Communications of the ACM
The blog archive provides access to past blog postings from Communications of the ACM and other sources by date.
October 2023
From Gödel's Lost Letter and P=NP
Is P=NP a Grave Matter?
Our favorite problem moribund? The photo at right was taken by a friend—with thanks—in San Carlos, California, last weekend. We do not know who put out the Halloween display. My late colleague Alan Selman sported a license plate…
From insideHPC
Dell and Meta in GenAI Pact with Llama 2 LLMs
Dell Technologies (NYSE: DELL) is collaborating with Meta in a partnership designed to make it easy to deploy Meta’s Llama 2 large language models on premises with Dell’s generative AI portfolio of IT infrastructure and client…
From The Computing Community Consortium Blog
The CRA Career Mentoring Workshops Now Accepting Applications
Written by Helen Wright and originally posted on the CRA-I Blog The Computing Research Association (CRA) is now accepting applications for its biennial CRA Career Mentoring Workshops (CMWs). The workshops provide valuable career…
From Schneier on Security
The Future of Drone Warfare
Ukraine is using $400 drones to destroy tanks:
Facing an enemy with superior numbers of troops and armor, the Ukrainian defenders are holding on with the help of tiny drones flown by operators like Firsov that, for a few hundred…From Geeking with Greg
Book excerpt: Overview from the book proposal
(This is an excerpt from the book proposal for my unpublished book, "Algorithms and Misinformation: Why Wisdom of the Crowds Failed the Internet and How to Fix It")
Without most of us even realizing it, algorithms determine…
From insideHPC
DOE Awards $11.4M for Quantum Information Science for Fusion Energy Research
Oct. 30, 2023 — Today, the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) announced $11.4 million for six projects in quantum information science (QIS) with relevance to fusion and plasma science. The list of projects and more information can…
From insideHPC
White House Issues Executive Order on AI
The White House this morning issued an executive order aimed at addressing concerns about the safety, security and trustworthiness of AI. While the specifics of the EO will need to be defined by federal agency rules and regulations…
From insideHPC
Exascale Computing Project (ECP) at the Center of SC23 Panel Discussion on Exascale Impact to Industry
Exascale computing is already delivering advances in simulation, data analytics, and machine learning. The US Department of Energy (DOE) funded the Exascale Computing Project (ECP) to develop the applications, software, and integration…
From insideHPC
New Study Reveals the Influence of Natural Climate Drivers on Extreme Monsoons in Pakistan
A new study by researchers at the Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory looks at some of the influences that could be driving the increasingly severe weather over Pakistan. Published in npj Climate and Atmospheric…
From Schneier on Security
Hacking Scandinavian Alcohol Tax
The islands of Åland are an important tax hack:
Although Åland is part of the Republic of Finland, it has its own autonomous parliament. In areas where Åland has its own legislation, the group of islands essentially operates …From insideHPC
Kickstart Your Business to the Next Level with AI Inferencing
The need to accelerate AI initiatives is real and widespread across all industries. The ability to integrate and deploy AI inferencing with pre-trained models can reduce development time with scalable secure solutions that would…
From BLOG@CACM
Let's Be Objective about Large Language Models
Objective evaluation of the linguistic competency of large language models (LLMs) is of paramount importance as we start contemplating the use of this technology in critical tasks in the enterprise. Unfortunately, most evaluations…
From Computational Complexity
Theory that really DOES apply: Security.
I recently read and wrote a review of
Math for Security by Daniel Riley.
(For the review see here. It will appear in SIGACT News at some later point.)
