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
Future of Automobiles from Bill Ford
From McKinsey: Long view on the future of automobile technology. " ... There are a lot of forces converging in the auto industry right now, including urbanization in emerging markets, powertrain electrification, emissions concerns…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Key to Change is Middle Management
In the HBR: With some interesting hints on how this can be achieved. A little soft, but useful thoughts. Middle management is a squishy thing, strongly culture influenced. It can be very influential, or just support staff…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Big Basketball Data
In Wired: Excellent non technical look at tracking the complexity of sports. Have followed this technically for a few years, this is a good non-tech view. Nice example too of how data can be scrounged from multiple sources…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Watson Determining Personality and Resonance of Message
Today at the Insight meetings we saw a Watson cognitive App being built from a number of Bluemix services and prefabricated Java. Of particular interest was a user personality modeling mechanism. They showed it being usedGenesys…
From Schneier on Security
Survey on What Americans Fear
Interesting data: Turning to the crime section of the Chapman Survey on American Fears, the team discovered findings that not only surprised them, but also those who work in fields pertaining to crime. "What we found when we…
From The Computing Community Consortium Blog
Cyber-Earth project puts climate-change impacts on the map
The following is a guest blog post by CCC Council Member Shashi Shekhar, McKnight Distinguished University Professor Department of Computer Science College of Science and Engineering University of Minnesota. Cyber-Earth, a web…
From Computer Science Teacher - Thoughts and Information From Alfred Thompson
Leave School Now While You Still Know It All
Interesting questions appear on Twitter all the time. Sometimes addressed to individuals and sometimes addressed to the Twitterverse as a whole. One earlier today has me thinking a lot. And chatting with people on Twitter and…
From Computational Complexity
Sipser Symposium
From My Biased Coin
Rankings Everywhere
Like many (theoretical) computer scientists, I spent far, far too much time this weekend thinking about rankings. Well, really, it was more that I was being far, far too amused by the various posts and comments on the novel"Ranking…
From Putting People First
The zombiefication of business travelers
Tim Askew, CEO of Corporate Rain International, explains how technology is increasingly isolating us from each other and stifling creativity and real experiences. “As a frequent business traveler, I have noticed an unhappy change…
From Computer Science Teacher - Thoughts and Information From Alfred Thompson
Two States–the Highs and the Lows
I found this image on Facebook last week and it really rang true for me.
I experienced both sides of this recently. On one hand I wrote a program on the spur of the moment and pushed it out in 20 minutes with no struggle at…From Schneier on Security
Apple Copies Your Files Without Your Knowledge or Consent
The latest version of Apple's OS automatically syncs your files to iCloud Drive, even files you choose to store locally. Apple encrypts your data, both in transit and in iCloud, with a key it knows. Apple, of course, complies…
From BLOG@CACM
Software's Vital Role at Japan Robot Week 2014
Modern robots are no longer just about hardware. Software algorithms play an essential role in bringing life-like movements to industrial robots and humanoids.
From The Eponymous Pickle
Scene Understanding and Labeling Pixels
A problem I looked at for a startup a few years ago. Ultimately it was chosen to address it by using crowdsourcing. Here a Vimeo interview with Stephen Gould discusses image understanding and pixel labeling, the topic of "…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Watson Analytics Seen Today
Watson Analytics Have yet to get a beta loaner, but today I did get several more in depth demonstrations of the idea. In one case I was able to at least suggest entries. The idea is good, but not new. Why not have a data…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Whole Foods Digital Signage
Whole Foods Store of the future utilizes digital signage. They have been innovators in this space for some time. " .... Whole Foods has unveiled a new range of touch screens and other digital tools at its new flagship store…
From The Eponymous Pickle
USPS to Test Delivery of Groceries
The idea has been suggested for years, now finally the Feds have approved a test. Why not? " ... Federal authorities have given approval for the U.S. Postal Service to commence a two-year test of a customized delivery program…
From Schneier on Security
US Intelligence "Second Leaker" Identified
There's a report that the FBI has identified a second leaker: The case in question involves an Aug. 5 story published by The Intercept, an investigative website co-founded by Glenn Greenwald, the reporter who first published…
From Putting People First
Five things marketers can learn from designers
Why are highly successfully companies putting top-notch designers in key leadership roles, ask David Weber and Lisa Leslie Henderson. What are designers bringing to the table that marketers and other c-level players are not?…
From Putting People First
Best practices for medical app development go beyond standard UX
Mobile healthcare app development poses a set of challenges very different from mainstream apps. Not only is security an area that requires a considerable attention, compliance with regulatory standards is also absolutely crucial…
From Gödel's Lost Letter and P=NP
Rebooting Computing
How to beat the end of Moore’s Law Elie Track and Tom Conte were co-chairs of the recently-held Third IEEE workshop on Rebooting Computing. Tom is a computer architect at Georgia Tech. A year ago he became the 2014 President-Elect…
From Schneier on Security
Authentication Attack Against Credit Card Verification
Here's a physical attack against a credit card verification system. Basically, the attack disrupts the communications between the retail terminal and the system that identifies revoked credit cards. Since retailers generally…
From My Biased Coin
Welcome, Attorneys!
You might wonder why I am welcoming attorneys to the blog. Well, I happen to know that some attorneys read my blog. I know this because recently, as an expert witness, while I was testifying in court, the attorney on the other…
From Schneier on Security
Spritz: A New RC4-Like Stream Cipher
Last week, Ron Rivest gave a talk at MIT about Spritz, a new stream cipher by him and Jacob Schuldt. It's basically a redesign of RC4, given current cryptographic tools and knowledge. RC4 is an example of what I think of as a…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Haptic Handles
In CWorld:It's not quite the same as thumbing a ride, but a cylindrical gadget that nestles in your palm can get you where you want to go.Japanese mobile giant NTT DoCoMo on Monday showed off Yubi Navi, a prototype navigation…
From Computer Science Teacher - Thoughts and Information From Alfred Thompson
Interesting Links 27 October 2014
What a week. I teach at a private school and one of the things we do is have open houses for prospective students and parents. Last week we had two which meant some extra time at school. Honestly though I really enjoy talking…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Big Data Retail Program
IBM Big Data & Analytics: Retail Business and Industry Leadership Program
From The Eponymous Pickle
Gartner Identifies Key Technology Trends
I don't usually like top ten lists. But in this list I do like the general descriptions. Top strategic technology trends. No big surprises, and the order is debatable.
From The Eponymous Pickle
Tracking the Value of Corporate Get-togethers
This week attending IBM's big conference on Big Data and Analytics called Insight2014. In progress all this week. A huge affair with thousands of participants. Each IBM participant is given an RFID tag. They are allowed to…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Steganographic Malware
Network threats based on hidden malware. " .... Researchers at the Hungary-based Laboratory of Cryptography and System Security have uncovered Duqu, an unusual form of steganography-based malware that embeds itself in Microsoft…