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 The Eponymous Pickle
Reducing Customer Friction
Nicely put. Would add, personalized for this particular customer .... Read the whole thing
How to Reduce Friction By Shep Hyken -
As most of you (hopefully know), my latest book, The Convenience Revolution, is all about
My…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Benford's Law and Data Science
Used it from the very beginning in enterprise data science. well worth understanding, especially for anomaly cases in finance or research fraud. Even in finance we found relatively few people that had heard of it or how to…
From The Computing Community Consortium Blog
CCC Quantum Computing Workshop Report and NSF Quantum Solicitation
The Computing Community Consortium (CCC) has recently released a workshop report from the May 2018 workshop Next Steps in Quantum Computing: Computer Science’s Role. The report highlights how computer scientists can contribute…
From Computational Complexity
Simons and Amazon
I'm spending this week at the Simons Institute in smokey Berkeley, California. This fall Simons has a program in Lower Bounds in Computational Complexity. Scroll down that page and you'll see the rather strong collection of participants…
From insideHPC
Video: Intel Driving HPC on the Road to Exascale
In this video from SC18, Raj Hazra describes how Intel is driving the convergence of HPC and Ai. "To meet the new computational challenges presented by this AI and HPC convergence, HPC is expanding beyond its traditional role…
From insideHPC
Indiana University Demonstrates World’s First Single-Channel 400G Network
Indiana University staff and faculty will build the world’s first single-channel 400-gigabit-per-second-capable network for research and education at SC18. The connection will be capable of transmitting 50 gigabytes of data every…
From insideHPC
How Intel is Fostering HPC in the Cloud
"Cloud computing offers a potential solution by allowing people to create and access computing resources on demand. Yet meeting the complex software demands of an HPC application can be quite challenging in a cloud environment…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Bob Herbold on Tech Talent
My former boss makes the case about retaining tech talent. Link to interview
Former Microsoft COO Concerned About US Universities vs. China: ‘The Big Risk for Tech is Talent’
Former Microsoft COO Bob Herbold discussed in an interview…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Shared Machine Learning Mistakes
You can always learn from mistakes. Especially in the case of technologies where the methods are still evolving. And what is the inherent risk involved in wrong answers? And naturally any ML project integrates several technologies…
From insideHPC
Intel Continues HPC Leadership at SC18
In this video from SC18 in Dallas, Trish Damkroger describes how Intel is pushing the limits of HPC and Machine Learning with a full suite of Hardware, Software, and Cloud technologies. "
Today’s high performance computers are…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Ford Working on Robot Delivery
More self driving delivery. Ford it seems is a new player. The customer process of retrieving goods from a driverless vehicle should be interesting. But likely inevitable.
Ford teaming up with Walmart and Postmates on robot…
From Schneier on Security
Chip Cards Fail to Reduce Credit Card Fraud in the US
A new study finds that credit card fraud has not declined since the introduction of chip cards in the US. The majority of stolen card information comes from hacked point-of-sale terminals. The reasons seem to be twofold. One,…
From Computer Science Teacher - Thoughts and Information From Alfred Thompson
16,000 BBC Sound Effects
I don’t know about you but I regularly go on the lookout for sound effects for projects. Today, I have to share this new source for sound files that may be used for educational purposes. 16,000 BBC Sound Effects
I found this database…From The Eponymous Pickle
New Technology Enabling Alibaba to Sell $30.8 Billion
Impressive combination of tech being used to provide sales volume. AI, Blockchain, Cloud, Cooling, Supply Chain, Energy consumption ... So leading edge tech is not all hype, given the right problem.
" ... The technology enabling…
From ACM-W supporting, celebrating and advocating for Women in Computing
ACM-W Connections – November 2018
Letter from ACM-W Chair News from ACM-W Celebrations News from ACM-W Professional Chapters ACM Scholarship for Attendance of Research Conferences News from ACM-W India Hackathon Welcome from the ACM-W Chair Over the past five…
From Schneier on Security
More Spectre/Meltdown-Like Attacks
Back in January, we learned about a class of vulnerabilities against microprocessors that leverages various performance and efficiency shortcuts for attack. I wrote that the first two attacks would be just the start: It shouldn't…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Here Come the New Neural Stick
This was brought up before, but the idea seems to have advanced. A trained 'stick' that contains the AI needed for Edge applications. Faster now it implies to deliver the network needed. Somewhat narrow? Like they said…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Report on Watson Health
Did IBM overhype Watson Health's AI promise?
