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 BLOG@CACM
Welcome to SC10: Opening Keynote, Top500 List
SC10—the premier conference for supercomputing—has begun. This post touches on a few highlights from the first day of the full technical program, including the keynote by Clayton Christensen, the official release of the Top500…
From Wild WebMink
? RAND: Not So Reasonable
Fair, Reasonable, Non-Discriminatory – surely that all has to be good stuff?
From Schneier on Security
New Biometric
Eye movements instead of eye structures.
The new system tracks the way a person's eye moves as he watches an icon roam around a computer screen. The way the icon moves can be different every time, but the user's eye movements…From Computer Science Teacher - Thoughts and Information From Alfred Thompson
Wisdom in Lists
Like a lot of people I have an affection for lists that condense a lot of wisdom into a brief set of statements or items. Some time ago I wrote a series of posts on Programming Proverbs for example. That list (reproduced at the…
From The Noisy Channel
An Information Cascade
I’ve been reading Networks, Crowds, and Markets, a great textbook by David Easley and Jon Kleinberg. I’m very grateful to Cambridge University Press for surprising me with an unsolicited review copy. I’m more than halfway through…
From The Eponymous Pickle
New Standard for Supercomputing
In the CACM: Sandia Labs will be delivering a new proposed set of standards for Supercomputing today which is more closely related to the kinds of tasks that are usually done using supercomputing power. " ... 'By creating this…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Brandery Opens New Start-ups
Thr Brandery launches six new startups in Cincinnati. In Dave Knox's blog.
From The Eponymous Pickle
Japan Inc's Regrowth
Bain Inc writes about the reenergization of Japan Inc. I followed Japan in the 90's in the area of artificial intelligence ... A view of their direction and barriers to new growth .... Reenergizing Japan, Inc.'s growth, company…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Curation vs Aggregation
A good piece on the very idea of the human network. Remember us? I think there is much to be said for linking together human and Internets in new ways. There have been many attempts, but none that I would call really successful…
From Computer Science Teacher - Thoughts and Information From Alfred Thompson
Pledge to Participate in and be a Supporter of Computer Science Education Week!
Computer Science Education week is December 5-11, 2010 this year. ACM and the chair of CSed Week steering committer are asking people to sign up and pledge to support CSed Week. I understand that a new CSed Week web site
From Wild WebMink
? H.264
My essay unpacking the meaning of ‘free’ H.264 licensing is now available in the Essays section. It provides a case study in why apparently fair “Reasonable and Non-Discriminatory” (RAND) terms for licensing patents in standards…
From Putting People First
How data use and data visualisations can improve our lives
Data use and smart human-centric data visualisations are becoming the “next big thing” in UX design. A number of posts this week delve into the matter: Data for a better planet Now that more people have location-aware smartphones…
From Putting People First
The newest web users are changing the culture of the internet
The newest billion people to venture online are doing so in developing countries rather than North America or Europe, writes Erik German in Globalpost, and they are changing the culture of the internet itself. “Researchers say…
From Schneier on Security
Security Haiku
These could surely be better. Anyone?
From U.S. Public Policy Committee of the ACM
Cybersecurity Policy Discussion Will Include USACM Chair
On November 22, former national cybersecurity adviser Richard Clarke will discuss cybeersecurity and cybersecurity policy at the AAAS in Washington, D.C. As part of the discussion, a panel of experts will join Mr. Clarke to…
From The Female Perspective of Computer Science
Imagine Cup: Becoming a Computer Scientist
We all know there aren't enough women in computer science. There have been several different approaches to encouraging them to consider it as a career, from fun webisodes to a variety of outreach activities. But has anyonemaking…
From The Eponymous Pickle
A Robot's Body of Knowledge
An article in IEEE Spectrum showing robots doing common household tasks inspired me to think again about our own experiments with robots in the enterprise. Like any manufacturing company we had been using robotic systems inRoomba…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Mathematica 8 Allows Natural Language Input
This is a pretty remarkable development: " ... With the release of Mathematica 8 today, the single most dramatic change is that you don
From Schneier on Security
Term Paper Writing for Hire
This recent essay (commentary here) reminded me of this older essay, both by people who write student term papers for hire.
There are several services that do automatic plagiarism detection -- basically, comparing phrases from…From Computer Science Teacher - Thoughts and Information From Alfred Thompson
Windows Phone 7 Development for Absolute Beginners
I
From The Eponymous Pickle
Tweeting Students Get Higher Grades
In the Chronicle of Higher Education. An interesting study, but this could likely encounter the 'causal fallacy'. It is likely that many other aspects of context are involved beyond Twitter.
From The Eponymous Pickle
Google and Near Field Communications Support
Google announces that versions of the Android mobile operating system will include NFC (Near Field Communications) support. NFC enables short range, about 10 cm, communications between devices and also between devices and RFID…
From Apophenia
Ever had one of dem days you wish woulda stayed home / Run into a group of niggas who getting they hate on / You walk by they get wrong you reply then shit get blown / Way outta proportion way past discussion / Just you against…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Facebook Mail
I have been a user of Gmail for years, and find it very serviceable. When people try to contact me with Mail systems within other packages, Linkedin comes to mind, I always request people to use a regular mail package. Using…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Shopalong by Kroger CEO
Shopalong research consists of a retail and CPG executives visiting a store incognito and seeing their venues the way a shopper sees them. A good AP article on how local Kroger CEO Dave Dillon does this. This can also be done…
From BLOG@CACM
Watts Humphrey: In Honor of a Pioneer
Watts Humphrey left us a few weeks ago. His contributions to professional software engineering have been essential.
From U.S. Public Policy Committee of the ACM
Hill Tech Happenings, Week of November 15
Congress returns to Washington this week for a 'lame-duck' session. Beyond some kind of budget action, the legislative agenda is a bit uncertain.
November 17
Hearing:
The Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs …From BLOG@CACM
Computer Science as Value Added to a Liberal Education
Computer science education is valuable, even to those who do not major in computer science. Those non-CS major informants who talk about that value are doing us a great service.
From Computational Complexity
Is Ryan's Theorem Only Interesting to Complexity Theorists?
Last week, the complexity theory bloggers Dick, Scott, Luca and myself all heaped praise on Ryan Williams' new circuit lower bound, NEXP not in ACC0. Outside the computational complexity community the reaction has been something…
From Computer Science Teacher - Thoughts and Information From Alfred Thompson
Interesting Links 15 November 2010
I got a new Xbox 360 with a Kinect device last week. I spent much of a day