Communications of the ACM
The blog archive provides access to past blog postings from Communications of the ACM and other sources by date.
November 2016
From insideHPC
GPU Accelerators in Today’s Data Center: Performance & Efficiency
NVIDIA is a leading provider of GPU accelerators that are used in many High Performance Computing environments. This research paper from Gabriel Consulting Group explains the need for this new generation of hardware in today's…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Learning about the World with Games
Can 'Deep mind' AI systems learn about the world by experiencing it? Can this world be a game world? We tried less automated approaches, where people providing the interactive world. It is being taken further: DeepMind…
From Computational Complexity
And the winner is... Harambe
Tomorow is the Election for Prez of the USA! This post is non-partisan but, in the interest of full disclosure, I state my politics: I will be voting for Hillary Clinton. I urge you to read the posts by Scott Aaronson: here and…
From Schneier on Security
Research into IoT Security Is Finally Legal
For years, the DMCA has been used to stifle legitimate research into the security of embedded systems. Finally, the research exemption to the DMCA is in effect (for two years, but we can hope it'll be extended forever)....
From The Eponymous Pickle
Knowing Which Way You are Going
An interesting update regarding heading in Google Maps. " ... One of the basic features of the Google Maps app is the ability to open the app and find out which direction you're facing in a matter of seconds. To make orienting…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Why is Amazon Alexa Dominant Now?
We sit here with a number of voice competitors that will soon be released, including the Google Home, which may have better AI.
Why Amazon Alexa is so dominant right now
In VentureBeat:
Voice interfaces are getting a lot of buzz…
From insideHPC
SLAC & Berkeley Researchers Prepare for Exascale
Researchers at the Department of Energy’s SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory are playing key roles in two recently funded computing projects with the goal of developing cutting-edge scientific applications for future exascale…
From insideHPC
“Atos Quantum” Program Launches in Europe
Today Atos in Europe announced “Atos Quantum,” an ambitious program to develop quantum computing solutions that offer unprecedented computing power, while enhancing cyber security products to face these new technologies. "Today…
From The Noisy Channel
Language Identification
Queries are the primary way that searchers communicate with search engines. But it’s difficult to get started with query understanding…
From Computer Science Teacher - Thoughts and Information From Alfred Thompson
Thinking Deeper About Programming Contests
I have this set of mixed feelings about student programming contests. On one level they just feel very artificial and inauthentic. You have a tight time schedule, some problems that are as much about the algorithm and they are…
From insideHPC
Software Defined Networking to Speed Data for Cori Supercomputer
NERSC is working with Cray to explore new ways to more efficiently move data in and out of Cori, a powerful supercomputer being constructed in California. "We need to take advantage of a network guru’s design for moving data
…
From insideHPC
Precision Medicine is Next Frontier in HPC at SC16
A panel of some of the world’s leading experts will come together to discuss this next frontier of healthcare at SC16, the premier international conference showcasing HPC on Nov. 14 in Salt Lake City. “Truly transformative discoveries…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Big Data vs Human AI
Quite a distance between them. Its not remarkable intelligence yet.
From big data to human-level artificial intelligence
What explains the gap between what machines do well and what people do well? And what needs to happen before…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Smart Shirts for First Responders
U.S. backs research into smart shirts for emergency responders by Donal Power
The U.S. government is funding an Internet of Things (IoT) project that is developing sensor-based smart shirts for first responders.
Fed Tech Magazine…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Using Twitch to Predict the Future
Can Twitch teach us the future? New to Twitch but unclear it can do this consistently. Any data contains elements of the future within it. What if you observed any kind of activity, not just gaming, what does that teach…
From Schneier on Security
Friday Squid Blogging: Whale Hunts Squid
A sperm whale has been sighted in Monterey Bay, hunting squid. As usual, you can also use this squid post to talk about the security stories in the news that I haven't covered....
From Schneier on Security
Hacking in the Movies
New Atlas has a great three-part feature on the history of hacking as portrayed in films, including video clips. The 1980s. The 1990s. The 2000s....
From insideHPC
XSEDE Conference Morphs into PEARC17
The Extreme Science and Engineering Discovery Environment (XSEDE) annual conference is transforming into an independent entity designed to unite the high-performance computing and advanced digital research community. The new
…
From insideHPC
ISC 2016 Workshop Papers Available as Free Download
Workshop Papers from ISC 2016 are now available as a free download. "The 21 workshops were held on June 26, 2016 at the Frankfurt Marriott Hotel with over 600 registered attendees, about 170 presentations, and over a dozen panel…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Robot has a Tail
In IEEE Spectrum: Robot uses actuator tail for transport.
From insideHPC
LCS to Unveil Immersive-cooled Servers at SC16
Today LiquidCool Solutions (LCS) announced plans to unveil two new liquid submerged servers at SC16 in Salt Lake City. Based on a clamshell design, the SCS Submerged Cloud Server is a 2U 4-node server designed for Cloud-computing…
From insideHPC
SGI Powers Cancer Research at AbbVie Stemcentrx
"Our new SGI UV 300 capabilities will help us achieve major milestones sooner than predicted,” said Albert Park, senior director, Bioinformatics, AbbVie Stemcentrx. “The new SGI system is able to process larger quantities of
…
From insideHPC
Kx Breaks STAC Benchmark Record with Dell EMC DSSD D5
'Trading firms in the STAC Benchmark Council designed the STAC-M3 suite to represent a range of performance challenges that are common in financial time-series analysis," said Peter Lankford, Director of STAC. "As data volumes…
From insideHPC
Transportation Guide to SC16 in Salt Lake City
Are you coming to SC16 in Salt Lake City? As far as transportation goes, SLC has gone through remarkable changes since we last visited at SC12. As you’ll learn in the Print ‘n Fly Guide to SC16 in Salt Lake City, a new light
…
From The Eponymous Pickle
IOT as an Integration of Things
Nicely done article. Clear it is an integration of things. But the how and details need to be closely considered. In Readwrite:
" ... When comparing this market maturity against the wide range of tools and products available…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Medicine and Chatbots
Been using email with my doctors for some time. Even the point of sharing data and its interpretation, at least at a high level. Seems they still run nervous on the provision of recorded 'advice' and I wonder how that will…
From The Noisy Channel
Overcoming Information Asymmetry
A couple of years ago, I wrote a post entitled “Information Asymmetry in the Workplace” that discussed compensation in the Alliance…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Why Marketers Fail in Product Innovation
In Knowledge@Wharton:
Why Marketers Often Miss the Mark in Product Innovations
Why do most new products fail? According to Clayton Christensen, the author of Competing Against Luck: The Story of Innovation and Customer Choice,
In…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Columbia University Course on Analytics Change
Next week I will be giving Course in Columbia University's School of Professional Studies entitled: Applied Analytics PS5700 Analytics and Leading Change. Any comments on what you might like to see emphasized in such a course…
From Computational Complexity
Do We Still Need Great Minds?
An anonymous comment on a recent post on alternate histories.
As far as science is concerned I don't believe that the great minds are needed anymore. They only speed things up that would later have been developed by an industry…