Communications of the ACM
The blog archive provides access to past blog postings from Communications of the ACM and other sources by date.
November 2019
From Computer Science Teacher - Thoughts and Information From Alfred Thompson
Define Better
Someone posted an interesting question on Facebook.
My reply was to ask for a definition of “better.” The Facebook posts have a lot of answers from people who appear…Is using ++i(pre-increment) better than i++(post-increment) ?
From The Eponymous Pickle
Considering Google's Teachable Machine
Was reminded of this as a means of demonstrating and playing with the idea. Writing a short piece on its limitations now a few years later. Thoughts?
Google created a fun way to learn about simple AI
"Teachable Machine" lives…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Bayesian Networks and Conditional Independence
Came up in a conversation about representing knowledge.
Conditional Independence — The Backbone of Bayesian Networks
Conditional Independence Intuition, Derivation, and Examples By Aerin Kim
Sometimes the explanation in Wikipedia…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Photoshop Selecting Objects with AI
I recall doing lots of this kind of work early on, the power of automating it is considerable.
Photoshop's latest AI-powered tool makes quick work of selections
Adobe previews the upcoming Object Selection feature.
By Marc DeAngelis…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Computational vs Good Thinking
Much agreed. Its just one way to think.
Computational Thinking Should Just be Good Thinking
By Mark Guzdial, Alan Kay, Cathie Norris, Elliot Soloway
Communications of the ACM, November 2019, Vol. 62 No. 11, Pages 28-30
10.1145/3363181…
From Schneier on Security
xHelper Malware for Android
xHelper is not interesting because of its infection mechanism; the user has to side-load an app onto his phone. It's not interesting because of its payload; it seems to do nothing more than show unwanted ads. it's interesting…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Microsoft's Hybrid Strategies
Good piece which support Mary J Foley's recent appearance on Twit:
Microsoft's Hybrid 2.0 strategy: Azure Arc, Azure Stack Hub, Azure Stack Edge explained
At Ignite 2019, Microsoft is announcing new branding and a new strategy
By…
From The Eponymous Pickle
TensorBoard for Free Testing of Machine Learning
Google announces a means to test for free machine learning experiments. Nite that the data used is pubklic and un-secured. Includes visualizations and operation dashboards.
See: https://tensorboard.dev/
Easily host, track,
A…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Turning Inventory into Profits
Via McKinsey. Depending on the industry, demand for parts and costs involved.
Turn Slow-Moving Inventory into Fast Profits
For industrial-services organizations, slow-moving inventory can be a drag on financial performance.
By…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Reducing Defects in Assistant Commands
We need much better interpretation of commands, in context. Alexa has failed in this from the beginning. Now word it will do much better? But can we greatly improve the intelligence in context? Else simple errors of…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Seeking Digital Identity
On capability long considered for blockchain was assuring identity. Just published draft guidance below.
FATF Releases Guidance on Global Digital IDs as Use Cases Grow in Coindesk
The Financial Action Task Force (FATF) wants…
From The Eponymous Pickle
HoloLens2 Available and Shipping Now
Considerable overview piece from Microsoft. They are now hooking it to a number of capabilities such as Dynamics and Azure driven Edge Computing. Impressive. If significant mixed reality applications are out there, they could…
From The Computing Community Consortium Blog
Lasers Can be Used to ‘Speak’ to Your Smart Assistant
Hackers can use lasers to silently “speak” to any computer that receives voice commands, these include smartphones, Amazon Echo speakers, Google Homes, and Facebook’s Portal video chat devices. Former Computing Community Consortium…
From insideHPC
IonQ Joins Azure Quantum Ecosystem
This week IonQ launched the new Azure Quantum ecosystem in partnership with Microsoft at the annual Ignite conference. Azure Quantum is a full-stack, open cloud ecosystem that will make IonQ’s quantum computers, based on trapped…
From insideHPC
Lifebit Launches Federated Genomics Cloud Operating System for Accelerated Discovery
Lifebit CloudOS solves the major barrier faced by the genomics sector: data is often siloed and distributed, inaccessible for multiple parties to analyze. Without the ability to perform analyses across this distributed data the…
From insideHPC
NVIDIA Tops MLPerf AI Inference Benchmarks
Today NVIDIA posted the fastest results on new benchmarks measuring the performance of AI inference workloads in data centers and at the edge — building on the company’s equally strong position in recent benchmarks measuring
…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Estimating from Small samples
A common example we touched often on in consulting within the enterprise. Though the new methods have made this ever more crucial.
