Communications of the ACM
The blog archive provides access to past blog postings from Communications of the ACM and other sources by date.
October 2018
From insideHPC
Ampere Augments ARM Servers with New Developer Platform
Today ARM server vendor Ampere introduced a new developer platform and program to facilitate the open development of next-generation cloud applications. Available through Lenovo, the new server platform with Ampere’s eMAG processors…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Who You Need in Your Network
I like the idea, but it does depend very much who they are and what they are willing to contribute. Even the case with actual boards of directors. Also, keep your network well connected, not usually the case even these days…
From Computational Complexity
2018 Fall Jobs Post
As we do every year at this time, we help you find that perfect academic job. So who's hiring in CS this year? Perhaps we should instead follow the advice of John Regehr.
I said this last year and it's time to say it again:…
From insideHPC
Video: The March to Exascale
As the trend toward exascale HPC systems continues, the complexities of optimizing parallel applications running on them increase too. Potential performance limitations can occur at the application level which relies on the MPI…
From Schneier on Security
Another Bloomberg Story about Supply-Chain Hardware Attacks from China
Bloomberg has another story about hardware surveillance implants in equipment made in China. This implant is different from the one Bloomberg reported on last week. That story has been denied by pretty much everyone else, but…
From The Eponymous Pickle
An Internet of Goods
From the Supply Chain Digest:
Supply Chain News: Here Comes the Internet of Goods
MAPI Research Report Predicts Major Manufacturing Transformation - to the Benefit of the US and the Rust Belt
SCDigest Editorial Staff
US manufacturing…
From Putting People First
[Book] Ethnography for a data-saturated world
![[Book] Ethnography for a data-saturated world](/system/assets/0000/1953/030209_Vanderbeeken_Mark_250.small_square.jpg?1476779420&1260281963)
Ethnography for a data-saturated world Edited by Hannah Knox and Dawn Nafus Manchester University Press October 2018, 296 pages This edited collection aims to reimagine and extend ethnography for a data-saturated world. The book…
From insideHPC
NVIDIA HGX-2 Ai Supercomputer Comes to Oracle Cloud Infrastructure
Today Oracle announced support for the NVIDIA HGX-2 platform on Oracle Cloud Infrastructure. Designed to meet the needs of the next generation of analytics, machine learning, and AI, Oracle is offering GPU-accelerated deep learning…
From The Computing Community Consortium Blog
National Academies Workshop on Artificial Intelligence Applications for Older Adults and People with Disabilities: Balancing Safety and Autonomy
On October 24, 2018, the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine‘s Forum on Aging, Disability, and Independence will host a workshop in Washington, DC that will explore the potential of artificial intelligence…
From insideHPC
Sunita Chandrasekaran Receives NSF Grant to Create Powerful Software Framework
Over at the University of Delaware, Julie Stewart writes that assistant professor Sunita Chandrasekaran has received an NSF grant to develop frameworks to adapt code for GPU supercomputers. She is working with complex patterns…
From Gödel's Lost Letter and P=NP
Watching Over the Zeroes
How confident should we be that the Riemann Hypothesis is true? Composite of src1, src2 Andrew Odlyzko and Herman te Riele, in a 1985 paper, refuted a once widely believed conjecture from 1885 that implies the Riemann Hypothesis…
From insideHPC
1 Petaflop ROMEO Supercomputer Comes to Reims from Atos
Today the University of Reims Champagne-Ardenne dedicated their new ROMEO supercomputer. A BullSequana X1000 model from Atos, ROMEO is ranked amongst the most-powerful supercomputers worldwide. "This installation confirms the…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Maintenance via Sound Analysis
Not a new thing, but useful as it could be used to augment human capabilities. This had been suggested previously using neural, machine learning methods.
Sound Software for Fault Detection in Machinery
in CORDIS
A European Union…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Tracking Plastics Use without Batteries
We looked at the problem of how pharmaceuticals were being used. This would have solved one of the problems we examined.
3D-printed plastic objects can track their own use without any electronics in TechnologyReview.
Objects…
From The Eponymous Pickle
GE Lighting, Google Home and Smart Homes
Lighting is the most obvious, simplest and obvious application in the smart home. So this partnership could make for some real infrastructure wins for Google, easy of use is key.