IBM's Watson Health division has been under fire for not delivering on its promise to use AI to enable smarter, more personalized medicine. But IBM officials maintain that hospitals…
From The Computing Community Consortium Blog
Great Innovative Idea: Physician-Friendly Machine Learning Algorithms for Medical Diagnosis
The following Great Innovative Idea is from Hien Nguyen, Assistant Professor of Electrical & Computer Engineering at the University of Houston. Hien was a participant and presented his poster at the Computing Community Consortium…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Microsoft Buys XOXCO for Chatbot Design
Last year saw a live demo of Microsoft quickly building a chatbot from the framework of a FAQ data base in Azure. Was impressive. But of course doing this well is still some task, engineering the design of behavior, needs
…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Overview of Google Home Assistant Ecosystem
Good overview, largely non technical. Good point about motivation of the typical consumer. But it may ultimately lead to expectations that this is now a common part of the typical home. I have both Alexa and Google systems…
From insideHPC
HPE to build Hawk Supercomputer for HLRS in Germany
Today HLRS in Germany announced plans to deploy next-generation supercomputer for HLRS, 3.5 times faster than its current system. The upcoming system, which HLRS has named Hawk, will be the world’s fastest supercomputer for industrial…
From Schneier on Security
Upcoming Speaking Engagements
This is a current list of where and when I am scheduled to speak: I'm speaking at Kiwicon in Wellington, New Zealand on November 16, 2018. I'm appearing on IBM Resilient's End of Year Review webinar on "The Top Cyber Security…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Statistics for Machine Learning Models
Nicely done look at the problem, by the always useful Jason Brownlee. Follow his writing subscribe to his tutorials.
Statistics for Evaluating Machine Learning Models by Jason Brownlee
Tom Mitchell’s classic 1997 book “Machine…
From insideHPC
How Intel is Driving the Convergence of HPC & Ai
"The emerging AI community on HPC infrastructure is critical to achieving the vision of AI," said Pradeep Dubey, Intel Fellow. "Machines that don’t just crunch numbers, but help us make better and more informed complex decisions…
From insideHPC
Intel Powers SuperMUC-NG Supercomputer at LRZ in Germany
In this video from SC18 in Dallas, Dieter Kranzlmueller from LRZ in Germany describes how Intel powers the SuperMUC-NG supercomputer. "The 19.4 Petaflop machine ranks number 8 among the fastest supercomputers in the world. SuperMUC…
From Schneier on Security
Oracle and "Responsible Disclosure"
I've been writing about "responsible disclosure" for over a decade; here's an essay from 2007. Basically, it's a tacit agreement between researchers and software vendors. Researchers agree to withhold their work until software…
From insideHPC
UberCloud Wins Hyperion HPC Innovation Excellence Award with Neuromodulation Project
Today Hyperion Research announced that the winner of the 2018 Hyperion Award for Innovation Excellence goes to UberCloud and its project partners. "This work represents a breakthrough in demonstrating the high value of computational…
From Computer Science Teacher - Thoughts and Information From Alfred Thompson
Post-secondary Cybersecurity Curricular Recommendations
There is more computer science than we could ever cover in grades K-12. So much of it is important and exciting. Every parent open house I get suggestions for what we should teach in high school. There is no way we can teach…
From The Computing Community Consortium Blog
NITRD RFI- Update to the 2016 Federal Cybersecurity Research and Development Strategic Plan
The Networking and Information Technology Research and Development (NITRD) National Coordination Office (NCO) put out a Request for Information (RFI) on the Federal cybersecurity R&D strategic plan. The updated plan will be used…