Communications of the ACM
The blog archive provides access to past blog postings from Communications of the ACM and other sources by date.
November 2010
From Wild WebMink
links for 2010-11-28
The Science Behind Wikipedia
From The Eponymous Pickle
New Localism
Colleague Steve King in Small Biz labs reports on Small Business Saturday and New Localism. " ... Today is Small Business Saturday, a promotion by American Express designed to get more people spending money at locally owned…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Data Visualization Infographic
An infographic on data visualization. Explained by the developers in Readwriteweb. A clever view of the topic as a Venn diagram, which is useful to take a look at as a statement of issues involved in visualization. I don't…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Benddesk
Reported in Engadget: the Benddesk, a workspace of the future idea that includes a flat table like structure and an integrated background area. All accessible with multi touch interaction. I have seen a number of demonstrations…
From Computer Science Teachers Association
Maybe Course Proliferation Is a Bad Idea?
I was prompted after the last CSTA board meeting to write the following, which has now turned into a blog post.
My basic question is whether we are doing ourselves any favors by going for a variety of and proliferation of different…From Wild WebMink
links for 2010-11-27
Recommended reading: Control and Community by The 451 Group Lengthy and favourable review of the 451 report on "Control and Community" (which they have very kindly sent to me as well). I agree with Henrik that it's an excellent…
From Putting People First
Korea
The autumn issue of Koreana, the quarterly devoted to Korean art and culture, contains a special feature on Korea’s smartphone era. The articles come in a range of other languages, including Arabic, Chinese, French, German, Japanese…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Business Impact of Web 2.0 Technologies
In the CACM: Excellent overview article. Lot of good information to make the case in the enterprise.Business Impact of Web 2.0 TechnologiesWhat do wikis, blogs, podcasts, social networks, virtual worlds, and the rest do for…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Supply Chain Digest
Newly updated with a redesign and lots of new information: The Supply Chain Digest.
From Schneier on Security
Friday Squid Blogging: Studying Squid Hearing
At Woods Hole:
It is known now, through the work of Mooney and others, that the squid hearing system has some similarities and some differences compared to human hearing. Squid have a pair of organs called statocysts, balance…From The Eponymous Pickle
John Atanasoff
I am a long time follower of how historians and media address the history of computing technology. A new biography of John Atanasoff is now out: The Man Who Invented the Computer: The Biography of John Atanasoff, Digital Pioneer…
From Daniel Lemire's Blog
Remarkable scientists without a wikipedia page
I was surprised today to learn that Michael Ley’s wikipedia page had been deleted (because it failed to indicate the significance of the subject). I have yet to meet anyone in Computer Science or Information Technology who does…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Twitter and Collaboration
In GigaOm: Interesting thought, but I have not seen this happening .. The Future of Collaboration Brought to You by Twitter The nature of collaboration is changing, thanks to social media, a rising number of teleworkers and
From Schneier on Security
Psychopaths and Security
I have been thinking a lot about security against psychopaths. Or, at least, how we have traditionally secured social systems against these sorts of people, and how we can secure our socio-technical systems against them. Ia…
From The Female Perspective of Computer Science
CHI Twitter Hashtag
In September I submitted my first CHI paper. Since then we've got our reviews back and written a rebuttal, and now must wait until the final decision comes down in December (though we already know what it will most likely be)…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Total Trade Optimization
Via Consumer Goods Technology and Demandtec, an eBook (requires contact information). In the enterprise we did some early work with Demandtec, an impressive group: Total Trade Optimization, One Plan, many perspectivesTrade Promotion…
From Putting People First
Digital U
Digital U (Youtube) is the the first television/web series to examine how the internet and social media is changing the world around us. Digital U is an eight-part series that looks at transparency, crowdsourcing, privacy and…
From Wild WebMink
links for 2010-11-26
Leaving MariaDB/Monty Program Henrik has been a key persuader in the emergence of MariaDB, Monty Program AB and the Open Database Alliance from the consequences of the takeovers of MySQL, so his departure is a big symbolic blow…
From Schneier on Security
The Withdrawal of the A5/2 Encryption Algorithm
Interesting story of the withdrawal of the A5/2 encryption algorithm from GSM phones.
From Putting People First
The public square goes mobile
Allison Arieff writes in the New York Times Opinionator blog extensively on how citizens harness technology to offer up solutions to problems in their communities. “What if there were a way to transform complaints into something…
From Putting People First
Car or computer? How transport is becoming more connected
The amount of data that can now be collected about how drivers use their cars is unprecedented, reports the BBC, and the impact of so much information is potentially huge. The article highlights the innovative role of Fiat, which…
From Putting People First
The iPhone experience in Samsung
Sunday marks the one-year anniversary of Apple
From Computer Science Teacher - Thoughts and Information From Alfred Thompson
Does Learning Computer Science help anything else?
When something I think about a good deal turns up in two or more blogs written by other people my feeling is that this is a sign that I should blog about it. Blogging helps me get my thoughts in order. So when Mark Guzdial writes…
From The Noisy Channel
Giving Thanks as an Information Scientist
As a first-generation American who is married to a card-carrying Native American, I celebrate Thanksgiving the traditional way: a day of gluttony followed by yummy leftovers. But, trite as it may be, I do like to take the time…
From The Eponymous Pickle
PRFilter Finds Press Releases
A correspondent sends along this note about the PRFilter service:" ... PRFilter (Patent Pending) from RealWire finds the press releases journalists and bloggers want to see. It provides one tool to efficiently find stories out…
From Wild WebMink
links for 2010-11-25
Hudson java.net migration status update After an unpleasant wake-up call (caused, I am assured, by an administrative error) where their whole community resource was shut down without warning, recourse or an end-date, the Hudson…
From Schneier on Security
The DHS is Getting Rid of the Color-Coded Terrorism Alert System
Good. It was always a dumb idea:
The color-coded threat levels were doomed to fail because "they don
From Putting People FirstExperientia
Experientia partner Mark Vanderbeeken recently became one of Canvas8
From Wild WebMinkThe case for
“When I use a word,” Humpty Dumpty said, in rather a scornful tone, “it means just what I choose it to mean — neither more nor less.” In translating my article “Community Types” into Portuguese, Bruno, Ana and I ran into an interesting…
From The Eponymous PicklePew on Wealth and Internet Usage
An interesting survey and analysis by Pew Internet. As we might expect, wealthier people have access to more Internet hardware and software. Especially in an industry that changes these very rapidly. There is little catchup…