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
A short film that explores trends in UI, Interaction & Experience Design
The 18 minute “Connecting” documentary, created by Bassett & Partners for Windows Phone Design Studio, is an exploration of the future of Interaction Design and User Experience from some of the industry’s thought leaders. As…
From Putting People First
A new Behavioural Design Lab in the UK
The Warwick Business School and the UK Design Council have launched the world’s first Behavioural Design Lab. The lab aims to bring together the power of design with cutting edge scientific research that Warwick Business School’s…
From Putting People First
Visualising data: seeing is believing
Richard Ingram has posted the transcript of his talk on data visualisation at CS Forum 2012 in Cape Town, South Africa.
From Putting People First
Service design for innovative banking
Chris Brooker recently ran the Service Design for Innovative Banking workshop at the World Usability Day conference in Silesia, Poland, during which he explored how service design techniques can produce unique service ideas for…
From The Female Perspective of Computer Science
The Zombie Game That's Not Really About Zombies
My brother got me a copy of The Walking Dead, which includes all five of the episodes that were previously released separately. He said he got it for three reasons: he likes the associated TV show and wanted to borrow it later…
From The Eponymous Pickle
What is Your Data Telling You?
HP's Saum Mathur:"... For many data scientists, innovation is just out of reach. They might have massive data stores, rich with potential business insights, but their reporting system can’t unlock them. “Traditional reporting…
From Computational Complexity
Book review column
(I am a bit behind on posting links to my book review column- this blog post is about the Third (of four) for the year 2012, and the fourth of four has already appeared. I'll post that one later.) My second-to-last book review…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Future of Shopper Marketing Study
In Progressive Grocer: A study: " ... A study of shopper-marketing trends by Brick Meets Click found that more shoppers are using digital platforms and are willing to share personal data. Looking forward, more digital platforms…
From Schneier on Security
<i>The National Cyber Security Framework Manual</i>
This book is available as a free pdf download:
The National Cyber Security Framework Manual provides detailed background information and in-depth theoretical frameworks to help the reader understand the various facets of National…From The Computing Community Consortium Blog
Upcoming NSF/CISE CAREER Proposal Writing Workshops
The National Science Foundation’s (NSF) Directorate for Computer Information Science and Engineering (CISE) announced that it will hold two one-day CAREER proposal writing workshops in the Spring of 2013. The first workshop will…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Facial and Tattoo Recognition
More on facial recognition, other biometrics and their use in App form by the FBI: " ... What happens when FBI agents are in the field and want to tap into the massive $1 billion facial recognition database? There’s an app for…
From Schneier on Security
Dictators Shutting Down the Internet
Excellent article: "How to Shut Down Internets."
First, he describes what just happened in Syria. Then:
Egypt turned off the internet by using the Border Gateway Protocol trick, and also by switching off DNS. This has a similar…From Computer Science Teacher - Thoughts and Information From Alfred Thompson
Programming With Blocks
Syntax is a royal pain in the neck for beginning programmers. It’s hard to teach both a new (programming) language and a new way of thinking and problem solving at the same time. This tends to be a big stumbling block for teaching…
From Wild WebMink
CDB Not Fit For Purpose
I felt the report from the UK’s Joint Select Committee investigating the draft Communications Data Bill (CDB) needed a tl;dr summary, so wrote one in ComputerWorldUK today.
From The Eponymous Pickle
Shopper Insight
In Retailwire, IBM/DemandTec sponsors an interesting paper: Shopper Insights: Actionable or Academic? An overview of a survey on the topic. Our innovation centers were established in part to fine-tune an understanding of"…
From Computer Science Teachers Association
How I Am Celebrating CSEdWeek
This is Computer Science Education Week (CS Ed Week) i and I have been planning for this since August. This morning, I began my celebration with an audio announcement played over the school's intercom system. You can find the…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Cloud Augmented Reality
A correspondent from Metaio sends along this press release. About their drag and drop augmented reality creation and management software, now usable via the cloud. Particularly useful if you are studying how this might be…
From The Computing Community Consortium Blog
MLB Contest Taps Colleges Students for Tech Ideas
For the third year, Major League Baseball (MLB) has partnered with Syracuse University’s School of Information Sciences to give students real life experience, and the league new ideas for fan engagement. The annual contest provides…
From Schneier on Security
Bypassing Two-Factor Authentication
Yet another way two-factor authentication has been bypassed:
For a user to fall prey to Eurograbber, he or she must first be using a computer infected with the trojan. This was typically done by luring the user onto a malicious…From The Eponymous Pickle
Third Platform
In CIO Insight: Says that enterprise IT will embrace and move to the 'third platform' next year. This was a new term for me, but includes mobile, social, cloud and big data analytics. Quite a big basket of things, that have…
From The Eponymous Pickle
What Hadoop is and is Not
Good take by Mike Madsen. Its about parallel data processing which is very useful for doing analytics quickly with big and volatile data sets. It does not replace analytics methods. I have had a number of conversations recently…
From Daniel Lemire's Blog
A simple trick to get things done even when you are busy
I have been overwhelmed with busy work for the last couple of weeks. Unavoidably, this has meant shorter emails, fewer follow-ups with collaborators and not as much blogging as I would like. I probably missed a few commitments…
From Schneier on Security
Buy Your Own ATM Skimmer for $3000
I have no idea if this is real. If I had to guess, I would say no.
From Computer Science Teacher - Thoughts and Information From Alfred Thompson
Interesting Links 10 December 2012
It’s Computer Science Education Week (CSEdWeek)! Are you celebrating? As part of the celebration I’ll be joining other tech and computing leaders in a CSEdWeek Twitter conversation on Tues, Dec 11 at 6pm ET If you are a Twitter…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Book: The Consumer Mind
In Neurorelay: A review of The Consumer Mind, by Pepe Martinez of Millward Brown. A company we worked with a few years ago in a conference on neuromarketing applications. The book is on my short list, glad to see it brought…
From Wild WebMink
It’s Not Free If It Cost My Liberty
Actually, your download is not "free" if to gain access I have to trade my personal details so you can spam me.— Simon Phipps (@webmink) December 09, 2012
From The Eponymous Pickle
Organizational Storytelling
Colleague Paul Smith is interviewed about organizational storytelling. The other links here provide more resources in this area. " ... A dialogue on the subject of organizational storytelling; narrative as a leadership capability…
From Wild WebMink
Another Cat
My own cat is almost never this animated.
From The Computing Community Consortium Blog
Students – Spend a week with Turing Laureates at the 2013 Heidelberg Laureate Forum
ACM has joined forces with the newly created Heidelberg Laureate Forum to bring students together with recipients of the Abel Prize, the ACM A.M. Turing Award, and the Fields Medal. The first Heidelberg Laureate Forum will take…
From The Computing Community Consortium Blog
Leadership in Science Policy Institute nomination deadline: December 14
Last year, the Computing Community Consortium and CRA’s Government Affairs Committee held the first Leadership in Science Policy Institute. A total of 35 participants attended the institute, which featured a series of presentations…