Communications of the ACM
The blog archive provides access to past blog postings from Communications of the ACM and other sources by date.
November 2015
From insideHPC
CADENS Project Seeking Data and Visualizations
Does your research generate, analyze, and/or visualize data using advanced digital resources? In its recent Call for Participation, the CADENS project is looking for scientific data to visualize or existing data visualizations…
From insideHPC
Video: Data Centric Computing for File and Object Storage from IBM
"We've had a great time here in Austin talking about data centric computing-- the ability to use IBM Spectrum Scale and Platform LSF to do Cognitive Computing. Customers, partners, and the world have been talking about how we…
From insideHPC
Setting a Path for the Next-Generation of High-Performance Computing Architecture
At SC15, Intel talked about some transformational high-performance computing (HPC) technologies and the architecture—Intel® Scalable System Framework (Intel® SSF). Intel describes Intel SSF as “an advanced architectural approach…
From Schneier on Security
Policy Repercussions of the Paris Terrorist Attacks
In 2013, in the early days of the Snowden leaks, Harvard Law School professor and former Assistant Attorney General Jack Goldsmith reflected on the increase in NSA surveillance post 9/11. He wrote: Two important lessons of the…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Brick and Mortar Analytics
On the use of analytics for physical stores. In Forbes. I was reminded of this as I looked back on some methods we worked in the 90s. More data, but not very different today.
From The Eponymous Pickle
Will Training for New Skills Have No Value?
Posed in CWorld: An interesting premise. As we learn to augment people with new skills using virtual assistants, will these first replace the most valuable and difficult skills? I covered a number of these issues in recent…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Kinds of Thinkers in Collaboration
In the HBR: How should organizations link to collaboration tools? Just dealing with that myself in a new organization. Who adapts and how? Good piece. " .... In most organizations, there’s a standard set of tools we…
From The Computing Community Consortium Blog
Save the Date for CS Ed Week 2015!
Computer Science Education Week (CSEdWeek) is an annual program designed to engage students of all ages in computer science. It is observed each year, in recognition of the birthday of computing pioneer Rear Admiral Grace Murray…
From Schneier on Security
Voter Surveillance
There hasn't been that much written about surveillance and big data being used to manipulate voters. In Data and Goliath, I wrote: Unique harms can arise from the use of surveillance data in politics. Election politics is very…
From insideHPC
China’s Team Diablo Wins SC15 Student Cluster Competition
SC15 has announced the winners of the Student Cluster Competition, which took place last week in Austin. Team Diablo, a team of undergraduate students from Tsinghua University in China, was named the overall winner. "The competition…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Microsoft Tries an OpenFog Consortium
Fog computing they are calling it? Won't set up a tag for that quite yet.Microsoft helps accelerate IoT with new OpenFog ConsortiumRich Internet of Things (IoT) applications distribute application logic between the cloud and…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Innovations in Engines for Aviation
As I learn more about GE Aviation, More innovation in Big Scale Manufacturing. In their innovation blog:GE Reports: Just Like The Wright Flyer, GE’s Turboprop Business Was Born In A Bike ShopGE unveiled a new advanced turboprop…
From Computer Science Teachers Association
Why I Joined CSTA
I’m one of the co-chairs of the Membership Committee. While all the committees are responsive to members, it’s our job to think about who our members are, what we can do to support them, and how to grow our membership. ……
From insideHPC
Who Will Write Next-generation Software?
In this special guest feature from Scientific Computing World, Robert Roe writes that software scalability and portability may be more important even than energy efficiency to the future of HPC. "As the HPC market searches for…
From insideHPC
Slidecast: Seagate Beefs Up ClusterStor at SC15
In this video from SC15, Larry Jones from Seagate provides an overview of the company's revamped HPC storage product line, including a new 10,000 RPM ClusterStor hard disk drive tailor-made for the HPC market. “ClusterStor integrates…
From Daniel Lemire's Blog
Is peer review slowing down science and technology?
Ten years ago, a team lead by Irina Conboy at the University of California at Berkeley showed something remarkable in a Nature paper: if you take old cells and put them in a young environment, you effectively rejuvenate them.…
From insideHPC
Call for Participation: HPC Advisory Council Switzerland Conference 2016
The HPC Advisory Council Switzerland Conference 2016 has announced their Call for Participation. Hosted by the Swiss National Supercomputing Centre, the event will take place in Lugano, Switzerland March 21-23, 2016.
The post…From Computational Complexity
Star Trek Computing
In the wake of Leonard Nimoy's death last February, I decided to rewatch the entire original Star Trek series, all 79 episodes. I had watched them each many times over in high school in the 70's, though the local station removed…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Hololens to Provide Demo in Volvo Showroom
In Engadget: An example of VR being used to provide engagement for marketing. Does this provide actual value or just novelty? First Hololens example with a real commercial client example I have seen. Are there others out…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Speed of Marketing Automation
Consider in addition attentive or analytical methods to detect needed intervention.Traveling at the speed of culture: can marketing automation keep up?For successful brand campaigns that emerge based on real-time reactions to…
From insideHPC
Video: SGI Looks to Zero Copy Architecture for HPC and Big Data
In this video from SC15, Dr. Eng Lim Goh from SGI describes how the company is embracing new HPC technology trends such as new memory hierarchies. With the convergence of HPC and Big Data as a growing trend, SGI is envisions …
From The Eponymous Pickle
Origins of Graphic Communications
And link to TED talk on alphabets and graphics.' ... "Why are these 32 symbols found in ancient caves all over Europe?"Genevieve Von Petzinger, a paleoanthropologist associated with the University of Victoria (British Columbia)…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Wal-Mart and Facial Recognition
Did Walmart cross a line with its facial recognition test?By Matthew SternWhether or not the public at large will accept the use of facial recognition in their daily lives remains to be seen, but it is clear that retailers are…
From Computer Science Teacher - Thoughts and Information From Alfred Thompson
Interesting Links 23 November 2015
Microsoft Underground Part 1 – Dawn DuPriest is a middle school math and computer science teacher who was invited to Microsoft headquarters with some other teachers for a multi-day event – workshop and “underground tour”. This…
From The Eponymous Pickle
A Translating Megaphone Assists
A simple example of an assistant. A megaphone at Tokyo Airport translates. We have started to see examples of realtime translation. But imagine the same device being augmented with additional contextual information. An ideal…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Algorithmic Morality
Some classic examples of how we allow humans to make deeply moral decisions. Now how will these be handled by machine learning delivered algorithms? Machine ethics? And interpreted by the law? Second time in a career that…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Persuasion in Marketing
Eric Barker: Have been following up his writing and linking in Barking up the Wrong Tree: The latest take: NYPD Hostage Negotiators On How To Persuade People: 4 New Secrets. His blog has lots of interesting social and…
From insideHPC
Eurotech HiVe HPC System Adds ARM CPUs
This week at SC15, Eurotech announced that their HiVe HPC system is now available with x86 and ARM-64 based processors. The HiVe supercomputer leverages a new original high performance computing system architecture combining …
From The Eponymous Pickle
Pitney Bowes Location Intelligence
Back in the enterprise we used the Mapinfo GIS system for location and mapping. They were acquired by Pitney Bowes. Now that location intelligence system is used by GE in its Predix platform. The Mapinfo Pro systems still…
From insideHPC
E4 Computer Engineering Joins OpenPOWER Foundation
This week at SC15, E4 Computer Engineering from Italy announced its active participation in the OpenPOWER Foundation, an open technical community based on the POWER architecture, enabling collaborative development and opportunity…