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
Doing Old Things Better Vs. Doing Brand New Things
Old Conundrum .... But I think good to consider the positives and negatives of both independently. 'Doing things' vs investing also quite different, gets you different kinds of money, which depends upon the current economy.…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Are We at the Narrow Edge of General AI?
And what is even the definition of 'General AI'? Say a means to repeatedly solve a non trivial problem in a business or scientific domain, with varying data and context. One that could be 'intelligent' enough to explain its…
From Schneier on Security
Friday Squid Blogging: Bigfin Squid Found in Australian Waters
A bigfin squid has been found — and filmed — in Australian waters for the first time.
As usual, you can also use this squid post to talk about the security stories in the news that I haven’t covered.
Read my blog posting guidelines…From Computational Complexity
Alex Trebek/What is today's post about?
Alex Trebek, long time host of the TV show Jeopardy! (the exclamation point is part of the name, though I will omit it for the rest of the post), passed away in November of 2020 at the age of 80. He announced he had pancreatic…
From Daniel Lemire's Blog
Science and Technology links (November 14th 2020)
COVID 19 forced enterprises to move to remote work. There has been decades of research showing that allowing workers to work remotely improves job satisfaction and productivity. It improves work-family balance. It reduces sick…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Wellness Blockchain App from GE
Seems an unusual thing coming from GE, but nice idea ... here well described in SiliconAngle. Will follow.
GE launches blockchain-based ‘Wellness Trace’ app to protect airport visitors from COVID-19 By Kyt Dotson
General Electric…From The Eponymous Pickle
Huawei's Wearable Smart Glasses
A look at another set of Smartglasses. Good in depth piece. As it says this is a difficult product to make well, especially as a general solution to effective and unobtrusively 'wearing' your computing. Have followed theHuawei…
From Daniel Lemire's Blog
Xbox Series X and PlayStation 5: early impressions
This week, my family got a copy of each new major game console: the Microsoft Xbox Series X and the Sony PlayStation 5. I haven’t yet had time to try them out well, but I know enough to give my first impressions. They are both…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Google Backs from VR Expeditions
Perhaps a bit surprising that Google would move from VR experiences. Does this mean that they are no long exploring advanced VR? Lately have used a number of their web based non-VR Youtube experiences.
Google is shutting…From The Eponymous Pickle
Covid Executive War Game
How accurate, complete? Unclear, but it is useful to see a number of the components involved in a game of corporate management. Interesting too is the Unilever involvement.
Covid-19 'War Games' Program Could Help Save YourReuters…From insideHPC
OpenMP ARB Releases OpenMP 5.1
Austin, TX – November 13, 2020 – The OpenMP Architecture Review Board (ARB) has released Version 5.1 of the OpenMP API. With this release of the standard, OpenMP strengthens its handling of accelerator devices, allows improved…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Microsoft Warns about Dangers of MFA on Phones
From The Eponymous Pickle
Consumer Excitement for New Tech in Pandemic?
Posted earlier in the year. Is this excitement lasting?
Study Shows Consumer Excitement For Drones, Self-Driving Vehicles Has Grown Amid Pandemic By TWICE
U.S. consumers' enthusiasm for autonomous delivery technologies – including…
From ACM-W supporting, celebrating and advocating for Women in Computing
ACM-W North America News
Despite at times feeling like we are at a standstill in 2020, we are excited to see that four new ACM-W Student Chapters have formed. This recognition that needs still remain for women to support other women in the field of computing…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Considering the Graph Database
A useful challenge, in general graphic databases are more indicative of what they show. But they also introduce levels of complexity that has to be understood.
Graph databases are proven architectures for storing data withs…
From insideHPC
Supermicro Liquid-Cooled ‘Ruby’ HPC Cluster Deployed at LLNL for COVID-19
San Jose, November 12, 2020 — Super Micro Computer, Inc. (Nasdaq: SMCI), a maker of enterprise computing, storage, networking solutions and green computing technology, today announced that it has deployed an additional cluster…
From insideHPC
Arm-based ‘Ookami’ Supercomputer Installed at Stony Brook
The Institute for Advanced Computational Science (IACS) at Stony Brook University has installed an HPC system employing the same processor technology as the world’s top-ranked supercomputer, the Fugaku system at the RIKEN Center…
From insideHPC
Where to Go and What to Do at Virtual SC20: These HPC Experts Have Suggestions
As you plan for next week’s Virtual SC20, we thought it would be helpful to ask four HPC industry experts for guidance regarding the sessions, trends, news and other highlights worthy of your attention coming out of what one
…
From The Eponymous Pickle
AI and Generative Design
Nice piece, an excerpt of article and at the bottom a pointer to a NASA example of its use.
AI, Architecture, and Generative Design
Algorithmic Brainstorming for Creative Work
Jonathan Follett and Dirk Knemeyer in TowardsDataScience…From Schneier on Security
Inrupt’s Solid Announcement
Earlier this year, I announced that I had joined Inrupt, the company commercializing Tim Berners-Lee’s Solid specification:
The idea behind Solid is both simple and extraordinarily powerful. Your data lives in a pod that is controlled…From The Noisy Channel
Expanding on Explore-Exploit
A few years ago, I proposed a non-adversarial ad-supported model: an explore-exploit model, applicable to search engines and feeds, that aligns the interests of consumers and advertisers.
This model would treat ads as new, potentially…From Gödel's Lost Letter and P=NP
The Art of Math
Art, history, and controversy Jemma Lorenat is an assistant professor at Pitzer College in Los Angeles. She teaches and does research on the history of mathematics. Today I thought we’d look at some of her work. History of math…
From insideHPC
Quantum Combines Data Management and Storage in New Platform – ATFS
Quantum Corp. (NASDAQ: QMCO) today unveiled its data and storage management platform – Quantum ATFS, the first network-attached storage platform to integrate real-time data classification and insights with the needs of applications…
From The Computing Community Consortium Blog
CCC Quadrennial Papers: Socio-Technical Computing
As part of the rollout of the 2020 Computing Research Associations (CRA) Quadrennial Papers, the Computing Community Consortium) is pleased to publish the third group of papers around the “Socio-Technical Computing” theme. The…
From The Eponymous Pickle
NHS Signs Up for Tim Berners-Lee Pilot to Reinvent Web
Becoming necessary, if only for security, But the design needs to be carefully done to ensure freedom of speech.
NHS Signs Up for Tim Berners-Lee Pilot to Reinvent Web (Paywall)
From Financial Times John Thornhill
The U.K.'s…From BLOG@CACM
How Do You Calculate on the Abacus?
Considering the use of one of the most long-lived calculating devices.
From The Eponymous Pickle
Volcanic Eruption Detection
I like the interaction between drones, sensors, AI and predictive analytics, so although this example is fairly esoteric, there are probably things to learn from it. Adding in some predictive risk analysis would be good as…
From The Eponymous Pickle
New Dash Replenishment Shelf
Alas the Amazon DASH replenishment Button, which we tested for a few years in stores and at homes is gone. We were much into 'ease-of' and automatic replenishment tech in innovation centers and Smart home designs. Well now…
From Schneier on Security
Friday Squid Blogging: Diplomoceras Maximum
Diplomoceras maximum is an ancient squid-like creature. It lived about 68 million years ago, looked kind of like a giant paperclip, and may have had a lifespan of 200 years.
As usual, you can also use this squid post to talk …From Computational Complexity
Recovery
Lance: Perhaps we should do a post-election vidcast--what does it mean for complexity!
Bill: Not sure if you are serious- but I doubt a Biden presidency will either speed up or slow down the proof that P NE NP or anything else…