Communications of the ACM
The blog archive provides access to past blog postings from Communications of the ACM and other sources by date.
October 2017
From The Eponymous Pickle
Nudge Behavioral Economist Gets Nobel
In the BBC, this has gotten criticism because it can be seen as manipulative. Who has decided what nudges we need? And to what extent? This has always reminded me of work by BJ Fogg on Persuasive techniques, but Thaler chose…
From insideHPC
Fujitsu to Build 37 Petaflop AI Supercomputer for AIST in Japan
Nikkei in Japan reports that Fujitsu is building a 37 Petaflop supercomputer for the National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology (AIST). "Targeted at Deep Learning workloads, the machine will power the AI…
From Schneier on Security
White House Chief of Staff John Kelly's Cell Phone was Tapped
Politico reports that White House Chief of Staff John Kelly's cell phone was compromised back in December. I know this is news because of who he is, but I hope every major government official of any country assumes that their…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Pew Research: Automation in Everyday Life
An extensive report based on surveys. Pointer is to an overview, and then links further to a full PDF report I am reading. Addressing fear about the future of technology. Nicely done so far.
Pew Research Center for Internet
Automation…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Robots Train Ants to be Helpers
A novel application linking robots and insects. Not really Biomimicy, but a sort of Biosynthesis. Not sure how practical this is for a real application, but impressed by the novelty of what EPFL in Lausanne is doing.
Two small…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Testing Voice Shopping at Walmart
This started a week ago. I will be testing this in the coming weeks. Will typical retail store searching and shopping work this way for the Wal-Mart shopper?
Walmart goes live By Marianne Wilson in ChainStoreAge
Walmart has…
From insideHPC
Video: Argonne’s Theta Supercomputer Architecture
Scott Parker gave this talk at the Argonne Training Program on Extreme-Scale Computing. "Designed in collaboration with Intel and Cray, Theta is a 9.65-petaflops system based on the second-generation Intel Xeon Phi processor
…
From insideHPC
COMSOL Conference Showcases Next-Gen Multiphysics
Attendees of the COMSOL Conference in Boston this week were treated to a sneak preview future developments of the popular multiphysics software from Svante Littmarck, President and CEO of COMSOL. The conference featured a robust…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Outlined New Capabilities for Google Home
Perhaps mundane, but since I have a multiple assistant smart home and office, I like that fact that it will include multiple voices. So you can readily know who you are talking to. One of the most basic elements of any conversation…
From The Eponymous Pickle
The Amazon Playbook
Good overview, in general this has been my external view as well.
The Amazon Playbook for Speed and Agility
Jeff Toister In CustomerThink
It’s no secret Amazon is a customer-obsessed organization.
What’s fascinating to me is how…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Blockchain and Insurance Industry
Blockchain Could Make the Insurance Industry Much More Transparent
10 Voices - HarvardBusiness.org by Dante Disparte
While Edward Lloyd is largely credited with commercializing the insurance industry, with the creation of his…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Brain Built from Atomic Switches
A Brain Built From Atomic Switches Can Learn
Quanta Magazine
By Andreas von Bubnoff
A tiny self-organized mesh full of artificial synapses recalls its experiences and can solve simple problems. Its inventors hope it points the way…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Microsoft Virtual Customer Service Agents
New means of virtual support by Microsoft. Notably connected to their LinkededIn and their Knowledge Graph. This could be a key means to useful enterprise AI. Both are key sources of enterprise knowledge and organized data…
From ACM-W supporting, celebrating and advocating for Women in Computing
Ada Lovelace Celebration
Ada Lovelace Celebration, Uppsala, Sweden
From insideHPC
Job of the Week: HPC Systems Engineer at PDT Partners in NYC
The PDT team is seeking a highly-talented Linux HPC Systems Administrator to enhance and support our research computing clusters. As part of the HPC/Grid team, you will be responsible for improving, extending, and maintaining…
From insideHPC
Video: Scientel Runs Record Breaking Calculation on Owens Cluster at OSC
In this video, Norman Kutemperor from Scientel describes how his company ran a record-setting big data problem on the Owens supcomputer at OSC.
