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 The Eponymous Pickle
Designing the Echo
Fast Company looks at the design and redesign of the Amazon Echo since 2014. Thoughtful examination of how complex consumer design works.
Why Amazon radically redesigned the Echo
You may be ordering one for Black Friday. But…From Putting People First
Experientia speaks at EFUS webinar on insecurity at night
On 24 November Elena Guidorzi, research unit coordinator of Experientia will speak at the EFUS web conference entitled "Reducing and preventing the feeling of insecurity at night", highlighting her experience coordinating the…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Modeling Multi Agent Interacting Systems
Fascinating piece. Aren't we all multi agent interacting systems? Can we effectively model that to understand it in context? Berkeley Bair takes a took. Its hard. Considerable technical challenge. Starting with urbanEvolveGraph…
From Gödel's Lost Letter and P=NP
Traveling Salesman Problem Meets Complexity Theory
Crazy ideas meet crazed audience Merrill Flood was a mathematician who publicized the Traveling salesman problem TSP back in the 1940s. He says that he found the problem while: I was struggling with the problem in connecting…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Supply Chain: Its Now about Risk
Now even more so, its about risk. Measuring, predicting and addressing.
Supply Chain Risk Management - Reach the Next Level of Supply Chain Maturity
Marcus Evans in SupplyChainBrain
Following a number of successful Supply Chain…From The Eponymous Pickle
IBM Buys Observability
The broader concept of 'observability' was new to me, but as described very useful. Performance and beyond. Clearly applicable to AI applications. Now thinking it further.
IBM acquires application observability startup Instana…From insideHPC
At SC20: Intel Provides Aurora Update as Argonne Developers Use Intel Xe-HP GPUs in Lieu of ‘Ponte Vecchio’
In an update to our "Bridge to 'Ponte Vecchio' story yesterday, today we interviewed, Jeff McVeigh, Intel VP/GM of data center XPU products and solutions, who updated us on developments at Intel with direct bearing on Aurora,…
From BLOG@CACM
How Objective is Peer Review?
The ESA Experiment.
From The Eponymous Pickle
What Blockchain Could Mean for Your Health Data
Thoughts about blockchain and health data
What Blockchain Could Mean for Your Health Data
by Don Tapscott and Alex Tapscott in HBR
Big data is perhaps the most powerful asset we have in solving big problems these days. We need
But…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Enhancing Learning with Praise
Praise should work, but how do you deliver it, and best understand its behavioral implications? Contextual influence? This is an example I want to see more data on.
Motivational Artificial Beings Better Than 1 for Enhancing…From The Eponymous Pickle
Amazon Pharmacy Launches
Long awaited, implications will be interesting. Supply chain in the era of epidemic should be good. Linked to Prime.
Will Amazon’s new online pharmacy disrupt the U.S. drugstore business?
By George Anderson in Retailwire
Amazon…From The Computing Community Consortium Blog
NSTC Subcommittee Report: Pioneering The Future Advanced Computing Ecosystem
The National Science and Technology Council (NSTC) subcommittee on Future Advanced Computing Ecosystems just released a new report on Pioneering The Future Advanced Computing Ecosystem. It lays out a strategic plan that envisions…
From insideHPC
CINECA Partners with Atos for 240PFLOPS ‘Leonardo’ Supercomputer
The CINECA supercomputing center in Bologna, Italy, has selected Atos’ BullSequana XH2000 supercomputing platform integrated with ParTec’s ParaStation Modulo software for its new 240 petaFLOPS HPC system, “Leonardo.” Featuring…
From insideHPC
IBM to Acquire Performance Monitoring Company Instana for Hybrid Cloud and AI
IBM today announced plans to acquire Instana, an application performance monitoring and observability company. IBM said the acquisition will help businesses better manage applications spanning the hybrid clouds and that it strengthens…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Low-Code Use Expanding
Will be the future. Then quickly to No-Code. With much use of code analysis and adaptation for goals like security, and compliance to standards. Ultimately to make the code process conformant and understandable by management…
From insideHPC
insideHPC Guide to HPC/AI for Energy – Part 3
In this technology guide sponsored by our friends over at Dell Technologies, we take a deep dive into how the team of Dell Technologies and AMD is working to provide solutions for a wide array of needs for more strategic cultivation…
From insideHPC
Lenovo Claims an HPC First for Liquid-Cooled Nvidia A100 GPU Servers
Today, Lenovo introduced the ThinkSystem SD650-N V2 server, which the company said is the first direct-to-node (DTN) liquid-cooled server for Nvidia A100 Tensor Core GPUs. It includes four board-mounted A100 GPUs in a 1U system…
From Schneier on Security
Michael Ellis as NSA General Counsel
Over at Lawfare, Susan Hennessey has an excellent primer on how Trump loyalist Michael Ellis got to be the NSA General Counsel, over the objections of NSA Director Paul Nakasone, and what Biden can and should do about it.
