Communications of the ACM
The blog archive provides access to past blog postings from Communications of the ACM and other sources by date.
December 2012
From Putting People First
Understanding electric utility customers
A few weeks back, the Electric Power Research Institute (EPRI) issued “Understanding Electric Utility Customers—Summary Report: What We Know and What We Need to Know.” One simple statement and the rest of this column is digression…
From The Computing Community Consortium Blog
NSF Seeking Proposals for Interdisciplinary Research in Hazards and Disasters (HazardSEES)
The National Science Foundation (NSF) has issued a new solicitation – Interdisciplinary Research in Hazards and Disasters, or HazardSEES – that aims to foster the science and engineering necessary to improve our understanding…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Analytics Magazine
Always useful and practical bimonthly Analytics Magazine. The Nov/Dec Issue. Sample articles:Successfully Operationalizing Analytics by James TaylorA repeatable efficient process for creating and effectively deploying predictive…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Google Maps is Back for iOS
I have been a user of Google Maps since its Beta Days, where tested it for geo data environmental and marketing applications. Now as an iOS phone and tablet user, I was dismayed to see it removed from that environment. Now…
From Computational Complexity
The Fiscal Cliff
Unless the republicans and democrats get a deal before year's end, the country will head over the so-called "Fiscal Cliff" including a budget sequestration that will cause automatic cuts to most federal agencies. This will be…
From Putting People First
The man looking to turn Samsung into a Silicon Valley trendsetter
Samsung is doubling down on technology investments in Apple’s backyard, including two new R&D buildings in Silicon Valley that will house 2,000 staff and a recently announced startup accelerator. Leading this effort is Young…
From Schneier on Security
QR Code Scams
There's a rise in QR codes that point to fraudulent sites. One of the warning signs seems to be a sticker with the code, rather than a code embedded in an advertising poster.
This brings up another question: does anyone actually…From Putting People First
Charles Leadbeater on scaling and system innovation in public services
On 26 November MindLab, the Danish citizen-centric governmental innovation unit, invited Charles Leadbeater for its morning lecture series. Leadbeater, a leading authority on innovation and creativity, talked about scaling and…
From Putting People First
Mark Rettig’s vent on the Connecting movie
Yesterday I plugged Connecting, a short film that explores trends in UI, Interaction & Experience Design. When Mark Rettig watched the video too, he said he would “hesitate to refer friends and family to watch it as an explanation…
From Computer Science Teacher - Thoughts and Information From Alfred Thompson
Hackety Hack for Learning Ruby Programming
This being CSEdWeek (Computer Science Education Week) the social media has been flooded with links to articles, information, great programs for promoting CS education, and other CS educational resources. One of the things I found…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Idea Connection
I was reminded of IdeaConnection recently. A site that connects innovative ideas and their uses. I had the opportunity to chat with them for the enterprise a few years ago.
From The Eponymous Pickle
Business Model Visualization
David Sibbit discusses business model visualization. A topic I love and that he instructed us on during the 1980s. Lots of collaborations, books and even a gamification of the process is discussed. I remember having a discussion…
From The Computing Community Consortium Blog
NBC News Segment on Massively Open Online Courses
Earlier this week, NBC aired a video segment highlighting how Massively Open Online Courses (MOOCs) are transforming education. Professors at universities like Stanford, Princeton and Columbia are now offering online courses…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Demand Planning Secrets of P&G
A recent video and talk by former colleagues. Hardly secrets, which is what the CGT title boasts, but worth looking at for all practitioners of the science and necessarily art. " ... demand planning leaders from P&G candidly…
From Schneier on Security
Detecting Edited Audio
Interesting development in forensic analysis:
Comparing the unique pattern of the frequencies on an audio recording with a database that has been logging these changes for 24 hours a day, 365 days a year provides a digital watermark…From The Eponymous Pickle
Super Networking
Been reading in recent Inc Mag articles recently and found this one by Scott Gerber that was on point. Answering the question: How to I become a value added networker? He calls it a master networker. This is particularly…
From Wild WebMink
Samba 4 As Anti-Trust Remedy
Has Microsoft got a problem? The extensive new features in Samba 4 make it a viable, license-free, security-certified alternative to Active Directory, and make OpenChange a viable alternative to Exchange. What’s more, Microsoft…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Tracking You
I have seen this many times, you shop or search for something online and you start to get lots of offers for more information. In the WSJ: How they Know What you are Shopping For How this works.
From The Eponymous Pickle
Eliminating the Middleman
A way to broker college courses directly from professors to the student. So whats a college for? " .... In yet another step toward democratizing higher education, Straighterline, a pioneering provider of accredited, low-cost…
From Schneier on Security
Drone Flights Over the US
The EFF has been prying data out of the government and analyzing it.
From Putting People First
Helsinki Design Lab: an interview with Brian Boyer
Bryan Boyer is the Strategic Design Lead at SITRA, the Finnish Innovation Fund. SITRA is a prominent example of a public institution that has embraced a design approach to exploring social innovation challenges. Helsinki Design…
From Computer Science Teacher - Thoughts and Information From Alfred Thompson
Call for Proposals Annual CSTA Conference 2013
This call for proposals for the 2012 Annual CSTA Conference went out to members of the Computer Science Teachers Association this week. One doesn’t have to be a member to attend or to present to this conference though. It is,…
From Putting People First
They know what you’re shopping for
Companies today are increasingly tying people’s real-life identities to their online browsing habits. Research conducted by the Wall Street Journal on the practices of more than a thousand websites shows that the border between…
From Putting People First
Can reputation come down to a number?
The idea of a unified reputation currency is starting to take hold online, writes Josh Klein in the blog of the Harvard Business Review. “With broad agreement that reputation is a form of value, and various mechanisms already…
From Putting People First
On Digital Ethnography: mapping as a mode of data discovery
While digital ethnography is an established field within ethnography, we don’t often hear of ethnographers building digital tools to conduct their fieldwork. Wendy Hsu wants to change that. In the first of her four-part guest…
From Putting People First
Welcome to 2020 and 2030
Business Technology 2020 Human-like technology. The potential downfall of the data center. Hyper-personalization of data. These are some of the responses IT leaders gave to us when we asked, “What will business technology look…
From Putting People First
Are we becoming cyborgs?
Also the New York Times is turning up the cyborg theme, but luckily more intelligently than CNN. All the technology and internet use has changed how we interact. But are we also changing what we are? The New York Times put that…
From Putting People First
Designing a carsharing service that can play a truly relevant role in people’s lives
Brand experience agency edenspiekermann_ and Volkswagen’s Service Innovation Team explored what it takes to define a service that would play a relevant role in people’s lives. “We started with: Who are the people that use carsharing…
From Putting People First
Time for a digital hat rack
Though hats have long gone out of fashion, the custom should be a guide for how we adapt to the increasing pervasiveness of personal technology. It’s high time, writes Nir Eyal, that we started doing with our digital devices…
From Putting People First
The “strange” profession of the cyborg anthropologist
CNN features a long article about the unusual new profession of the cyborg anthropologist – featuring a robot hand photo for good measure. But reading the article we find out that “cyborg anthropology is the study of the interaction…