"The Ohio Supercomputer Center recently displayed the power of its new Owens Cluster…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Revinventing the Design of Rx Labels
While we were in the RX business this is an area we tinkered with, like the re-design approach.
CVS Taps A Design Legend To Reinvent The Prescription Label. Next Stop: The Pharmacy
Inspired by service-design overhauls at companies…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Deep Learning Trends
Four deep learning trends from ACL 2017 by Abigail See
Part One: Linguistic Structure and Word Embeddings
Introduction
“NLP is booming”, declared Joakim Nivre at the presidential address of ACL 2017, which I attended in Vancouver…
From The Eponymous Pickle
KPI in User Experience
Always good to think about useful measures.
What is the most important KPI in User Experience?
by Magnus Revang in The Gartner Blog
I have many conversations about User Experience with many different organizations. A recurring
From The Eponymous Pickle
DNA Barcoding of Trees
In our early work managing forest assets in Alberta, for pulp in use in consumer products, we actively looked at ways of measuring tree growth and asset management in huge areas. This has advanced considerably, and in this…
From Schneier on Security
Friday Squid Blogging: Baby Ichthyosaurus Fed on Squid
New discovery: paper and article. As usual, you can also use this squid post to talk about the security stories in the news that I haven't covered. Read my blog posting guidelines here....
From insideHPC
Mapping of the Opportunities for Government, Academia, and Industry Engagement in HPC
Mark Sims (DoD) and Bob Sorensen from Hyperion Research gave this talk at the HPC User Forum in Milwaukee. Here, they demonstrate an exciting new project that aims to map HPC centers across the USA.
The post Mapping of the Opportunities…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Internet of Things, People and Systems
Brought to my attention:
Smart Cities: The Internet of Things, People and Systems 1st ed. 2017 Edition
by Schahram Dustdar (Author), Stefan Nastić (Author), Ognjen Šćekić (Author)
They write:
This book presents a coherent, novel…
From insideHPC
Advanced Clustering Technologies Deploys Lawrence Supercomputer at University of South Dakota
Today Advanced Clustering Technologies announced the deployment of a new supercomputer at the University of South Dakota. cluster. The machine is named "Lawrence" after Nobel Laureate and University of South Dakota alumnus E.…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Mattel Cancels Aristotle, an Assistant for Children
It should be noted that Amazon nor Alexa was not involved in this.
In FastCodesign:
" ... Less than a year after the toymaker Mattel launched a AI-powered baby monitor called Aristotle, the company announced that it will table…
From insideHPC
Video: MareNostrum Supercomputer Powers LIGO Project with 20 Million Processor Hours
Today the Barcelona Supercomputing Center announced it has allocated 20 million processor hours to the LIGO project, the most recent winner of the Nobel Prize for Physics. "The importance of MareNostrum for our work is very easy…
From insideHPC
Exploring Evolutionary Relationships through CIPRES
Researchers are exploring the Tree of Life with the help of the CIPRES portal at the San Diego Supercomputer Center. “As a community-built resource, CIPRES addresses what the scientists really want and need to do in the real
…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Sins of AI Prediction
Nicely thought out, with great cartoon images. Its right about distraction. There is lots of advancement here, but expecting the wrong things can confuse direction and investments. Seen it all.
The Seven Deadly Sins of AI …
From Schneier on Security
Yet Another Russian Hack of the NSA -- This Time with Kaspersky's Help
The Wall Street Journal has a bombshell of a story. Yet another NSA contractor took classified documents home with him. Yet another Russian intelligence operation stole copies of those documents. The twist this time is the the…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Google Announces More than Gadgets
TheVerge looks at all devices announced by Google this week, with lots of pictures. Call them gadgets, but I think there was lots of interesting content there, both in design and technology. Each one augmented, they said,…