Communications of the ACM
The blog archive provides access to past blog postings from Communications of the ACM and other sources by date.
November 2020
From Computer Science Teacher - Thoughts and Information From Alfred Thompson
The Making of a Computer Science Teacher
There is quite the conversation going on in the private Computer Science Educators group on Facebook about teacher preparation for CS educators. This is a very interesting group for CS educators BTW. Join if you are on Facebook…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Learning Long Horizon Planning
Another interesting piece from Berkeley - BAIR. Now looking at more complex planning. Long range planning that machines are not necessarily good at. But humans are also not so good at problems that require many option planning…
From Schneier on Security
More on the Security of the 2020 US Election
Last week I signed on to two joint letters about the security of the 2020 election. The first was as one of 59 election security experts, basically saying that while the election seems to have been both secure and accurate (voter…
From Daniel Lemire's Blog
The disagreeable scientist conjecture
If you are a nerd, the Internet is a candy store… if only you stay away from mainstream sites. Some of the best scientists have blogs, YouTube channels, they post their papers online. When they review a paper, they speak frankly…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Customer Management Must Change
Yes, consider the impact of uncertainty for longer periods as linked to a risk model.
Growth in Uncertainty: As Consumers Change, Customer Management Must Evolve as Well
By Richard Essigs, Ernst & Young LLP - 09/24/2020
Even before…From The Eponymous Pickle
Fraunhofer Modular Vehicle Concept
Interesting conceptually, practical in what future time? Thought provoking at least.
Flexible and Individual: Fraunhofer Team Develops Groundbreaking Vehicle Concept
Research News / November 17, 2020
How can individualized luxury…From The Eponymous Pickle
Automated Workflows are Rolling
Clearly, and this will continue. But doing it right will still be a challenge. The advantage will be to those that use the best approaches, applied to context with the right AI and analytics. Think Autonomous is the future…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Larping for Education
Admit I did not know what LARPing was. And thus not its use in education. Or is it just like interning? Or could it be linked to gaming? You could use 'fictitious' experiences to broaden the possibilities for learning. The…
From insideHPC
NETL, Cerebras Claim CFD Milestone
A collaboration between DOE’s National Energy Technology Laboratory and Cerebras Systems, maker of the CS-1 deep learning compute system, has demonstrated that CS-1 could perform a key computational fluid dynamics (CFD) workload…
From The Computing Community Consortium Blog
NSTC Subcommittee Report: Recommendations for Leveraging Cloud Computing Resources for Federally Funded Artificial Intelligence Research and Development
The National Science and Technology Council (NSTC) subcommittee on Artificial Intelligence (AI) just released a new report that provides Recommendations for Leveraging Cloud Computing Resources for Federally Funded Artificial…
From The Eponymous Pickle
IOT Deep Learning Enabled
Of Course, a step forward we need to do systematically. Can this make our home devices learn from their experiences? Have them ask for help? Look for help from other sources? Try out solutions?
System Brings Deep Learning…From insideHPC
MBX Debuts Reference Platforms for Mixed Reality Deployments
Libertyville, IL – MBX Systems, a manufacturer of purpose-built and deployment-ready hardware devices for technology companies, today unveiled a line of portable and rackmount reference platforms optimized to deliver next-generation…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Vint Cerf Talks Repairability
Below an intro, some good points.
Repairability Redux By Vinton G. Cerf
Communications of the ACM, December 2020, Vol. 63 No. 12, Page 5 10.1145/3429267
Google Vice President and Chief Internet Evangelist Vinton G. Cerf
I wrote…From Schneier on Security
Indistinguishability Obfuscation
Quanta magazine recently published a breathless article on indistinguishability obfuscation — calling it the “‘crown jewel’ of cryptography” — and saying that it had finally been achieved, based on a recently published paper.…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Insikt Group to Reduce Risk
Like the idea of risk reduction being specifically included, rarely done well enough, and especially useful ly and measurably. Just brought to my attention.