GE and Google make using your smart bulbs as…
From The Eponymous Pickle
On Decision Responsibility
Yes, but also how decision links to further process and measured goals.
Articulation of Decision Responsibility By Robin Hill in ACM
Remember the days when record-keeping trouble, such as an enormous and clearly erroneous bill…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Amazon Going Traditional Retail
Via Andreessen Horowitz by sonala16z
Amazon: Retailers Gonna Retail
The narrative of Amazon’s total disruption of traditional retail and ultimate dominance is well-known. What if many of the recent changes reflect not a path to…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Mars is Going Digital
Traditional candy company Mars moves Digital. Well put and in particular that it is about business process, Are we looking at the right problem? Bot just wild experimentation.
Using Digital Tools to Move a Candy Company Into…
From insideHPC
Open Source RAPIDS GPU Platform to Accelerate Predictive Data Analytics
Today NVIDIA announced a GPU-acceleration platform for data science and machine learning, with broad adoption from industry leaders, that enables even the largest companies to analyze massive amounts of data and make accurate…
From insideHPC
Nyriad to Power Blockchain-Enabled, AI-Ready Storage at Datacom
Today Hyperscale Storage Processing vendor Nyriad announced an exclusive agreement with Datacom to develop and deploy a next-generation computational storage solution for secure, collaborative processing of data in the Australian…
From Schneier on Security
Security Vulnerabilities in US Weapons Systems
The US Government Accounting Office just published a new report: "Weapons Systems Cyber Security: DOD Just Beginning to Grapple with Scale of Vulnerabilities" (summary here). The upshot won't be a surprise to any of my regular…
From Putting People First
We need to save (willful) ignorance from AI
Recently the psychologist Ralph Hertwig and legal scholar Christoph Engel have published an extensive taxonomy of motives for deliberate ignorance. They identified two sets of motives, in particular, that have a particular relevance…
From Putting People First
Sidewalk Toronto has only one beneficiary, and it is not Toronto
Jim Balsillie, former chairman and co-CEO of Research In Motion, doesn’t mince his words in discussing the new Google-affiliated waterfront development Sidewalk Toronto: What happens with Toronto’s waterfront infrastructure will…
From Putting People First
How SAP’s SuccessFactors used anthropology to understand its customers
As part of a new approach to user interfaces, Amy Wilson, Head of Product at SAP SuccessFactors, pulled designers together with behavioral scientists with backgrounds in cultural anthropology. The goal was to help the designers…
From Schneier on Security
Access Now Is Looking for a Chief Security Officer
The international digital human rights organization Access Now (I am on the board) is looking to hire a Chief Security Officer. I believe that, somewhere, there is a highly qualified security person who has had enough of corporate…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Machinify to Monetize Data, Automate AI
First I heard of this, on the surface of it quite a useful claim, and starts from a data-based goal. Where will it work? Probably only in certain problem domains. We spent much time looking at how to monetize data, think…
From The Computing Community Consortium Blog
Blavatnik Awards For Young Scientists
The nomination period for the Blavatnik National Awards for Young Scientists is now open and will close on Wednesday, November 14, 2018. The Blavatnik National Awards celebrate the excellence of outstanding young faculty-rank…
From The Eponymous Pickle
NASA and Other Users of Hololens
Handsfree with reference to documentation and process. Similar to our experiments.
NASA is using HoloLens AR headsets to build its new spacecraft faster
Lockheed Martin engineers wear the goggles to help them assemble the crew…
From insideHPC
Video: Reflecting on the Goal and Baseline of Exascale Computing
In this video from the Blue Waters Summit, Thomas Schulthess from CSCS presents: Reflecting on the Goal and Baseline of Exascale Computing. "Application performance is given much emphasis in discussions of exascale computing.…
From insideHPC
Centro Epson Meteo Moves HPC Weather Forecasting to Verne Global in Iceland
Today Verne Global announced that the Centro Epson Meteo meteorological forecasting organizations will start using the company's HPC optimized bare-metal infrastructure to accelerate and improve the accuracy of its forecasting…