Communications of the ACM
The blog archive provides access to past blog postings from Communications of the ACM and other sources by date.
November 2018
From Schneier on Security
Distributing Malware By Becoming an Admin on an Open-Source Project
The module "event-steam" was infected with malware by an anonymous someone who became an admin on the project. Cory Doctorow points out that this is a clever new attack vector: Many open source projects attain a level of "maturity"…
From The Eponymous Pickle
The Evolution of Machine Learning
Abstract of a good paper, describes well the reasons neural network methods evolved from our early uses in the 90s to the current day. Would not have guessed its current uses from early examples. How will it continue to evolve…
From The Computing Community Consortium Blog
Blue Sky Ideas Conference Track held at ACM SIGSPATIAL 2018
The Computing Community Consortium (CCC) recently sponsored a Blue Sky Ideas Conference Track at the 26th ACM SIGSPATIAL International Conference on Advances in Geographic Information Systems, November 6- November 9, 2018 in…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Bitcoin for Real World Payments Drops 80%
Ultimately Bitcoin has to be usable for real-life exchange. Its use there has dropped considerably. More evidence towards a cryptocurrency winter. At least until capabilities and regulation catch up. Note in particular the…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Cryptocurrency Winter Upon Us? Blockchain Still Rising
Once again, I am promoting MIT Tech Reviews Chain newsletter. Lots of useful introductory links in their newsletter link below. I won't do this forever, suggest you subscribe at the link. Lots of breaking news here. I…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Wal-Mart has a Toy Lab
In a completely different domain, we asked the same question: How can we get consumers to feel they are very involved with us, are our special customer? Special testers of product and experience? Here the more recent concept…
From insideHPC
Amazon AWS develops their own ARM Chip – Are they Smarter than they Look?
Today the AWS cloud rolled Amazon EC2 A1 Instances powered by new Arm-based AWS Graviton Processors. That's right, that clever fellow Jeff Bezos is making his own ARM chips. "ç processors are a new line of processors that are…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Teams for Digital Procurement
Procurement a long time interest ... huge amounts of money involved, a classic place for better analytics.
Digital Procurement: The Benefits Go Far Beyond Efficiency
Procurement teams can play a key role in shaping a company’s
By…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Simpson's Paradox Again
Mentioned this topic once before, here is a more data oriented explanation, less technical and practical to real world problems . Everyone should understand this, but too rare to find even a data scientist with an understanding…
From insideHPC
Artificial Intelligence and Cloud-to-edge Acceleration
In this video, Wei Li, Vice President and General Manager for Machine Learning and Translation at Intel, discusses the increasing importance of AI, the vision for AI’s future benefits to humanity, and Intel’s efforts in providing…
From Schneier on Security
Propaganda and the Weakening of Trust in Government
On November 4, 2016, the hacker "Guccifer 2.0,: a front for Russia's military intelligence service, claimed in a blogpost that the Democrats were likely to use vulnerabilities to hack the presidential elections. On November 9…
From Putting People First
Nielsen Norman Group on the user experience of chatbots
Far from being ‘intelligent’, today’s chatbots guide users through simple linear flows, and our user research shows that they have a hard time whenever users deviate from such flows, writes Raluca Budiu of the Nielsen Norman …
From Putting People First
[Report] Hiding in Plain Sight: Impact Investing in the Creative Economy
In October 2018, Rockefeller Philanthropy Advisors published Hiding in Plain Sight: Impact Investing in the Creative Economy, a new report from RPA sponsored project Upstart Co-Lab. The report is the first analysis of the tremendous…
From insideHPC
Video: Accenture Engineering Compute takes HPC to the Enterprise
The Accenture Engineering Compute (AEC) digital platform is a first mover in the industry with a highly differentiated AIML/analytics based Job-resource prediction and orchestration engine to ensure the most efficient placement…
From The Computing Community Consortium Blog
NSF DCL- Fairness, Ethics, Accountability, and Transparency: Enabling Breakthrough Research to Expand Inclusivity in Computer and Information Science and Engineering Research
The following is a letter to the community from James Kurose, Assistant Director of the National Science Foundation (NSF) Directorate of Computer & Information Science & Engineering (CISE). Dear Colleagues: The National Science…
From The Eponymous Pickle
ACM on Emotionally Sentient Agents
Welcome to the December 2018 Communications of the ACM. The full issue and related content is available through the CACM Issue link, and also through the Table of Contents below.
