Communications of the ACM
The blog archive provides access to past blog postings from Communications of the ACM and other sources by date.
November 2014
From The Eponymous Pickle
Leadership vs Fellowship and Data Value
In Future of CIO: Interesting points. Clearly different roles. Have they been moving closer together? How does technology influence this? Today, more than ever, people have access to information that influences these roles…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Netflix Technology
Interesting GigaOm piece on Netflix use of technology, especially the relationship between recommender technology and content. I am a fairly recent user of Netflix. The recommendations are fine, but despite all the advanced…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Refresher on Net Present Value
Something I learned long ago. But we can use a revisit of basic economics. Nicely presented in the HBR." ... Most people know that money you have in hand now is more valuable than money you collect later on. That’s because…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Tesla CIO and IT
How does a new car company deal with the challenge of evolving IT? A CIO at the leading edge discusses.
From Schneier on Security
Friday Squid Blogging: Cephalopod Cognition
Tales of cephalopod behavior, including octopuses, squid, cuttlefish and nautiluses. Cephalopod Cognition, published by Cambridge University Press, is currently available in hardcover, and the paperback edition will be available…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Modeling Movement of Crowds
In Nature: We looked at this kind of research for retail behavior insight.Mathematical time law governs crowd flowPedestrians avoid bumping into each other by anticipating when their paths would collide.Walking in crowds means…
From Putting People First
Everyday rituals and digital tech in the families of mobile workers
Quotidian Ritual and Work-Life Balance: An Ethnography of Not Being There Jo-Anne Richard and Paulina Yurman (Helen Hamlyn Centre for Design, Royal College of Art) David Kirk and David Chatting (Culture Lab, Newcastle University)…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Tesco Clubcard and Twitter
Like to see new ideas for using the loyalty engagement. A somewhat novel one here." ... Tesco Clubcard has partnered with We Are Social to create holiday gift guides of affordable items based on Twitter accounts of users' friends…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Automating Business Process
In CIO Insight: Ultimately managing and automating your process is key to being efficient. In labor, speed, scale, value and beyond. Analytics can show the way, but the implementation of the findings make the difference. It…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Credit for Multi Channel Sales
A classic problem. In RetailWire:" ... One of the murkier aspects of omni-channel retailing continues to be "revenue attribution." The challenges assessing proper credit for an omni-channel sale — when it's partly influenced…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Social Business Governance
First I came upon this concept. Worth a closer look. By EdTarpening:" ... Charlene Li and I are pleased to offer you Altimeter’s latest research report focused on Social Business Governance. In the course of our research,…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Linked Data Ontology
Part of an exploration: Much more at the link." ... What is Linked Data?The Web enables us to link related documents. Similarly it enables us to link related data. The term Linked Data refers to a set of best practices for…
From BLOG@CACM
Doing Our Part to Show Why HPC Matters
As managers and practitioners in the HPC community part of our responsibility is to make sure that everyone we come into professional contact with appreciates how broadly HPC touches our daily lives. From the products we consume…
From Putting People First
Health tech and the digital revolution
The London Design Museum has launched Health Tech and You – a search for the best new health tech ideas, inventions and devices. Director Deyan Sudjic reflects on how the digital revolution is breaking down doors in the health…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Protege for Ontologies
Brought to my attention again. Stanford's Protege. I recall we were shown a very early version of this when we explored ontology methods for the enterpise in the 90s. " ... A free, open-source ontology editor and framework…
From Schneier on Security
Pre-Snowden Debate About NSA Call-Records Collection Program
Reuters is reporting that in 2009, several senior NSA officials objected to the NSA call-records collection program. The now-retired NSA official, a longtime code-breaker who rose to top management, had just learned in 2009 about…
From The Eponymous Pickle
CPG and Location Based Advertising
In Mediapost: Mostly about food, but good statistics about CPG and location based mobile advertising. " ... By targeting custom audiences based on location, traffic patterns and habits, along with demographic and transactional…
From The Computing Community Consortium Blog
Research Opportunity from NSF for Algorithms in the Field
The following is a special contribution to this blog by Tracy Kimbrel, National Science Foundation (NSF) Program Director for Computing and Communication Foundations. The National Science Foundation’s Directorate for Computer…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Tetherless World Constellation
Was today introduced to RPI's Tetherless World Constellation. Name is obscure. " ... Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (RPI) is a constellation of multidisciplinary researchers who study the scientific and engineering principles…
From BLOG@CACM
Locality, Locality, Locality: A Note from SC14
Steadily growing chips, systems, and application parallelism are driving the movement of data across larger distances in systems, and data locality is becoming one of the major topics in efficient parallel computing. Locality…
From Schneier on Security
Citadel Malware Steals Password Manager Master Passwords
Citadel is the first piece of malware I know of that specifically steals master passwords from password managers. Note that my own Password Safe is a target....
From BLOG@CACM
HHP For Undergraduates
At SC14, graduate students mentor undergraduates interested in pursuing advanced degrees in fields related to high performance computing.
From The Eponymous Pickle
Table Scalping
Table Scalping? Love to watch how markets arise in the economy. Whenever you see evidence of a scarce resource, whose price is being escalated by its scarcity or exclusivity, consider the implications. Here a perhaps surprising…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Big Data and McCormick
Have had a few friends who worked projects with McCormick, and am impressed with their approaches to the use of new and innovated technology, Here more, on their use of Big Data.
From The Eponymous Pickle
Team Innovation and the Art of Problem Solving
A High school oriented piece that is quite useful. Would have loved to have seen this kind of thing when I was in school, or when I had bright kids in school." .. Talk of innovation is everywhere in the business world. To…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Uber of Food Delivery
In Smartblogs: The expansion of food delivery based on new supply chain services and big data. " .... A new and growing generation of food delivery services is winning investors and customers, and using Big Data to drive sales…
From Computational Complexity
A November to Remember
The Imitation Game starring Benedict Cumberbatch as Alan Turing opens in the US on November 28. If you read this blog you should see that movie. If one challenged British scientist biograph is not enough for you, The Theory of…
From Putting People First
The Banks of the Future: An Experience Design Perspective
Banks should shift their role from payment processors to trusted consumer advisors by focusing on the customer experience, argues Rob Girling in an Op-Ed piece for PSFL. “My advice to banks is to start by looking from the outside…
From Putting People First
[Book] Design for Policy
Design for Policy Edited by Christian Bason, Chief Executive, Danish Design Centre Series: Design for Social Responsibility Hardcover: 250 pages Publisher: Gower Pub Co; December 28, 2014 Design for Policy is the first publication…
From Gödel's Lost Letter and P=NP
Two Versus Three
The role of 2 and 3 in mathematics Electrika source Margaret Farrar was the first crossword puzzle editor for The New York Times. Ken fondly recalls seeing her name while watching his father do the daily and weekly NYT puzzles—they…