay between efficiency and quality in a service experience is often what separates a merely transactional interaction from a valuable and pleasurable one, writes Patrick Quattlebaum of Adaptive Path. “The former gets…
From Putting People First
I have seen the future and it’s worn
Paul Taylor of the Financial Times thinks wearable technology lives up to its promise at last. “For years, engineers have envisaged technology so personal that “body area networks” would have wide applications in clothing and…
From Schneier on Security
Maps Showing Spread of ZeroAccess Botnet
The folks at F-Secure have plotted ZeroAccess infections across the U.S. and across Europe. It's interesting to see, but I'm curious to see the data normalized to the number of computers on the Internet.
From The Eponymous Pickle
Google's Virtual Brain
Google has long been known for working on techniques that allow the automatic analysis of unstructured data like images and video. A classic element of human intelligence. Here is more on what they are up to. It brings up…
From Computer Science Teacher - Thoughts and Information From Alfred Thompson
The Real Disruption of 3D Printing
The latest “disruption” people seem to be talking a lot about is 3D printing. A lot of the attention has been caused by a group of people calling themselves Defense Distributed trying to use 3D printing to build a firearm. The…
From The Female Perspective of Computer Science
Lili Cheng: Creativity, Learning, and Social Software (GHC12)
Who knew a past in physical architecture would suit a career in technology research so well! Lili Cheng — general manager of Microsoft Research's FUSE labs — did! And she told us all about it in her talk at Grace Hopper today…
From Computer Science Teacher - Thoughts and Information From Alfred Thompson
Omnibus Software (and hardware)
I have several “Swiss Army” type tools. You know the ones with all the different blades, screw drivers and pliers in one tool. They are ok for simple tasks but for serious jobs I prefer a real screw driver, a real knife or aAs…
From The Computing Community Consortium Blog
Computer Science Projects Among Popular Mechanics’ Breakthrough Awardees
Popular Mechanics, the American Magazine which features regular articles on science and technology, released their annual breakthrough awardees earlier this week. These awards highlight innovations that have the potential to…
From Wild WebMink
Legal Topics For Practical People
The track I’m chairing at Open World Forum in Paris next week is now public and I think we’ve got a pretty hot schedule there what with Richard Fontana and Bradley Kuhn rematched after their showdown at FOSDEM, plus the explanation…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Starbucks and Passbook
An example of location enabled loyalty and payment in a mainstream mobility solution. We will see more of this on many platforms. " ... Starbucks said Thursday its mobile app and Starbucks Card are now integrated with Apple's…
From Schneier on Security
Tradecraft and Terrorism
From The Female Perspective of Computer Science
The Road to GHC12
After a one-year hiatus, I'm back at the Grace Hopper Celebration of Women in Computing! We took a road trip down to Baltimore, and despite a feverish baby and some rainy weather, we got to see some fun things.We started off
We…From The Eponymous Pickle
Break Some Rules
Innovators should Think like a startup, break some rules. " ... When pioneering new technology in an emerging industry segment, it's important to think outside the box by approaching innovation much like a startup would, according…
From The Computing Community Consortium Blog
Still Accepting Entries for our “Computing Research in Action” Series
A few weeks ago, we blogged about our new “Computing Research in Action” series, which is an expanded version of our “Highlight of the Week” feature. We’ve received several entries so far and will announce our first winner later…
From The Eponymous Pickle
User Friendly Robot Worker
Article in IEEE Spectrum: On rethinking the factory worker. Quite a coup if it works. And would be quite a worry to employment if it does. I still have my doubts that all the contexts of labor can be adapted to. Still aRethink…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Business Agility Article
The below requires registration, but I found it useful.Business Agility Insights Issue 4In a recent survey from eBizQ, nearly two-thirds of business and IT professionals are currently using or considering, decision management…
From Gödel's Lost Letter and P=NP
Quantum Supremacy or Classical Control?
Final summations of the Kalai-Harrow debate source—our congratulations William Unruh is a professor in the Theoretical Physics group of the University of British Columbia. He is known for the Unruh effect, which predicts that…
From Computer Science Teachers Association
Additional Indignity
I often talk with my students about the impact of technology on our lives: the good and the bad, the capabilities and the limitations. A great example of this was this past summer when my family spent close to a month living…
From Computational Complexity
Close to Genius
The MacArthur Foundation announced their 2012 Fellows, also know as the genius awards. Among the list two names of interest to my readers, Maria Chudnovsky and Daniel Spielman. My long time readers first heard of Maria backposted…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Lifecycle Management and Innovation
Good piece in Consumer Goods Technology about the new and growing relationship between PLM (Product Lifecycle Management) and innovation. How it can help retailers to innovate faster.
From The Eponymous Pickle
L'Oreal on the XBox
We also looked at how to link beauty to digital technology, this is an interesting play. " ... L'Oréal Seeks Women in Unlikely Place: On Xbox ... Beauty and Style App Is Console's Latest Effort to Reach Audience Beyond Core
…From The Computing Community Consortium Blog
NSF Invests Nearly $15 million in Big Data and New Interagency Challenge Announced
Today at a briefing on Capitol Hill titled, “Big Data, Bigger Opportunities“, hosted by Tech America, The National Science Foundation (NSF) and the National Institutes of Health (NIH) announced $15 million in funding for Big…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Online Price Shopping Survey
An overview of a recent survey on how shoppers use online price comparison before buying in-store.
From Schneier on Security
Authentication Stories
Anecdotes from Asia on seals versus signatures on official documents.
From The Eponymous Pickle
Spying Cameras
Covered broadly in the news. Proof of concepts developed to use smartphone cameras for remote spying via malicious Trojans. Not an unexpected capability. . And the camera is only one sensor loading of a very common device.