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 CERIAS Blog
Another Surprise for Spaf
2016 has been a year of setbacks and challenges for me, including being ousted as executive director of CERIAS. Rather than dwell on those issues, I have tried to stay focused on the future and move forward. Thankfully, somelast…
From The Eponymous Pickle
New Products for a CPG Giant
I no longer work for consumer product CPG Giant Procter & Gamble. I did analytics and competitive analysis innovation work for them for years. I still have quite a few readers there, I still own some of their stock, so
Lysol…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Gartner on Augmented Marketing Reality
In the Gartner Marketing Blog. Good piece, See my posted piece yesterday on an impressive Hololens demo. The idea is a decade old, we tested it then, but the technology has now evolved to usability now. It will require some…
From The Eponymous Pickle
What Does it Mean to be Digital?
Some good ongoing posts on the process of digitization in the Cisco blog. Asks 'So what are you trying to do? The ultimate business process question. And I would add: How is it being done today? By you and your competitors…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Teaching Algorithms Right vs Wrong
Do we know what is right and wrong? In obvious cases, yes, but am starting to wonder if the label can be much abused. And the underlying mechanism, hidden in an algorithm, is difficult to check or test. So this appears to…
From insideHPC
Video: Time-Lapse Walk-Through of SC16
If you were not able to attend SC16, have we got a video for you! Courtesy of Asetek, this time-lapse walk-through of the exhibit hall sure looks familiar to this reporter who spent the last four days shooting over 50 interviews…
From insideHPC
Liquid Silicon Could Bridge the Gap Between Computation and Storage
Researchers at the University of Wisconsin–Madison are developing new computer chips that combine tasks usually kept separate by design. According to assistant professor Jing Li, these “liquid silicon” chips can be configured…
From insideHPC
Video: SC16 Keynote Katharine Frase on Cognitive Computing
“Watson and cognitive computing in general can serve significantly in every single arena in which we grapple with multi-layered, data-intensive problems: how to best treat cancers; how to adapt to conditions brought about by
…
From insideHPC
Intel Doubles Down on AI & Machine Learning
We expect the Intel Nervana platform to produce breakthrough performance and dramatic reductions in the time to train complex neural networks,” said Diane Bryant, executive vice president and general manager of the Data Center…
From insideHPC
Scaling Machine Learning Software with Allinea Tools
"The majority of deep learning frameworks provide good out-of-the-box performance on a single workstation, but scaling across multiple nodes is still a wild, untamed borderland. This discussion follows the story of one researcher…
From The Eponymous Pickle
AT&T Offers Limited Text Chat via Alexa
A first, integrating multiple communications channels via Alexa. Here from AT&T. Still quite limited, 10 contacts only, but I like the direction. Closer to a more universal assistant. Lets see better bot interaction with…
From Schneier on Security
Using Wi-Fi to Detect Hand Motions and Steal Passwords
This is impressive research: "When CSI Meets Public WiFi: Inferring Your Mobile Phone Password via WiFi Signals": Abstract: In this study, we present WindTalker, a novel and practical keystroke inference framework that allows…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Bots in the Azure Cloud
More capabilities for building Bots. I think the definition is still too loose.
Microsoft launches Azure Bot Service to bring more bots and AI into the cloud
by Khari Johnson in VentureBeat.
.
Microsoft launched its Azure Bot…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Hololens Moving Towards Real World Applications Beyond Games
Saw today a video demo from a Dutch company called Wortell, which is a Microsoft partner developing 'practical' applications of the Hololens.
Using head mounted displays that let you see-through to the real world while navigating…
From The Computing Community Consortium Blog
Heidelberg Laureate Forum
Preparations for the fifth Heidelberg Laureate Forum are in full swing, and applications from young researchers to attend are now being accepted. The Heidelberg Laureate Forum was created by the Klaus Tschira Foundation, the…
From Putting People First
[Book] Collaborative Ethnography in Business Environments
![[Book] Collaborative Ethnography in Business Environments](/system/assets/0000/1953/030209_Vanderbeeken_Mark_250.small_square.jpg?1476779420&1260281963)
Collaborative Ethnography in Business Environments Edited by Maryann McCabe Routledge 2017, 138 pages In a global and rapidly changing commercial environment, businesses increasingly use collaborative ethnographic research to…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Turning Data into Leverage
You have data, there is pressure to gather and archive more. What is its value?
Turning data into leverage
Ozan Turgut discusses how to use visualization and analytics to apply data to decision making.
Video by Ozan Turgut September…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Medical Device Security
In the CACM: Was brought directly to my attention recently. This is video history, but useful as an introduction as well. Covers well beyond data security, but also physical security due to hacking.
From insideHPC
Memory Modes For Increased Performance on Intel Xeon Phi
The Intel Xeon Phi processor supports different types of memory, and can organize this into three types of memory mode. The new processor from Intel contains two type of memory, MCDRAM and DDR memory. These different memory subsystems…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Examples of Python Implementation of Machine Learning
Jim Spohrer retweeted by Randy Olson @randal
This is usefully instructive
Minimal and clean #Python implementations of #MachineLearning algorithms. #DataScience
https://github.com/rushter/MLAlgorithms
From The Eponymous Pickle
This Blog Gets more Security
This is useful for better security. I have verified its operation. Google informs me:
" .. Your HTTPS settings have changed. All visitors are now able to view your blog over an encrypted connection by visiting https://eponymouspickle…
From insideHPC
Manage Your Lustre HPC Storage with the new Dashboard from RAID Inc.
In this video from SC16, Yugendra Guvvala, VP of Technology at RAID Inc. describes the company's new Dashboard software. The Dashboard provides a single pane of glass to manage your high performance Lustre storage pools. "Scaling…
From insideHPC
What’s Next for HPC? A Q&A with Michael Kagan, CTO of Mellanox
As an HPC technology vendor, Mellanox is in the business of providing the leading-edge interconnects that drive many of the world's fastest supercomputers. To learn more about what's new for SC16, we caught up with Michael Kagan…
From insideHPC
Asetek Sports Eight Installations on the TOP500 Supercomputer List
"With the accelerating trend of higher wattages and the continuing requirement of high density, the need for adaptable, cost effective, and reliable liquid cooling is accelerating among those striving to obtain TOP500 status,…
From Schneier on Security
Hacking Password-Protected Computers via the USB Port
PoisonTap is an impressive hacking tool that can compromise computers via the USB port, even when they are password protected. What's interesting is the chain of vulnerabilities the tool exploits. No individual vulnerability…
From insideHPC
Nimbix & Xilinx Accelerate FPGA-Based Workloads in the Cloud
Today Nimbix announced the immediate availability of the Xilinx SDAccel development environment for on-demand development, testing, and deployment of FPGA-accelerated workflows in the Nimbix Cloud, powered by JARVICE. The SDAccel…
From Computational Complexity
Computer Science Academic Hiring
My faculty recruiting season in 2016 never stopped. The spring recruiting season bled through summer right into various fall recruiting activities. How I envy my friends in other fields whose faculty recruiting season runs in…
From Phys.org Technology News
Drone had 'very near-miss' with plane near London's Shard
A drone just missed hitting an A320 plane flying above the Shard skyscraper in central London in July—one of several near-misses involving passenger jets in Britain, a new report said.
From Writing
Terraform: Up & Running is now available as an early release
A funny thing happened last week. I wrote another book! It’s called Terraform: Up & Running and it’s now available as an early release in the O’Reilly Store!
From Writing
Terraform: Up & Running is now available as an early release
A funny thing happened last week. I wrote another book! It’s called Terraform: Up & Running and it’s now available as an early release in the O’Reilly Store!