Communications of the ACM
The blog archive provides access to past blog postings from Communications of the ACM and other sources by date.
December 2013
From The Eponymous Pickle
Contacting Me
There have been a big increase in comments sent to this blog lately. I approve all comments, usually within 24 hours. Comments MUST add to the topic, or will be ignored. I also cannot ensure that anything from 'anonymous'…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Qualcomm Gimbal Developer Network
Includes technical specifications and explanatory video:Context Aware (Gimbal)The Gimbal™ context aware and proximity platform utilizes geofencing, micro-location, interest sensing, beacons enabled with Bluetooth® Smart technology…
From Putting People First
Saving the lost art of conversation in the age of the smartphone
Megan Garber of The Atlantic interviews (alternate link) Sherry Turkla, a psychologist and a professor at MIT whose primary academic interest—the relationship between humans and machines—is especially relevant in today’s networked…
From Putting People First
Solving problems for real world, using design
Formally the Hasso Plattner Institute of Design at Stanford University, the D.school has made a global impact by encouraging students to find out what is most useful. Nicole Perlroth reports in The New York Times. “At the heart…
From Putting People First
The anthropology of Big Data
The anthropology of an equation. Sieves, spam filters, agentive algorithms, and ontologies of transformation Paul Kockelman This article undertakes the anthropology of an equation that constitutes the essence of an algorithm…
From Putting People First
The epistemology of Big Data
In addressing the insecurities of postmodern thought, Big Data falls prey to some of the same issues of interpretation, writes Michael Pepi in The New Enquirer. More in particular, Pepi points out that “the conditions that generated…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Road to Xavier Gamification for Student Engagement
Gamifying student experience. Local Xavier University is using gaming dynamics to engage both Candidate students and Freshmen to the experience of the University. Nice example of dynamic gamification using badges.In Cinci.com…
From Putting People First
How do e-books change the reading experience?
Mohsin Hamid and Anna Holmes discuss in the New York Times Book Review how technology affects our reading habits. Mohsin Hamid argues that in a world of intrusive technology, we must engage in a kind of struggle if we wish to…
From The Computing Community Consortium Blog
Where will the internet go in 2014?
On December 30, 2013, John Markoff wrote an article in The New York Times, titled Viewing Where the Internet Goes. He takes a brief look back at what happened with the internet in 2013, primarily related to Edward Snowden and…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Criticisms of Big Data
Some good cautions and criticisms of the big data world. Instructive piece that is worth a read. " .... in the race to unlock this promise, many enterprises now find they have more data than they are capable of handling.…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Jobs in an Always-on World
In Adage: Time to Reinvent Job Structures to Survive an Always-On WorldMarketing Is About Making Your Brand as Relevant as Possible, and Now You Need to Do It in Real TimeHow do you keep your brand relevant in today's "always…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Quantum Co-Acceleration
More on D-wave quantum computing, which we have followed for some years. There remain very difficult analytical problems that we need computer speed to solve routinely. " ... quantum computers are best suited for other types…
From Schneier on Security
More about the NSA's Tailored Access Operations Unit
Der Spiegel has a good article on the NSA's Tailored Access Operations unit: basically, its hackers. The article also has more details on how QUANTUM -- particularly, QUANTUMINSERT -- works.
Another article discusses the various…From Computer Science Teacher - Thoughts and Information From Alfred Thompson
A Look Back on 2013’s Posts
Time for an end of the year look back on the posts from 2013. I was trying to decide if I should just report on the most read posts or do the work to list my favorite posts. Enough people recommended that I do both in some way…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Appliance Makers and the Internet of Things
More on the Internet of Things consortium, connecting appliances:" ... Home appliance makers connect with open source 'Internet of things' projectThe AllSeen Alliance is working on an open source framework that it says can be…
From The Eponymous Pickle
MindMeld Again: Focusing Employee Work
Early this year I mentioned MindMeld, which was meant to monitor your conversations and give helpful advice. Now MindMeld is here as an App. We looked to methods like this to help focus employee work. The focus ended up being…
From Computer Science Teachers Association
CSTA Awards Chapter Advocacy Mini Grants
Recently, CSTA completed the first round of CSTA chapter advocacy mini grants. These mini grants were given to local chapters for activities focusing on affecting public policy at the state or local level. Successful mini grants…
From Computer Science Teacher - Thoughts and Information From Alfred Thompson
Interesting Links 30 December 2013
Not a lot to share this week. Last week was Christmas and I spent a lot less time on the Internet than usual. However if you are looking for a few interesting things including some videos take a look below.
From Gödel's Lost Letter and P=NP
The Winner Is…
Our selections for best results of the year Terry Gilliam is the director of the movie The Zero Theorem. This science fiction film came out just this past year, 2013, but completes a dystopian trilogy with Gilliam’s amazing 1985…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Smart Watch from Qualcomm
I have been watching companies like Qualcomm and their activities outside of the typical. Posts on that here. Now new report on their Smartwatch capability in Engadget. (A promotional post, but it provides details of interest)…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Discovery Driven Prototyping
In Computing Now: An area we examined. Here an abstract of the paper at the link:" ... A new prototyping technique uses discovery-driven prototypes to let users control what they can and would like to do with new technologies…
From The Computing Community Consortium Blog
National Academies Workshop: Training Students to Extract Value from Big Data
The National Academies Board on Mathematical Sciences and their Applications is sponsoring a workshop on Training Students to Extract Value from Big Data, hosted by the Committee on Applied and Theoretical Statistics of the National…
From Schneier on Security
Joseph Stiglitz on Trust
Joseph Stiglitz has an excellent essay on the value of trust, and the lack of it in today's society.
Trust is what makes contracts, plans and everyday transactions possible; it facilitates the democratic process, from voting…From Daniel Lemire's Blog
When delegating… consider quality, maintenance and learning
John Cook provides some valuable advice today about when to delegate. An important point he raises is that doing a per-hour analysis makes little sense since human beings are not simple machines. For example, delegating low-pay…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Invisibility Ideas Discussed
Because invisibility captures the public imagination, and the physical approach can be readily described, it has gathered some intense discussion. Obvious and scary military and law enforcement implications. New Scientistits…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Digital Taste Buds
A long time interest that we explored with several research groups. Virtual taste has huge implications. Was relevant when we were still selling foods. It also linked to related work in generating aroma. In Fast Company…
From Computational Complexity
2013 Complexity Year in Review
The complexity result of the year goes to The Matching Polytope has Exponential Extension Complexity by Thomas Rothvoss. Last year's paper of the year showed that the Traveling Salesman Problem cannot have a subexponential-size…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Interactive Time Geographic Data Visualization
I like this very simple example of how to visualize time based geographic data. An example in the Tableau Public Gallery. Click on it and play with the interaction. " .... Graham Douglas of The Economist shows us how food…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Machine Learning Mastery
I was just reminded of the blog Machine Learning Mastery, which gives technical but non mathematical advice about machine learning. Most recently an item about improving learning results by getting information from multiple…
From The Eponymous Pickle
IBM Predicts Smarter Things
Not unsurprising. Technology trends IBM has been touting through their excellent 'smarter' series. Most interesting are the links embedded as examples. We all want things to be smarter, making any one of them better helps"…