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 insideHPC
Visualizing the World’s Largest Turbulence Simulation
In this visualization, LRZ presents the largest interstellar turbulence simulations ever performed, unravelling key astrophysical processes concerning the formation of stars and the relative role of magnetic fields. "Besides
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From insideHPC
Mellanox LongReach Appliance Extends InfiniBand Connectivity up to 40 Kilometers
Today Mellanox introduced the Mellanox Quantum LongReach series of long-distance InfiniBand switches. Mellanox Quantum LongReach systems provide the ability to seamlessly connect remote InfiniBand data centers together, or to…
From insideHPC
DDN Launches New Data Management Capabilities and Platforms for AI and HPC
Today DDN announced new infrastructure and multicloud solutions ahead of its return to SC19 in Denver. "We are adding serious data management, collaboration and security capabilities to the most scalable file solution in the
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From The Eponymous Pickle
Enterprise Adoption of AI? Ask Watson.
A re positioning which is interesting. More at the link.
IBM Pitches Watson for Enterprise AI Woes in Informationweek
IBM says that Watson can help enterprises struggling to get past the pilot phase with their AI programs.
Watson…
From insideHPC
The Use of High-Performance Polymers in HPC and Data Center Applications
"Polymer components in liquid cooling systems are attractive for several reasons: they are lightweight, typically less expensive than metal counterparts, and are impervious to corrosion that can render parts inoperable or introduce…
From insideHPC
OpenMP ARB Releases Technical Report 8 with New Usability Enhancements
The OpenMP Architecture Review Board (ARB) has released Technical Report 8, the first preview for the future OpenMP API, version 5.1. "We are excited about this first public step towards OpenMP 5.1," said OpenMP Language Committee…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Future of Chatbots
An extensive look at the technology and future. True they will become very important. I have seen the change already occurring markedly for low-level technical consults. But maintaining them to keep up the right answers
The…
From The Noisy Channel
Defining relevance is a topic in its own right.
Defining relevance is a topic in its own right. You typically collect either explicit human judgments or implicit judgements from behavior, and then you use those judgments to train a relevance model. But the former approach…
From Schneier on Security
Upcoming Speaking Engagements
This is a current list of where and when I am scheduled to speak: I'm speaking on "Securing a World of Physically Capable Computers" at the Indian Institute of Science in Bangalore, India on December 12, 2019. The list is maintained…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Learning from Mistakes
Ultimately most important. How do we learn from mistakes, and the contexts that created those mistakes? A form of causal reasoning that we found most useful in our efforts. A form of maintenance to0 that could be fed back…
From insideHPC
Mellanox Announces HDR InfiniBand-to-Ethernet Gateway Appliance for High Performance Data Centers
Today Mellanox introduced Mellanox Skyway, a 200 gigabit HDR InfiniBand to Ethernet gateway appliance. Mellanox Skyway enables a scalable and efficient way to connect the high-performance, low-latency InfiniBand data center to…
From insideHPC
Rapid Growth lands Iceotope on 2019 Deloitte Fast 50
Today datacenter cooling vendor Iceotope announced that it ranked number 14 and were Midlands Regional Winners in the 2019 Deloitte UK Technology Fast 50, a ranking of the 50 fastest-growing technology companies in the UK. Rankings…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Example's of ISPs Use of Personal Data
Mentioned a Mozilla letter to the US Congress on the use and sale of personal data. I am using it as part of a discussion today regarding the value of data.
