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 XRDS
Detecting influencers in social media discussions
Sara RosenthalKnowing who's influential can help when planning political campaigns, advertising strategies, or even combating terrorism; and now research into influence detection promises to automate such detection.
From XRDS
Spoken dialogue systems: the new frontier in human-computer interaction
Pierre Lison, Raveesh MeenaWouldn't it be great if we could simply talk to our technical devices instead of relying on cumbersome displays and keyboards to convey what we want?
From The Eponymous Pickle
Salesforce and Wave Analytics
Just announced: " .... Wave is the product of two years' worth of engineering and runs on top of Salesforce's core platform, Buscemi said. That means it's integrated with Salesforce's applications for CRM (customer relationship…
From Daniel Lemire's Blog
Bricolage by smart people
Scientific research is fundamentally about learning, about trial and error. Luck and unplanned interactions are a central part of it. Thus research cannot be planned and managed like, say, teaching duties or a Walmart store.…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Parenting with a Story
I see that my P&G colleague Paul Smith has a new book coming out Nov 12: Parenting with a Story. A domain sequel to his business oriented book: Lead with a Story, which was covered here. Great build on the popular storytelling…
From The Eponymous Pickle
The Reciprocity Advantage
Reading The Reciprocity Advantage: A New Way to Partner for Innovation and Growth. by Bob Johansen and Karl Ronn. Nicely done with real life enterprise examples, including IBM, TED, Microsoft, Google Apple Store and more.I"…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Examining Data Valuation Methods
Brought this up here some time ago, but thought I would again .... New analytical methods used with big data have led many companies to think about the value of their data. What is it worth, now and in the future? How abouthttp…
From Computational Complexity
Luddite or not?
My first ever guest post for Lance was on Are you a luddite. I certainly am to some extent a luddite, but there are some things where it not clear if they are luddite-ish or not. I prefer reading books to blogs. This came up…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Amazon Opening Pickup Store
In Retailwire: Amazon is opening its first physical store in Manhattan. Real effort or a look to establish a presence? Isn't their presence already on every smart phone?" ... Rumors about Amazon.com opening stores have been…
From Gödel's Lost Letter and P=NP
TEDx Time In Buffalo
Our own Ken joins the team for TEDx Adrienne Bermingham is the manager of this year’s TEDx Buffalo event, which will be held this Tuesday at the Montante Center of Canisius College in downtown Buffalo. Today I wish to proudly…
From Schneier on Security
How James Bamford Came to Write The Puzzle Palace
Interesting essay about James Bamford and his efforts to publish The Puzzle Palace over the NSA's objections. Required reading for those who think the NSA's excesses are somehow new....
From Computer Science Teacher - Thoughts and Information From Alfred Thompson
Interesting Links 13 October 2014
It was Spirit Week at my school last week. It’s always interesting what students wear when they have really wide latitude – they wear uniforms most days. I also tried out Code Hunt with my students. I blogged about that yesterday…
From The Eponymous Pickle
How Google Makes us Dumber
In Salon: " .. .The neuroscience of search enginesAs search engines get better, we become lazier. We're hooked on easy answers and undervalue asking good questions ... "
From The Eponymous Pickle
Finger in the Shopping Wind
A look at the up-coming conference. Mostly looking at the future of shopping by Peter Hoyt is the CEO of the Path to Purchase Institute. The Path to Purchase Institute is a global association serving the needs of retailers,"…
From Computer Science Teacher - Thoughts and Information From Alfred Thompson
Experiments with Code Hunt
I tried something new last week with my Honors Programming students. I feel like they need more practice problem solving and writing short bits of code so I sent them to Code Hunt and had them go at it. Their interest perkedI…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Analytics in Executive Process
In CW: Is there a place for the chief analytics officer? I am more inclined to think that there can be too many chiefs, and not enough practitioners. But I say yes to this: " .... As organizations seek to not simply corralTaking…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Triple Loop Reboots and Resolving to be Different
The triple loop reboot was new to me. Via colleague Julie Anixter. " ... Remember, human beings crave stability and permanence. When change threatens the stability of what we know, we often seek refuge in “what we have always…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Which Chart or Graph?
From Tableau Software. Which chart or graph is best? Have used their software for years, very nicely done. Looks a thirteen chart types.
From Schneier on Security
NSA Has Undercover Operatives in Foreign Companies
The latest Intercept article on the Snowden NSA documents talks about their undercover operatives working in foreign companies. There are no specifics, although the countries China, Germany, and South Korea are mentioned. It's…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Computational Cooking Creativity Machine
So what is creativity? An area we explored. Discussed here previously: Is it the combination of a list of available resources (your pantry), your cooking skills, and the requirements of your diners? Perhaps optimized by some…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Computing in the Statistics Curricula
The diagram below has been kicking around in twitter lately. Some think its like the 3Vs of big data description, but it is more about how computing is being used in statistics curricula. From a lengthy detailed article: Computing…
From Gödel's Lost Letter and P=NP
More on Testing Dyson’s Conjecture
Applying deep number theory to algorithms FullWiki source Alan Baker won the Fields Medal in 1970 for his work on algebraic and transcendental numbers. He greatly extended a theorem of Aleksandr Gelfond and Theodor Schneider…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Nanotech Assembly Lines
Used to follow nanotechnology for potential product manufacturing applications. Less so now, but there are some areas where breakthroughs are key. Now a new one: " ... To develop a productive nanosystem for molecular manufacturing…
From Putting People First
Reflections on Capital One’s acquisition of Adaptive Path
This week Toronto-based UX strategist Rami Tabbah and I discussed Capital One’s acquisition of Adaptive Path. We were both a bit surprised by the lack of real reflection on the pros and cons of this development (with a few exceptions)…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Women of the Eniac
Fascinating piece and images. I worked with a person at the University of Pennsylvania who had been an electrician working with the Eniac. We have come a long way from a room full of tubes and wires.
From The Eponymous Pickle
Tom Peters on 21st Century Organization
In McKinsey: An interview that takes some interesting directions: ' ... " ... Well, one answer to that, as far as I’m concerned, is “I don’t know.” My real bottom-line hypothesis is that nobody has a sweet clue what they’re…
From Wild WebMink
Behind The Bullying Epidemic
I was very sad to hear that Kathy Sierra has decided to withdraw from online interactions again. Her insights into how technical communication and collaboration happen are among the finest I have read, and losing her voice again…
From Schneier on Security
Friday Squid Blogging: Flash-Fried Squid Recipe
Recipe from Tom Douglas. 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 Female Perspective of Computer Science
Technology and How It Is Evolving Storytelling in Our Entertainment Experiences / GHC14
What luck! An invited technical speaker at GHC wants to talk about storytelling and games! As Bonnie Ross' abstract states, "stories spill into every aspect and facet of our lives; narrative leaps between nations, and stories…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Coca-Cola Gathers Streams of Big Data
Another example of the broadening use of Splunk for analyzing data streams.Coca-Cola gets inspiration for IT automation from its bottling plantsAble to tell what people are buying from vending machines and whenCoca-Cola, theMichael…