Estimating from small random samples— Understanding the underlying probabilities at play!
By Vinodh…
From insideHPC
Podcast: Full Rundown of SC19 Events in Denver
In this podcast, the Radio Free HPC team reviews the full list of events leading up to SC19 in Denver. "There's a lot that happens before the exhibit floor opens on Monday night. Our old pal Rich Brueckner from insideHPC joins…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Bixby Views and Touch
Saw Bixby early on, was not impressed. Is it now emerging? Touch it says will be included, which I did not see.
Bixby Views is What Every Voice Developer Wants and Reinforces Samsung’s Biggest Differentiator
By Bret Kensella…
From insideHPC
Data Center Transformation: Why a Workload-Driven and Scalable Architecture Matters
In this new whitepaper from our friends over at QCT we take a look at the important topic of deep learning for Natural Language Processing (NLP)
The post Data Center Transformation: Why a Workload-Driven and Scalable Architecture…
From Computer Science Teacher - Thoughts and Information From Alfred Thompson
AI-assisted Programming
As I said in yesterday’s blog post,Microsoft has been running their big MSIgnite event this week and making all sorts of announcements. One interesting announcement what improvements to what they call Visual Studio IntelliCode…
From Schneier on Security
Eavesdropping on SMS Messages inside Telco Networks
Fireeye reports on a Chinese-sponsored espionage effort to eavesdrop on text messages: FireEye Mandiant recently discovered a new malware family used by APT41 (a Chinese APT group) that is designed to monitor and save SMS traffic…
From Putting People First
User-Centred Design and Humanitarian Adaptiveness
User-Centred Design and Humanitarian Adaptiveness by Sofya Bourne ALNAP April 2019, 60 pages Gathering and acting on feedback from affected communities is a key means to identify potential triggers for change during the design…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Brick and Mortar Making a Comeback
I have my doubts, but there will always be specialty examples, new kinds of channels.
Brick-and-Mortar Stores Are Making a Comeback in HBS Working Knowledge
Left for dead alongside the retail highway, physical stores are suddenly…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Cardboard VR is Open Sourced
Played with Cardboard VR early on. Surprised a bit that Google has backed off the idea, an indication that they don't believe the process is currently viable? They are still keeping a finger in the process.
Google open-sources…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Why Tokens Matter
Whats a token? Why should we use it as a means of payment. How does it change how we do business?Is it inevitable we will tokenize? Dr Rijmenam writes about it.
Why Tokens Matter and How to Clarify a Path Towards Tokenisation…
From The Computing Community Consortium Blog
Policymakers Stress Urgent Need for U.S. Leadership in AI at National Security Commission on AI Conference; Schumer Proposes $100 billion in Research and Education Funding
Significant contributions were provided by CRA Director of Government Affairs Peter Harsha and CCC Director Ann Schwartz Drobnis. Yesterday at a conference of the National Security Commission on AI (NSCAI) in DC, a bipartisan…
From insideHPC
NVIDIA Launches $399 Jetson Xavier NX for AI at the Edge
Today NVIDIA introduced Jetson Xavier NX, "the world’s smallest, most powerful AI supercomputer for robotic and embedded computing devices at the edge. "With a compact form factor smaller than the size of a credit card, the energy…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Tableau Conference Nov 13-15
Particularly interested in seeing how they are integrating with Salesforce, providing new AI methods, New kinds of data handling, Better visualization and prescriptive methods for decision makers. I will be there.
Via DSC:
Tableau…
From insideHPC
MLPerf Releases Over 500 Inference Benchmarks
Today the MLPerf consortium released over 500 inference benchmark results from 14 organizations. "Having independent benchmarks help customers understand and evaluate hardware products in a comparable light. MLPerf is helping…