How Insikt Group’s Operational Outcomes Team Drives Action to Reduce…From The Eponymous Pickle
Magnetic Spray Transforms Objects Into Insect-Scale Robots for Biomed
Quite a remarkable statement. Just by itself. Just spray it on. Awaiting the demos. Back to my favorite small robotics theme.
Magnetic Spray Transforms Objects Into Insect-Scale Robots for Biomedical Applications By…From insideHPC
The Top Five Trends Driving the Need for New HPC/AI System Architectures
Earlier this month Ayar Labs hosted a webinar on the topic of “Disaggregated System Architectures for Next Generation HPC and AI Workloads,” discussing the need for new architecture and the approaches that are being taken to
…
From insideHPC
Winners of Student Cluster Competition, Gordon Bell Prize Named at SC20
It was awards day at Virtual SC20, and among the most coveted and closely watched of them ate annual SC Student Cluster Competition and the ACM Gordon Bell Prize. This year’s cluster competition winner: Tsinghaua University,
…
From Daniel Lemire's Blog
Programming is social
Software programming looks at a glance like work done best done in isolation. Nothing could be further from the truth in my experience. Though you may be working on your little program alone, you should not dismiss the social…
From insideHPC
TACC’s Frontera HPC System Expansion for ‘Urgent Computing’ – COVID-19, Hurricanes, Earthquakes
Frontera, deployed at the Texas Advanced Computing Center supercomputer and the ninth fastest HPC system in the world, will receive an expansion to support urgent computing and basic science, according to TACC. The expansion
…
From insideHPC
Atos Launches HPC Software Suites
Paris, November 19, 2020 – Atos today announces its new HPC Software Suites designed to enable users to better manage their supercomputing environments, optimize performance and reduce energy consumption. These software suites…
From The Computing Community Consortium Blog
CCC Quadrennial Papers: Artificial Intelligence
As part of the rollout of the 2020 Computing Research Associations (CRA) Quadrennial Papers, the Computing Community Consortium (CCC) is pleased to publish the final group of papers around the “Artificial Intelligence (AI)” theme…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Amazon Smart Glasses are for Sale
Recall I have been following the idea of 'smart glasses' for a long time. Since we experimented very early on with prototype glasses to display maintenance diagrams and data in real time on the plant floor. That were never…
From Daniel Lemire's Blog
Double-blind peer review is a bad idea
When you submit a manuscript to a journal or to a conference, you do not know who reviews your manuscript. Increasingly, due to concerns with biases and homophily, journals and conferences are moving to a double-blind peer review…
From Computational Complexity
Vaughan Jones and Kaikoura
Vaughan Jones, one of the greatest mathematicians from New Zealand, passed away on September 6 at 67. Jones is an expert in knot theory among other areas and received the Fields Medal in 1990.
The Jones polynomial captures information…From The Eponymous Pickle
Google Announces 3D Object Detection
Could lead to very interesting applications. More phone based marketing and location possibilities? And another round of complaints like we have seen from face recognition.
Real-Time 3D Object Detection on Mobile Devices with…From Schneier on Security
Symantec Reports on Cicada APT Attacks against Japan
Symantec is reporting on an APT group linked to China, named Cicada. They have been attacking organizations in Japan and elsewhere.
Cicada has historically been known to target Japan-linked organizations, and has also targeted…From Schneier on Security
The US Military Buys Commercial Location Data
Vice has a long article about how the US military buys commercial location data worldwide.
The U.S. military is buying the granular movement data of people around the world, harvested from innocuous-seeming apps, Motherboard…From The Eponymous Pickle
On IOT Security: Guidelines for Improvement
As we depend on many new communicating 'things' in our environment, their design and management over time and context must be done better.
IoT Security Is a Mess. These Guidelines Could Help Fix That
By Danny Palmer in ZDNet
New…From insideHPC
Making AI Accessible to Any Size Enterprise
In this sponsored post, our friends over at Lenovo and NetApp have teamed up with NVIDIA to discuss how the companies are helping to drive Artificial Intelligence (AI) into smaller organizations and hopefully seed that creative…