Communications of the ACM
The blog archive provides access to past blog postings from Communications of the ACM and other sources by date.
December 2009
From Computational Complexity
The Probability of P=NP
Dean Foster asked me for a probability that P=NP. Now P=NP is not a probabilistic event, either P=NP or P?NP (if it's independent it's still equal or unequal in whatever model of set theory we happen to live in). So I responded…
From Putting People First
Designing the Intel Reader
In a long article, the people in charge of the Intel Reader discuss the entire user-centred process of designing a new device for the blind or visually impaired which is aimed at making printed matter accessible to millions of…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Open Source in Healthcare
Recently I mentioned a study that said that IT provided few savings in healthcare. Here is a post on a site caled HealthtechTopia: 25 Open Source Software Projects that Are Changing Healthcare. Worth a closer look.
From The Eponymous Pickle
Coke Zero's Facial Matching
A fun little application from Coke Zero, celebrating its similarity to regular Coke, will find people in via Faceback that look similar to you.
From The Eponymous Pickle
New Google Analytics Features
I am just catching up in the newly announced Google Analytics Features, now available to all users. There will be explanatory webinars next week. Although there have been some issues with their legality in Europe. I have not…
From Computer Science Teachers Association
CS Ed Week - How Will You Celebrate?
Cameron Wilson announced CS Education Week in his blog post October 22, 2009. You've had a month to think about it, so what are you going to do to celebrate this week?
My school celebrates everything. In fact, we are just …From Putting People First
Here comes the citizen co-producer
The austere public budgets that will come out of the financial crisis offer, as a silver lining, a renaissance in cooperative citizen engagement in the supply of welfare services, argues Victor Pestoff on Open Economy. “The concept…
From Putting People First
Roger Martin about design thinking (video)
In this video of Make/Think, the recent AIGA Design Conference, Roger Martin, dean of the Joseph L. Rotman School of Management at the University of Toronto, makes the case that businesses can do a better job of innovating if…
From Putting People First
Danah Boyd and Sherry Turkle video interviews
Danah Boyd, a social media researcher at Microsoft Research, and Sherry Turkle, MIT Professor of the Social Studies of Science and Technology, were interviewed for Digital Revolution (working title), an open source documentary…
From The Female Perspective of Computer Science
Cognition All Around Me
Today was the last day of classes for Computers and Cognition, a course that's inspired a couple of posts here, and that I signed up for, for credit, even though it can't count towards my degree (how else was I going to makeAugmented…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Signals from Anti-Social Users
In the Noisy Channel, as mostly a consumer of search technology I have to worry about the bias of search, major and minor, my own needs ... sometimes casual sometimes precise, and the model of the content providers. I always'…
From Schneier on Security
Sprint Provides U.S. Law Enforcement with Cell Phone Customer Location Data
Wired summarizes research by Christopher Soghoian:
Sprint Nextel provided law enforcement agencies with customer location data more than 8 million times between September 2008 and October 2009, according to a company manager…From My Biased Coin
Tight Thresholds for Cuckoo Hashing via XORSAT
As I promised sometime back, we now have a paper (up on the arxiv) giving the thresholds for cuckoo hashing, a problem that had been open and was part of my survey (pdf) on open problems in cuckoo hashing.One interesting thing…
From The Noisy Channel
Search User Interfaces and Data Quality
One of the many things I’ve enjoyed in my first few weeks of working at Google is the opportunity to talk with many people who care about user interfaces and think about HCIR. Indeed, some of the folks working on “more and better…
From Computational Complexity
Congrads to new ACM fellows
Congrads to ALL of the ACM Fellows which were annouced here.
There are several theorists among them. I could try to list them or count them; however, the term theorist is not that well defined so I'll pass.
I wonder if any…From The Eponymous Pickle
How Advertising Works
From Steve Genco of Lucid Systems: ' .... Derren Brown is a British
From The Computing Community Consortium Blog
A Report on the Discovery and Innovation in Health IT Workshop
The CCC co-sponsored and co-organized the Discovery and Innovation in Health IT Workshop in San Francisco on October 29 and 30, 2009 (http://www.cra.org/ccc/healthit.php ). The Discovery and Innovation in Health IT Workshop was…
From BLOG@CACM
Security and Privacy Issues on Internet Social Networks
Last month most Internet users in Colombia were shocked with the case of a young girl who was murdered by a couple of young guys who used the girl's profile to track where she lived.
From Computational Complexity
17x17: Comments on your comments
One of the comments on my last post, the 17x17 post, inquired if I am also interested in the other unknown grids (17x18, 18x18, 21x10, 21x11, 21x12, 22x10). I AM. In fact, Brad Larson emailed me a 4-coloring of 21x10. Here it…
From Putting People First
Smart tools to reduce our impact on the environment
The latest issue of UPA’s UX Magazine is devoted to sustainable design, and one of the articles is by Experientia. In their contribution, Experientia collaborators Michele Visciola, Erin O’Loughlin and Irene Cassarino reflect…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Executive Decisions: Goals and Metrics
In InformationWeek, good article and case study:" ... The terms "scorecard" and "dashboard" are often used interchangeably, but there's an important distinction. Scorecards are all about tracking against defined metrics, and…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Global Innovation Marches on
Lots of interesting details in this report:Booz & Company's 2009 edition of the Global Innovation 1000 report finds large R&D spenders are keeping the pace when it comes to developing new products and services despite fiscal'…
From Schneier on Security
The Security Implications of Windows Volume Shadow Copy
It can be impossible to securely delete a file:
What are the security implications of Volume Shadow Copy? Suppose you decide to protect one of your documents from prying eyes. First, you create an encrypted copy using an encryption…From The Eponymous Pickle
Procter Anthropologist Finds Worldwide Traits
An article in the Cincinnati Enquirer on the work of Andrew Manning, P&G anthropologist. P&G finds worldwide consumers share traits.
From The Eponymous Pickle
Suggesting Alternative Spending
Not surprising, but some ot the details are interesting:Suggesting Alternative Ways to Spend Affects Consumers' Purchase Decisions ' ... It
From The Eponymous Pickle
Computer Science in a Conceptual Age
Intriguing piece in CACM on how the game industry is requiring more skilled programmers that in the past would have gone to industrial research labs. I would also like to see CS departments work on how to use the concepts behind…
From Schneier on Security
Fingerprinting RFID Chips
This research centers on looking at the radio characteristics of individual RFID chips and creating a "fingerprint." It makes sense; fingerprinting individual radios based on their transmission characteristics is as old as WW…
From Putting People First
Our misguided focus on brand and user experience
If there is a future for designers and marketers in big business, it lies not in brand, nor in
From Computational Complexity
Who Pays for Trips?
If Professor Alice at Faber College visits Dr. Bob at the University of Southern North Dakota, who should cover Alice's expenses? It depends on who does the asking. If Bob invites Alice to visit then Bob's school or grant should…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Discovering Patterns in Data
Blog discovered: Neoformix: Discovering and Illustrating patterns in Data. Some interesting visualization examples, including most recently, exploring the 9/11 pager data and H1N1 data analysis. Nicely done.