While…From insideHPC
At SC20: Hyperion Sees COVID HPC Impact Sharp but Short; HPE in Server Lead; Aurora 12+/- Months Late; Cloud HPC Heating Up
One thing – another thing – regular SC conference attendees have to do without this pandemic year is industry analyst firm Hyperion Research’s annual HPC market update breakfast, always held in a large hotel function room before…
From The Computing Community Consortium Blog
Blue Sky at ACM SIGSPATIAL 2020
The Computing Community Consortium (CCC) recently sponsored a Blue Sky Ideas Conference Track at the 28th ACM SIGSPATIAL International Conference on Advances in Geographic Information Systems (ACM SIGSPATIAL 2020), November 3…
From insideHPC
At SC20: GigaIO Launches PCIe 4.0 Accelerator Pooling Appliance for the Composable Data Center
CARLSBAD, CA – November 17, 2020 – GigaIO Networks, creators of data center network architecture and connectivity solutions, today announced their new Hydra product line, which the company said is the industry’s first fully managed…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Tutorial: Random Forest for Time Series
Am a long time proponent of ensemble methods. Here Jason Brownlee provides a nice tutorial on an often powerful method everyone should know. As usual, well done, minimal tech.
Random Forest for Time Series Forecasting by…From insideHPC
A Bridge to ‘Ponte Vecchio’: Argonne Aurora Developers Using Substitute Intel Xe-HP GPUs, oneAPI for Scientific Applications
Intel and Argonne National Laboratory said today they are using GPUs based on Intel’s Xe-HP microarchitecture and Intel oneAPI toolkits for development of scientific applications to be used on the Aurora exascale system — in
…
From insideHPC
At SC20: BittWare Launches IA-840F with Intel Agilex FPGA and Support for oneAPI
Concord, NH – Nov. 17, 2020 – Bittware today unveiled the IA-840F, the company’s Intel Agilex-based FPGA card designed to deliver performance-per-watt improvements for data center, networking and edge compute workloads. Agilex…
From insideHPC
insideHPC Guide to AI and HPC in Media & Entertainment – Part 3
In this white paper sponsored by our friends over at Dell Technologies, we take a look at AI and HPC in Media & Entertainment where an increasing demand for digital media content creates need for faster rendering options. The…
From insideHPC
Univ of Florida Implementing DDN HPC Storage with Nvidia DGX SuperPOD Architecture for AI-Centric Supercomputing
DDN today announced its AI400X all-NVME flash storage system will help amplify capabilities of the University of Florida’s flagship supercomputer, “HiPerGator,” to make it the world’s fastest AI supercomputer in academia, according…
From insideHPC
At SC20: XTREME-D Launches AI Gateway on AXXE-L
Palo Alto, CA, Nov. 16, 2020 – HPC Cloud company XTREME-D today announced AI Gateway, which simplifies the process of building a deep neural network (DNN). The product is currently available in Japan and will be integrated into…
From Universal Acceptance Steering Group
ICANN69 Highlights Universal Acceptance Initiatives and Global Momentum
During the ICANN69 Virtual Annual General Meeting, the Universal Acceptance Steering Group (UASG) hosted three sessions focused on Universal Acceptance (UA). Session participants from around the world joined to discuss UA activities…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Autonomous Order Delivery by Wal-Mart
Even Walmart is doing tests of autonomous delivery.
Walmart, Cruise Launch Pilot to Deliver Orders via Self-Driving Cars
Kyle Wiggers in VentureBeat
General Motors-backed autonomous vehicle startup Cruise has announced a partnership…From Computer Science Teacher - Thoughts and Information From Alfred Thompson
Tiny Book of Simple Cryptography
I've been playing with simple cryptography. Mostly stuff that was solid before computers. Just for fun mostly but some of it may make for interesting projects for students. I've written a little bit about the things I have been…