In particular gives examples of how personal data has real value, and…
From insideHPC
What to expect at SC19
In this special guest feature, Dr. Rosemary Francis gives her perspective on what to look for at SC19 conference next week in Denver. "There are always many questions circling the HPC market in the run up to Supercomputing. In…
From insideHPC
GPU-Powered Turbocharger coming to JUWELS Supercomputer at JÜlich
The Jülich Supercomputing Centre is adding a high-powered booster module to their JUWELS supercomputer. Designed in cooperation with Atos, ParTec, Mellanox, and NVIDIA, the booster module is equipped with several thousand GPUs…
From insideHPC
XTREME-D Now Accepting US Orders for Unique HPC Cloud Platform
Today Award-winning Japanese HPC Cloud company XTREME-D today announced that its flagship product, XTREME-Stargate, will be available in the US in Q1. "XTREME-Stargate is a fully automated service for deploying, monitoring, and…
From insideHPC
Are You Ready for the Exascale Era? Find Out at SC19
As we head into the biggest supercomputing event of the year, all eyes are on exascale. The frontrunners in the race to exascale, including our friends over at Altair, will convene at SC19 in Denver this November to share updates…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Alexa Goes Multilingual
I was brought up in a multilingual household, so the environment has always interested me. I use Google assistant that way today. But can I start a sentence in one language and end it in another? Saw that in our own case.
Alexa…
From The Eponymous Pickle
6 Degree Intelligence
Brought to my attention, note in particular the use of graph theory and strong data visualization. Looking deeper:
6 Degree Intelligence
It’s getting harder to find hidden assets and identities
6 Degree Intelligence develops solutions…
From Schneier on Security
Technology and Policymakers
Technologists and policymakers largely inhabit two separate worlds. It's an old problem, one that the British scientist CP Snow identified in a 1959 essay entitled The Two Cultures. He called them sciences and humanities, and…
From Putting People First
NYTimes Magazine special issue on the future of the internet
Online Cesspool Got You Down? You Can Clean It Up, For a Price By Kevin Roose A new “luxury internet” is poised to make the online experience even more unequal than it already is. It’s not surprising that given the choice between…
From Putting People First
User experience as legitimacy trap
User experience as legitimacy trap by Paul Dourish (University of California, Irvine) What would it mean to be able to undertake HCI in a way that made questions of ethics and values central? The central charge to HCI is to nurture…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Amazon's Planned New Grocery Store
Speculation on what Amazon is doing, with expert thoughts.
Amazon confirms it will open a grocery store not named Whole Foods by George Anderson in Retilwire
When The Wall Street Journal reported in March that Amazon.com planned…
From The Eponymous Pickle
On Reverse Mentoring
Good overview of the concept. Before the term was invented, we had a technology team which 'mentored' executives and key approaches. Is not only about tech, Was not age based, and I don't think should be.
How to Do It Right…
From insideHPC
Panasas to Showcase “Fastest HPC Parallel File System at any Price-Point” at SC19
"The next generation of PanFS on ActiveStor Ultra offers unlimited performance scaling in 4 GB/s building blocks, utilizing multi-tier intelligent data placement to maximize storage performance by placing metadata on low-latency…
From The Eponymous Pickle
End of Advertising
Links to a number of talks on related topics:
The End of Advertising in Andreessen Horowitz by Connie Chan
When Advertising isn't Enough
Editor’s note: It’s Summit Week at a16z, so each day we’re re-sharing some of our favorite…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Deep Learning Hit a Wall?
Insightful piece. Have started to slow movement towards intelligence? I think it even more fundamental than that, we still cant provide complex context for the intelligence we want to leverage
Deep Learning Has Hit a Wall, …
From The Computing Community Consortium Blog
National Security Commission on AI (NSCAI) Interim Report- Public Conference Calls
Last week, we shared the National Security Commission on AI‘s Interim Report as well as details about the corresponding conference held on November 6, Strength Through Innovation: Artificial Intelligence and the Future of U.S…
From Computer Science Teacher - Thoughts and Information From Alfred Thompson
Not Too Easy and Not Too Hard
We’re covering Classes and Objects in my Programming Honors course this week. Specifically we are learning how to program classes in C# and use them in programs. The struggle for me is to come up with classes that are interesting…
From insideHPC
Cortical.io Demonstrates Real-time Semantic Supercomputing for NLU
Today Cortical.io announced the debut of a new class of high-performance enterprise applications based on “Semantic Supercomputing.” Semantic Supercomputing combines Cortical.io AI-based NLU software inspired by neuroscience
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