Communications of the ACM
The blog archive provides access to past blog postings from Communications of the ACM and other sources by date.
October 2014
From The Eponymous Pickle
Data and Fashion
In O'Reilly: " .... What the data world can learn from the fashion industry? ... How generating conversations can become one of the most important data assets for any organization. .. "
From The Eponymous Pickle
Skills of a Data Scientist
What are the required, or even very useful skills of a data scientist? From the always interesting Data Science Central. Here a recent aggregation and pointer to lots of examples:" .... here has been a number of interesting…
From The Computing Community Consortium Blog
Arizona Computing Postdoc Academy Introductory Conference October 17-18, 2014
You are invited to the Postdoc Best Practices Arizona introductory conference bringing together postdoctoral scholars from Arizona State University, Northern Arizona University, and University of Arizona. Featured Speakers will…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Virtual Reality and Empathy
Can a set of goggles make you nicer? In the BBC: At the Stanford Virtual Human Interaction Lab. Quite a long look at experiments with the idea of altering behavior using VR. " ... to see for myself just how powerful virtual…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Unlocking Big Data with AI
AI as the key to unlocking big data. " ... Big data and how best to utilise it has become a perennial subject, and the endless debates around it rarely come to a satisfactory conclusion. However, it is technology that will unlock…
From CERIAS Blog
Donate to the Ada Initiative!
I just heard about the fund drive for the Ada Initiative. There are only a few days left in their fund drive supporting women in the tech community. Their efforts are certainly in line with some of my earlier blog posts (including…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Lauren Polo Tech Shirt
From Ralph Lauren: A shirt full of biometric sensors. Activity tracking woven in. More in Wired.
From The Eponymous Pickle
Hyperlayer for Computer Vision
Just brought to my attention. I noticed because of the applications to human behavior analysis in retail. And seeing that Herb Sorensen is an adviser. They include some of his book illustrations at about retail sensing at"…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Tracking Epidemics
App sources and access to Big data about Ebola and other communicable diseases, data visualization examples.
From The Eponymous Pickle
Your Spying Apps
I remember thinking, long ago, why are there so many flashlight apps? Are these App writers just showing off? That is what I thought, but it seems the simpler the App, the more likely it is spying on you. A report on the humble…
From Computer Science Teacher - Thoughts and Information From Alfred Thompson
Programming and Math and Computer Science
During my first few years I worked at Microsoft the focus of my job was higher education computer science. In that role I visited many computer science departments at different universities. I found that computer science programs…
From Schneier on Security
Data and Goliath Is Finished
Data and Goliath: The Hidden Battles to Collect Your Data and Control Your World is finished. I submitted it to my publisher, Norton, this morning. In a few weeks, I'll get the copyedited manuscript back, and a few weeks after…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Gartner's View of 2025 Automation and CIOs
In CWorld: One in three jobs will be taken by software or robots by 2025. Provocative, hard to say, but close I would say. Also includes an interesting view of CIOs: " ... "The door is open for the CIO and the IT organization…
From The Eponymous Pickle
L'Oreal Uses Games for Recruitment
In Gamification: Have not seen games for recruitment lately. Are there any other examples out there? I remember this being done before, but more as a contest. I assume this is being used as a filter. " .... “Reveal…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Big Data Education for CMOs
This could be of value to many parts of the executive suite. Have asked for an outline of the areas of coverage and approaches. How much will this provide beyond the many resources online and published today? Was involved…
From Computational Complexity
The Complexity of NIM. Open?
Recall 1-pile NIM: Let A be a finite set of Naturals. NIM(A) is the following game: There are n stones on the board. Players I and II alternate removing a\in A stones. The first player who can't win loses. Note that if 1\in …
From The Eponymous Pickle
Kroger Invests Beyond Grocery
In Barrons: Summarizes a number of data oriented plays. " ... No. 2 food retailer Kroger is trying to break out of mass retail by investing in everything from e-commerce to natural foods. The stock could rise 20%. ... “On…
From The Computing Community Consortium Blog
Mary Shaw Honored as a Nation’s Top Scientist and Innovator
President Barack Obama has selected Mary Shaw, University Professor of Computer Science at Carnegie Mellon University, as one of the recipients of the National Medal of Technology and Innovation. Our Nation’s highest honor for…
From Daniel Lemire's Blog
Having your cat declawed means having its fingers amputated
There are many simple facts that totally escape me for years. For example, though I took biology in college and I knew that plants were made of carbon through photosynthesis, I only realized a few years ago that plants grow by…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Visualizing Practical Performance Measurement
Stephen Few points to an upcoming book: ... Practical Performance Measurement by Stacey Barr. Plan to read this. I like the idea that he is working with her. This combines the two key questions due any good data visualization…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Walgreens Social and Mobile Analytics
Another example of a retail company using business intelligence with 'Big Data', seeking to get social and mobile understanding of customers. " ... "We are moving to a personal relationship with our customers, which in retail…
From Schneier on Security
iPhone Encryption and the Return of the Crypto Wars
Last week Apple announced that it is closing a serious security vulnerability in the iPhone. It used to be that the phone's encryption only protected a small amount of the data, and Apple had the ability to bypass security on…
From Computer Science Teacher - Thoughts and Information From Alfred Thompson
Interesting Links 6 October 2014
Well it’s October already. Things are really starting to roll in my classes. Projects are getting more interesting in my honors programming class which is a good thing. And my Twitter, Facebook and RSS feeds are showing me all…
From updated sporadically at best
Technical Privilege Reading List
People have been asking about the books I mentioned during last Friday's Challenging Technical Privilege Symposium at MIT. (The symposium was fantastic. So many people came and asked great questions. The video should be up soon…
From The Eponymous Pickle
11th UC Business Intelligence Symposium this Week
Business Intelligence Symposium registration closing soonThe 11th Business Intelligence Symposium is coming next week on Thursday October 9 to the Lindner College of Business at the University of Cincinnati. This is a very well…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Fake Tongues and Taste in Virtual Reality
An article in the New Yorker looks at an extension of the 'Bubber Hand Illusion", which realisticaly fools the brain into thinking that a fake hand is their own. Called the 'Butcher's Tongue Illusion' this extends the same…
From Gödel's Lost Letter and P=NP
How To Add Numbers
It’s harder than you think William Kahan is a numerical analyst and an expert on all things about floating point numbers. He won the 1989 Turing award for his pioneering work on how to implement floating point computations correctly…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Robotic Fabrics for Active Clothing
Out of Purdue University, new developments. Robotics need not be standalone, they can combine with us in surprising ways.Robotic fabric could bring 'active clothing,' wearable robotsResearchers are developing a robotic fabric…
From Putting People First
The drive towards user-centred engineering in automotive design
Bryant, Scott & Wrigley, Cara (2014) The drive towards user-centred engineering in automotive design. In Bohemia, Erik, Rieple, Alison, Liedtka, Jeanne, & Cooper, Rachael (Eds.) Proceedings of 19th DMI : Academic Design Management…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Personalized Bananas
In Adweek: At first I thought this was an example of 3D printing, but apparently not. " ... Dole Printed Some Very Special Bananas for 200 Runners of the Tokyo Marathon Finish times and more ... " . A pointer to the power…