In this issue…
From insideHPC
DDN steps up with Professional Support for Lustre Clients on Arm Platforms
At SC18 in Dallas, DDN announced that its Whamcloud division is delivering professional support for Lustre clients on Arm architectures. With this support offering, organizations can confidently use Lustre in production environments…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Wharton, MIT and BC Aim to Disrupt Global Supply Chain
Another example of verification and validation applications of Blockchain infrastructure, here in supply chain. Such applications are an ideal experimental first step. Useful details at the link.
How a New Technology Can
Operations…
From insideHPC
Video: Mellanox HDR InfiniBand Speeds HPC and Ai Applications with SHARP Technologies
In this video, Gilad Shainer from Mellanox describes how the company's newly available HDR 200 Gigabit/sec InfiniBand solutions can speed up HPC and Ai applications. "We are proud to see the first Mellanox HDR InfiniBand ConnectX…
From The Eponymous Pickle
When the Brain Switches Rules
An architectural approach for AI? A concierge like approach? Explicit rules, or just weights changed for perception, interaction? Architectural implications.
How the brain switches between different sets of rules
When youBy…
From The Noisy Channel
Are Ads Really That Bad?
Long-time readers know that I’m not a fan of ads. Specifically, I’m not a fan of ad-supported business models. But is that just a matter of personal taste? Or does advertising pose a clear and present danger to the digital environment…
From BLOG@CACM
There Are No Digital Humanities
Many think that the opposite of digital is analog or mechanical.
From The Eponymous Pickle
Google Prepares for Work Skill Shifts
How Google.org is helping workers prepare for a digital skill shift
Jacquelline Fuller, president of Google.org, shares how her organization is preparing for the future of work through online training that reaches those who need…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Office of Unified Communications
This was in particular was new to me, how can its services be applied to private and business needs? I have been asked.
The Secret Sauce of Success – Recipe unveiled by the DC Office of Unified Communications
Thomas Wieberneit…
From insideHPC
Radio Free HPC Looks at TOP500 Trends on the Road to Exascale
In this podcast, the Radio Free HPC team looks at the semi-annual TOP500 BoF presentation by Jack Dongarra.
The TOP500 list of supercomputers serves as a “Who’s Who” in the field of High Performance Computing. "This BoF will …
From The Eponymous Pickle
Tagging Turns into Sensors
Intriguing, seems the RFID tag needs a redesign. Reminds me of our long look at tags for product identification in many contexts. Can their use be broadened in useful ways?
Smart Hacks to Turn Tagging Devices into Internet…
From insideHPC
Solving the Data Management Challenge of Autonomous Driving
The action of driving an automobile is destined to take a very different route in the coming years as autonomous cars become commonplace on our roadways. The notion of autonomous driving is both scary and exciting, pushing the…
From Schneier on Security
How Surveillance Inhibits Freedom of Expression
In my book Data and Goliath, I write about the value of privacy. I talk about how it is essential for political liberty and justice, and for commercial fairness and equality. I talk about how it increases personal freedom and…
From Computational Complexity
If you think a theorem is true then spend half your time trying to prove its true, and half trying to prove its false.
There is a quote I recall but not who said it. I have not been able to find it on the web.
If you think a theorem is true then spend half of your time trying to prove that its true, and half trying to prove that its false.…
From Gödel's Lost Letter and P=NP
Far From a Turkey Shoot
Chess and draws and explainable AI Guardian Live source Magnus Carlsen and Fabiano Caruana have drawn the first eleven games of their world championship chess match. One game of the regular match is left for Monday. If it, too…