The book had great example of using THEORY for…
From Computer Science Teacher - Thoughts and Information From Alfred Thompson
Spelling Bee Solver Project
My wife loves word puzzles. She is amazing at them. Me? Not so much. On the other hand I love programs and programming projects that involved string manipulation. So when my wife started playing a new (to her) word puzzle – the…
From Geeking with Greg
Book excerpt: The irresistible lure of an unlocked house
(This is an excerpt from drafts of my unpublished book, "Algorithms and Misinformation: Why Wisdom of the Crowds Failed the Internet and How to Fix It")
Bad incentives and bad metrics create an opportunity. They are what allow…
From Gödel's Lost Letter and P=NP
A Conference At TTIC
Adam Tauman Kalai is one of the speakers at the 20th Annual Conference at the Toyota Technological Institute at Chicago this November 9-10. You are welcome to register for the conference at 20th Annual Conference at TTIC. Adam…
From insideHPC
@HPCpodcast: A Discussion with the Creators of HPC.social, the Online Gathering Spot for HPC-AI
There’s a new online gathering point for the HPC community, and it has quickly generated a large following. In this episode of the @HPCpodcast, Shahin and Doug speak with Vanessa Sochat and Alan Sill, creators of HPC.social as…
From Schneier on Security
Friday Squid Blogging: On the Ugliness of Squid Fishing
And seafood in general:
A squid ship is a bustling, bright, messy place. The scene on deck looks like a mechanic’s garage where an oil change has gone terribly wrong. Scores of fishing lines extend into the water, each bearing…From Schneier on Security
Messaging Service Wiretap Discovered through Expired TLS Cert
Fascinating story of a covert wiretap that was discovered because of an expired TLS certificate:
The suspected man-in-the-middle attack was identified when the administrator of jabber.ru, the largest Russian XMPP service, received…From insideHPC
Lenovo Maximizes HPC Resources via Partnership with SchedMD and Slurm Workload Manager
[SPONSORED GUEST ARTICLE] In HPC, leveraging compute resources to the maximum is a constant goal and a constant source of pressure. The higher the usage rate, the more jobs get done, the less resources sit idle, the greater…
From insideHPC
ACM-IEEE CS Names Winners of George Michael Memorial HPC Fellowships
New York, October 26, 2023 – ACM, the Association for Computing Machinery, and the IEEE Computer Society announced today that James Gregory Pauloski of the University of Chicago and Rohan Basu Roy of Northeastern University are…
From insideHPC
SourceCode and Eviden in North American Partnership for HPC, AI and Quantum
NORWOOD, Mass., Oct. 26, 2023 — SourceCode, a provider of hardware, co-designed IT systems, today announced a partnership with Eviden, an Atos business, to serve the North American market with a portfolio of high performance
…
From insideHPC
Q-CTRL and Quad Investors Network Partner on Diverse Quantum Workforces in Australia and US
WASHINGTON, DC , October 25, 2023 – Quantum computing company Q-CTRL has announced a partnership with the Quad Investors Network (QUIN) to deliver quantum technology training to build diverse quantum workforces in Australia and…
From insideHPC
NTT and Chunghwa Telecom Sign Photonics Network Agreement
TOKYO – Oct. 25, 2023 – NTT Corporation (NTT) and Chunghwa Telecom Co., Ltd. (Chunghwa Telecom) today signed a basic agreement for the realization of international network connectivity through IOWN [1]. In the future, with IOWN…
From Computational Complexity
Saving Grace
The Grace Hopper Conference has grown to one of the largest in computer science, pushing past 25,000 attendees. Most women in computing, whether a student, faculty or working in industry, are usually in a minority. Grace Hopper…
From Schneier on Security
New NSA Information from (and About) Snowden
Interesting article about the Snowden documents, including comments from former Guardian editor Ewen MacAskill
MacAskill, who shared the Pulitzer Prize for Public Service with Glenn Greenwald and Laura Poitras for their journalistic…From insideHPC
ALCF Aurora Learning Paths: GPU Optimization Using SYCL Nov. 1 and 29
The Aurora Learning Paths series focused on how to use SYCL to achieve performance gains on the Argonne Leadership Computing Facility’s Aurora exascale supercomputer will take place from 1:30-3:30 CT on Wednesday, Nov. 1 and
…
From insideHPC
FPGAs Push Aside GPUs to Accelerate AI
[SPONSORED GUEST ARTICLE] Demand for cutting-edge GPUs has surged as the IT world races to implement generative artificial intelligence (GenAI). The result: high-end GPUs have year-long lead times, and prices are in the stratosphere…
From insideHPC
GPU Cloud CoreWeave Chooses DDN for Accelerated Computing and AI
CHATSWORTH, Calif. – Oct. 25, 2023 – High performance data storage company DDN today announced that CoreWeave has selected DDN’s EXAScaler storage for its NVIDIA GPU cloud offering. By incorporating DDN’s parallel filesystem
…
From insideHPC
Lenovo and NVIDIA Announce Hybrid AI Solutions Enterprise Adoption of GenAI
AUSTIN, TX, Oct. 24, 2023 – Lenovo (HKSE: 992) (ADR: LNVGY) and NVIDIA (NASDAQ: NVDA) today announced an expansion of their partnership with new, hybrid solutions and engineering collaboration intended to bring generative AI …