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
Making Sense of Big Data with Visualization
I have said it often, visualization, a form of descriptive analytics, should be the first method used to understand any kind of data. Especially large scale and volatile forms. In ProgrammableWeb:" ... In this age of big data…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Retaining Human Touch in Process
In CIOInsight: Some useful cautions about automation. Sure we want to do things as efficiently as possible, but there is still value to include humans in customer interaction work processes.
From Putting People First
Why government websites are terrible and how to fix them
By exposing how confusing food stamp applications and other government online services can be, Citizen Onboard hopes to make them better. Anna North reports in the New York Times Op-Talk blog. “One simple way to make government…
From The Eponymous Pickle
The Enterprise as a Connection of Things
In Baseline: Enterprise as a collection of things, and their internal and external connections. People too. " ... There's a growing interest in understanding how to use the Internet of things (IoT) to better understand business…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Pangrammatic Tweets
Always have been interested in how to programmatically analyze text. We worked with large text bases long ago using what was then called 'content analysis', which is now called text analytics. Fun things to do with the structure…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Mind Tricks of Scammers
In the BBC: On the psychology of scamming. While we often pay attention to the technology involved, the scamming methods that exist have been around for a long time." ... So what does make someone vulnerable? To look for.…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Google and Open Source Docker
Of interest, new to me:" ... Google is putting its considerable weight behind an open source technology that’s already one of the hottest new ideas in the world of cloud computing.This technology is called Docker. You can think…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Basic Information About Apple Pay
A good, short overview of some of the technical and practical aspects of Apple Pay. Taking a closer look.
From Schneier on Security
Friday Squid Blogging: Squid Burger
McDonald's has a Halloween-themed burger with a squid-ink bun. Only in Japan. As usual, you can also use this squid post to talk about the security stories in the news that I haven't covered....
From My Biased Coin
Andreessen-Horowitz Again
Andreessen Horowitz had a second Academic Roundtable, gathering together academics, VCs, and people in startups to talk for a few days about a variety of topics. I wasn't sure why I was invited the first time (which I wrote)…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Transforming Messaging with the Data
Foodies Transforming grocery messaging. Not really a technical idea, but an understanding that the form of the message needs to adapt to change in consumer expectations. Have seen this same form of change occurring in consumer…
From Daniel Lemire's Blog
Coffee is probably not killing your productivity
A recent Slate articles warns that coffee makes you less productive. The main claim is that coffee has no cognition enhancement ability but, instead, a range of negative side-effects. Unfortunately, it is not, a far as I can…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Detecting Bogus Reviews
How good is data science at detecting and flagging bogus reviews in Amazon or Yelp? Some interesting points about how these problems are created and their solution. In Data Science Central.
From The Eponymous Pickle
What a Phone Can't Tell Police
Fascinating, non technical look at the complexity of what can and cannot be derived from cell phone based location information.
From The Eponymous Pickle
Procedurally Generated Games, Advertising
Procedurally generated games allow new kinds of backgrounds, components and interactions to be provided in a virtual world. This was discussed early on as way to integrate advertising experiences into online spaces. Not sure…
From Computer Science Teacher - Thoughts and Information From Alfred Thompson
Doing It My Way
I suspect that there are a lot of programs and websites available that let teachers enter a class roster and randomly pick out a student name. I know several teachers who like to use such tools to make sure they call on students…
From Schneier on Security
William Binney Explains NSA Surveillance Using Snowden's Documents
Former NSA employee -- not technical director, as the link says -- explains how NSA bulk surveillance works, using some of the Snowden documents. Very interesting....
From The Eponymous Pickle
Lotus 1-2-3 Support Ended
Historical note. We used Lotus extensively in the enterprise in the late 80s. It was the second major electronic spreadsheet offering, after Visicalc. We also used it to integrate certain kinds of corporate data. IBM has…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Artificial Intelligence in the World University
It has been a while since I have looked at Wikis outside of Wikipedia. We developed intra-Wikis experimentally, but not with great success. Check some of my other links for the 'why'. Here is an example brought to my attention…
From The Computing Community Consortium Blog
Beth Mynatt Honored with 2014 Mobility Star Award
The Computing Community Consortium (CCC) Vice Chair Beth Mynatt has received a 2014 Mobility Star Award, which salutes excellence and advancements in mobility. The award recognizes five mobile technology leaders who have made…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Collaboration Environment Requirements
In Cisco Blog: A topic often covered here. What really makes it work? Strongly leveraged Data, Analytics, context, focus and culture are my answers. Technology is just the essential part you need, but it won't make it successful…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Supply Chain Collaboration
Supply chain collaboration. Ultimately essential to scale to the solution for the right context. It is about visibility, but what does that term mean? Agree it is often tailored to the agendas of the players involved.
From The Eponymous Pickle
Amazon Crowdsourcing Publishing
Amazon's outsourced publishing platform called WriteOn. As launched, aimed at publishing fiction. But could the same thing be done with other kinds of publishing, say storytelling based on business intelligence results? …
From BLOG@CACM
The State of Computing Education in the World: Report on the 2014 ACM Education Council Meeting
The ACM Education Council gets together once a year to share initiatives and results, and promote computing education.
From Schneier on Security
The NSA's Private Cloud
The NSA is building a private cloud with its own security features: As a result, the agency can now track every instance of every individual accessing what is in some cases a single word or name in a file. This includes when…
From Computational Complexity
Favorite Theorems: Multilinear Circuits
In the past decade we have seen a strong program in algebraic circuit complexity. If you just define circuits using multiplication and addition gates, sometimes you can use the algebraic structure to get lower bounds that prove…
From Putting People First
Five tips for experience designers working on healthcare innovation
Earlier this year Tracy Brown, a London-based UX designer, had the opportunity to work within an innovation lab called The Digital Innovation group (DIG), created as a collaboration between DigitasLBi and Astrazeneca to allow…
From Geeking with Greg
Quick links
What caught my attention lately:
From The Eponymous Pickle
Digital NYC Launched
To my startup friends in NYC, Digital NYC has launched. Congratulatons! Got a great impression of their work during my last visit. It is also well supported: IBM Sweetens pie for Big Apple Entrepreneurs. " ... a web site…
From Schneier on Security
Firechat
Firechat is a secure wireless peer-to-peer chat app: Firechat is theoretically resistant to the kind of centralized surveillance that the Chinese government (as well as western states, especially the US and the UK) is infamous…