Communications of the ACM
The blog archive provides access to past blog postings from Communications of the ACM and other sources by date.
November 2011
From The Eponymous Pickle
Amazon Launches Price Check App
This seems like a very simple and easy idea. Do an automatic price comparison check after an item scan on a Smartphone. Includes all categories of items. Most likely useful for higher priced items. Surprised that Amazon had…
From The Eponymous Pickle
DemandTec and Big Data
I am in the middle of exploring big data analytic applications in retail and manufacturing and this post came up:" ... Target is following a growing trend in retail that involves using more granular customer data to predict demand…
From Schneier on Security
Identity Theft Call Center
There's a group who charges to make social engineering calls to obtain missing personal information for identity theft.
This doesn't surprise me at all. Fraud is a business, too.
From Computer Science Teacher - Thoughts and Information From Alfred Thompson
Leading With Kinect
Yesterday I had the pleasure of hosting a group of students from the Boston Preparatory Charter Public School. I even wore a tie because these students wear ties as part of their uniform and somehow I felt under dressed without…
From The Noisy Channel
CIKM 2011 Industry Event: John Giannandrea on Freebase
This post is part of a series summarizing the presentations at
From The Eponymous Pickle
Efficient Project Staffing with Social Networks
A quite good piece in the HBR Blog on some of the issues behind using social technologies for staffing and collaboration. In particular I like the statement of the problems themselves:, which we immediately discovered a decade…
From U.S. Public Policy Committee of the ACM
USACM Encourages Deficit Reduction Committee to Remember the Value of Computing
The Joint Committee on Deficit Reduction is the formal name of the “Supercommittee” that is supposed to recommend at least $1.2 trillion in deficit reduction over the next 10 years. USACM sent a letter today to the supercommittee…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Google Innovation Lab
Having worked at an enterprise innovation lab for years, I found this short piece about the Google X labs interesting, Admittedly we went no where nearly as far, or as technical: " .... Google reportedly has researchers working…
From Schneier on Security
More SSL Woes
From Mikko Hypponen: "We found a malware sample. Which was signed. With a valid certificate. Belonging to the Government of Malaysia."
From The Computing Community Consortium Blog
Reminder: CCC Council Nominations Due Tomorrow
A reminder that the Computing Community Consortium (CCC)
From My Biased Coin
Public Salary Information
While visiting Wisconsin last week (enjoying very pleasant company and conversation), various issues came up.For one, I was reminded (or recalled) that as a public university, University of Wisconsin-Madison salaries are available…
From Daniel Lemire's Blog
Are Relational Databases good for anything anymore?
NOTE: thanks to Daniel for letting me use his blog. All comments, questions and criticisms are appreciated, but in this case Daniel is not the guilty party! Antonio As a database researcher, I was “brought up” to think of databases…
From Computer Science Teachers Association
Many Issues Have No Borders
At the recent CSTA board meeting, a recent paper on the status of computing in several countries (including the USA) was pointed out to me. The paper has Simon Peyton-Jones, a well-known computer scientist now at Microsoft in…
From The Noisy Channel
CIKM 2011 Industry Event: Stephen Robertson on Why Recall Matters
On October 27th, I had the pleasure to chair the CIKM 2011 Industry Event with former Endeca colleague Tony Russell-Rose. It is my pleasure to report that the program, held in parallel with the main conference sessions, was a…
From Daniel Lemire's Blog
Where does debt, credit and currencies come from?
We often believe that primitive cultures lacked currencies and so they engaged in barter. Barter is awfully inconvenient and simply cannot sustain a non-trivial economy. Thus, we conclude that someone invented currencies out…
From U.S. Public Policy Committee of the ACM
Hill Tech Happenings, Week of November 14
November 15 Hearing: The Subcommittee on Crime, Terrorism and Homeland Security of the House Judiciary Committee will hold a hearing on cybersecurity. 10 a.m., 2141 Rayburn Building November 16 Hearing: The House Judiciary Committee…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Cloud Robotics
In the CACM: Had not previously heard about cloud robotics. " ... Their eventual goal, they say, is to enable robots to perform data-intensive functions
From The Eponymous Pickle
Kyield: Management of Knowledge Offer
From Computational Complexity
Penn State
Take the state of Pennsylvania and draw the two diagonals. Where they cross is the small town of State College, home of the Pennsylvania State University. I first traveled to Penn State in 1989 on an interview trip. We went to…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Super Hydophobic Coatings
This is related to an R&D project I was involved in: superhydrophobic coatings. Quite a few interesting applications in industry and with consumer products.
From The Eponymous Pickle
Business Genetics Helping Analytics
I am examining Business Genetics. " ... BusinessGenetics provides your business with a set of tools and resources that enable you to develop a complete set of consistent and concise business models.... ". I am in the midst…
From The Computing Community Consortium Blog
First Person:
Last Monday, the
From Schneier on Security
Remotely Opening Prison Doors
This seems like a bad vulnerability:
Researchers have demonstrated a vulnerability in the computer systems used to control facilities at federal prisons that could allow an outsider to remotely take them over, doing everything…From Computer Science Teacher - Thoughts and Information From Alfred Thompson
Interesting Links 14 November 2011
I spent a lot of time watching the Twitter feed and reading blog posts about the Microsoft Global Forum last week. And some watching the Grace Hopper Celebration of Women in Computing as well. A good number of this week
From The Eponymous Pickle
Acoustic Ruler
An interesting iOS App that lets you measure distances using acoustical measurements. Claims a range up to 25 meters, with resolution between 1 cm and 1 mm. More sensor based innovations.
From The Eponymous Pickle
Ipsos on Digital Marketing and Social Networks
Fairly obvious results, Ipsos does some analysis. Survey on Digital Marketing Reveals Increased Focus on Social Media, Mobile, Search and Email
From Computer Science Teacher - Thoughts and Information From Alfred Thompson
Computer Science As Cross Curricula
Initially I was going to write about how well computer science related projects did at the recent Microsoft Partners in Learning Global Forum. After all Louis Zulli won a first prize for Cutting-Edge Use of Microsoft Technology…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Risk Mangement and Lean Six-Sigma
IEEE article : " ...For engineers involved with quality, it is a natural evolution to incorporate risk management in their work. There is an increased awareness regarding risk management: even if the quality compliance is very…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Intel Predicting the Future
How Intel is using soft sciences to predict the future. Though I come from the world of the hard scientists, I agree that this is useful. In particular combining the two worlds towards a common goal.
From The Eponymous Pickle
Selling: Query Time and Choices
Via correspondent Herb Sorensen: Closing the sale, query time and choices:" ... Among the teachings of Joe Girard, identified by The Guinness Book of World Records as "The World's Greatest Salesman," are focusing on the customers'…