Communications of the ACM
The blog archive provides access to past blog postings from Communications of the ACM and other sources by date.
December 2010
From Schneier on Security
Open Source Digital Forensics
A good resource.
From Computer Science Teacher - Thoughts and Information From Alfred Thompson
CS&IT 2011
The Computer Science Teachers Association sent out a call for proposals for the Annual CSTA Computer Science & Information Technology Symposium (for 2011) today. This year the event will be expanded in length and will be held…
From Putting People First
Designing (for) women
AIGA has uploaded the videos of the 2010 Gain conference. Erica Eden, senior industrial designer at Smart Design, and co-founder at Femme Den, was one of the speakers with her talk “Designing (for) Women: Bridging the Gap Between…
From Putting People First
Untangling the web with Aleks Krotoski
How has the most revolutionary innovation of our time – the internet – transformed our world? What does it mean for the modern family? How has it changed our concepts of privacy? Of celebrity? Of love, sex and hate? These are…
From Putting People First
Happiness doesn
A survey of developed and developing countries suggests citizens’ sense of wellbeing does not rise with increasing wealth. “Getting richer does not make a country happier in the long run, according to the largest-ever review…
From The Eponymous Pickle
mCosm Facebook Page
I see that mCosm, who worked with us in the enterprise and innovation centers and has been written about a number of times in this blog, now has a Facebook page. " ... mCosm delivers a variety of innovative and high impact, consumer…
From The Female Perspective of Computer Science
Rejected From CHI and I Feel Fine
I remember seeing a non-zero amount of grumbling last year when acceptance notifications for CHI came out. In particular, those who were rejected listed all kinds of reasons why the process was broken. Well, I got to join the…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Visualizing 500 Million Facebook Members
In the BBC, an article on visualizing all of the world facebook connections. What is driven home here is the impressive density of the connections world-wide. Also, The original facebook article on the visualization with many…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Maps for That: Crowdsourcing Your Mind
Mindjet a vendor of mind mapping software that I have successfully used in the past, has come out with a map sharing site called Maps-for-that. Nice idea. The maps need to be based on Mindjet MindManager, which you can download…
From Schneier on Security
Realistic Masks
They're causing problems:
A white bank robber in Ohio recently used a "hyper-realistic" mask manufactured by a small Van Nuys company to disguise himself as a black man, prompting police there to mistakenly arrest an African…From The Eponymous Pickle
Library Science Blogs
Brought to my attention for some work I am doing regarding cataloging and classification: 50 Excellent Library Science Blogs Worth Reading.
From The Eponymous Pickle
iPads and Archaeology
Doug Lautzenheiser gives another example of iPad usage, in one of my favorite areas of interests, Archaeology. As a means of simply gathering information as one moves through a space. Not too much different from gathering information…
From The Computing Community Consortium Blog
Reminder: PCAST to Release NITRD Review on Thursday
As previously noted in this space, on Thursday, December 16th at 2:15 p.m. EST, the President’s Council of
From Computer Science Teachers Association
Lady Gaga and Computer Science
Recently I heard a British author on the radio lamenting that the world is more obsessed with what Lady Gaga wears (I would think it probably goes beyond her clothes!) than that the oceans are dying. How to turn that around? …
From Schneier on Security
Evan Kohlmann
Interesting profile of Evan Kohlmann:
Evan Kohlmann spends his days lurking in the darkest corners of the Internet, where jihadists recruit sympathizers from across the globe. He has testified in over two dozen terrorism trials…From Computer Science Teacher - Thoughts and Information From Alfred Thompson
Free E Books from Microsoft
I “borrowed” this list from the Microsoft UK Higher Education blog (Free Microsoft ebooks) Most of these I have linked to in the past but it is nice to have a good list of them in one place. Most are fairly technical but some…
From Wild WebMink
Cloud Risks Article Available
My article on learning from the Wikileaks experience and managing the risks of cloud computing is now available in the Essays section.
From Putting People First
Internet users say, Don
Most Americans don’t want to be tracked on the Internet and are unwilling to trade their privacy for web ads that are tailored to their interests. So suggest the results of a USA TODAY/Gallup Poll of Internet users conducted…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Vinimaya Introduces New Capabilities
I have mentioned the Vinimaya virtual marketplace package in this blog a number of times. Talked to them about their system. A number of new capabilities have been introduced: Vinimaya recently announced general availability…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Google Latitude App
Introduced for the IPhone, the Google Latitude App. What this does is share information about the locations of friends that permit it. Obvious applications for social connections. But also has a potential for work groups that…
From The Eponymous Pickle
QR Codes as Magnet for Shoppers
A short Phil Lempert article: QR Codes as a Magnet for Tech Savvy Shoppers with some excellent examples:"Supermarkets will soon have a potentially powerful way to merchandise with relevancy to tech-savvy shoppers - think Millennials…
From U.S. Public Policy Committee of the ACM
White House Issues Federal IT Reform Plan
Last Thursday the national Chief Information Officer (CIO), Vivek Kundra, issued an implementation plan for reforming federal information technology. It's a very detailed effort, and some parts of the plan will require Congressional…
From Schneier on Security
Proprietary Encryption in Car Immobilizers Cracked
This shouldn't be a surprise:
Karsten Nohl's assessment of dozens of car makes and models found weaknesses in the way immobilisers are integrated with the rest of the car's electronics. The immobiliser unit should be connected…From Schneier on Security
Sometimes CCTV Cameras Work
Sex attack caught on camera.
Hamilton police have arrested two men after a sex attack on a woman early today was caught on the city's closed circuit television (CCTV) cameras. CCTV operators contacted police when they became…From Computational Complexity
Math- Old School
In the last month we have reported on NEW RESULTS by Williams, Katz and Guth, Sanders, and Pinkerton and Setra. For a change of pace lets look at some really OLD math from a really OLD book- the Bible. (NOTE- this has nothing…
From Putting People First
Out of our brains
Andy Clark, professor of logic and metaphysics in the School of Philosophy, Psychology, and Language Sciences at Edinburgh University, Scotland, wonders whether devices like iPhones and Blackberries are actually becoming extensions…
From Putting People First
The internet and the
As part of a new CNN series on internet and the end of privacy, John D. Sutter reflects on the world of public living — where most everything about a person’s habits, location and preferences is just a few clicks away. “As people…
From Putting People First
Designing for collaborative consumption
Michelle Thorne, international project manager at Creative Commons, spoke at TEDxKreuzberg on Designing for Collaborative Consumption. She posted her slides and speaking notes online. Important characteristics of Collaborative…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Antikythera Mechanism in Legos
A very sharp correspondent points me to the post on the fastcodesign site about building a model of the Antikythera mechanism using legos. Watch an Apple Engineer Recreate a 2,000-Year-Old Computer Using Legos I have written…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Self Service Business Intelligence
ComputerWorld article on self service business intelligence. Low cost, easy to use tools are becoming more common. " ... It's all about helping business users collaborate and make faster decisions with complex information ..…