Communications of the ACM
The blog archive provides access to past blog postings from Communications of the ACM and other sources by date.
November 2012
From Putting People First
Scotland study: Tablet devices in schools beneficial to children
School children who use a tablet computer benefit the most when allowed to take it home, rather than just using it in school, reveals research from the University of Hull, reports Engineering & Technology Magazine. The iPad Scotland…
From The Eponymous Pickle
How Google Does Analytics
Gib Bassett sends along this piece from Bernard Marr. About Google's use of data and analytics to do decision making. They sound very industrial engineering oriented, where the data drives the decision quite directly. …
From The Eponymous Pickle
Moores Law Becoming Irrelevant
Has the ever increasing drumbeat to computing and data manipulation become irrelevant? The folks behind ARM say that as processors proliferate, efficiency will become more important than raw processing power. Its what you…
From Gödel's Lost Letter and P=NP
Progress On Progressive Algorithms
Another attempt to capture the notion of progressive and a wrong proof of mine Gary Miller is one of the great theorists. Starting with his award winning PhD thesis on a connection of the Riemann Hypothesis with primality testing…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Mixed View of Self Checkout
A good overview of the phenomenon. My own decade long observation has seen the idea grow quickly. Some companies are embracing them, others are backing off their use. Ultimately I think the integration of mobile and self…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Motivating People With Money
Have read Dan Pink's recent book Drive, which I enjoyed very much. Now a new method where he offers access as a reward to help promote the book. Another step forward in understanding incentive.
From Schneier on Security
Friday Squid Blogging: Vampire Squid
Vampire squid eats marine wastes (paper and video).
As usual, you can also use this squid post to talk about the security stories in the news that I haven't covered.
From The Computing Community Consortium Blog
Developments in Large Scale Online Education
The New York Times recently reported on how colleges may soon begin to allow massive open online courses (MOOCs) to be eligible for transfer credits, and used as introductory and remedial courses. The American Council on Education…
From Computer Science Teachers Association
What Computer Science Means to Students
I've been thinking a lot about computer science education recently. Specifically, as it applies to my students. As the K-8 CSTA board representative and a member of the CT CSTA chapter, I'm aware of the complexities of computer…
From Schneier on Security
Jamming 4G Cell Networks
It's easy.
From Putting People First
The Informal Economy Symposium (videos)
The first Informal Economy Symposium took place on October 12 in Barcelona. The goal was to abandon the conventional idea that the informal economy is the other economy. The symposium, hosted by Claro Partners, elaborated on…
From Daniel Lemire's Blog
The learning pill
Shirky predicts that the bulk of higher education is being disrupted the same way the music industry was disrupted by MP3 files. Should we believe him? Let us run a thought experiment. Instead of online lectures disrupting higher…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Retail Compliance Checking
I have mentioned the application of retail activity compliance intelligence gathering with a company called Storeflix. Aimed at letting store employees use smartphone cameras to gather information and socially distribute the…
From Putting People First
The Design for Usability book
The Design for Usability project, that researched how best to contribute to the development of usable products, published a book that provides the product development community with a comprehensive and coherent overview of the…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Wearable Computing
A slide show on the next generation of wearable computing. Lots new that is underway. Applications for work, play, retail and social interaction.
From Schneier on Security
Stealing VM Keys from the Hardware Cache
Research into one VM stealing crypto keys from another VM running on the same hardware.
ABSTRACT: This paper details the construction of an access-driven side-channel attack by which a malicious virtual machine (VM) extracts…From Computer Science Teacher - Thoughts and Information From Alfred Thompson
Predicting the Future of Computing
This is something a little different. Hopefully a conversation starter. In 1994, after about 18 years in the computer industry working with mini-computers, I found myself looking for work. As I surveyed the environment in computing…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Microsoft More Innovative Than Apple?
I have been playing with my newly acquired iPhone 5, and am disappointed with the overall innovation in view. Normally I have been replacing my iOS phone every other year. Do I now regret that doing that this year? Visited…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Capital Economic Research
This site was recently brought to my attention. The economist Ronald Mariutto's approach to solving enterprise problems. " ... Founded by a PhD trained economist who had been a consultant for The Nielsen Company analyzing Procter…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Analyzing Customer Behavior
A 30 plus page PDF on analyzing customer behavior by Greenplum: " ... Consumers are no longer what they used to be. Before they buy, they look around. A lot. And when they buy, they talk about it. To everybody. They want to…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Technology Should Augment Humans
A view of how to construct good technology, and what that really means, one of a series of articles.
From The Eponymous Pickle
Target Experience with IBM DemandTec
I was pointed to a video interview with Shelly Hyytinen,VP of Merchandising Process and Systems Development at Target Stores. An excellent view of how Target was introduced to IBM DemandTec's use of optimization science toCombined…
From Computational Complexity
A Simple PSPACE-Complete Problem
Back in the typecast last month I promised a simple PSPACE-complete game in a future post. Here it is: The SET GAME Given: A collection of finite sets S1,...,Sk. The Game: Each player takes turns picking a non-empty seti…
From Putting People First
The Talking Circles conference format
The Designing Design Education for India (DDEI) Conference, which will take place in March 2013 in Pune, India, has an unusual, but engaging format: “This will be an interactive conference. Unlike other conferences where the…
From Schneier on Security
The Terrorist Risk of Food Trucks
This is idiotic:
Public Intelligence recently posted a Powerpoint presentation from the NYC fire department (FDNY) discussing the unique safety issues mobile food trucks present. Along with some actual concerns (many food trucks…From Putting People First
Upcoming workshop on designing innovative toys for people with special needs
“Toy Design and Inclusive Play” Designing Innovative Toys for People with Special Needs Invitation to join International Creativity Workshop in Bavaria, Germany Play is crucial for all children, helping them to develop skills…
From Putting People First
Interview with public health ethnographer and Facebook UX researcher
Judd Antin is a social psychologist and user experience researcher who studies motivations for online participation at Facebook. In 2011, he was named an MIT Technology Review Innovator Under 35. Prior to joining Facebook as…
From Putting People First
Service design publications from Finland and Estonia
As part of ServiceD, a three-year service design project, which researched future educational needs and piloted service design education, Lahti University of Applied Sciences from Finland and The Estonian Institute for Futures…
From Computer Science Teacher - Thoughts and Information From Alfred Thompson
Where Do You Go To Learn To Teach Computer Science?
Most people I know who teach computer science more or less figured out how to do it on their own. Some were lucky enough to have peers in the same school or close by to help them figure it out but that is still on the job training…
From BLOG@CACM
Little Miss Geek
Belinda Parmar's book Little Miss Geek highlights the gender imbalances within the tech industry, offering practical suggestions of how businesses can overcome this. It's a great message, but I do protest at the suggestion that…