Communications of the ACM
The blog archive provides access to past blog postings from Communications of the ACM and other sources by date.
December 2014
From U.S. Public Policy Committee of the ACM
Senate Confirms Three Commissioners To The Election Assistance Commission
For several months the Election Assistance Commission (EAC) has been without any Commissioners. In December the Senate confirmed three nominees as Commissioners: Thomas Hicks, Matthew Masterson and Christy McCormick. This marks…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Judea Pearl Keynote Address
Keynote Lecture at the 2014 BayesiaLab User ConferenceSeptember 23, 2014, Los Angeles, CaliforniaFrom Bayesian Networks to Causal and Counterfactual Reasoning a talk by Judea Pearl.Registration required.
From The Eponymous Pickle
Chief Analytics Officer
The Ultimate Big Data job? I don't know many of these positions around. The article does a good job in describing what they could be. Also a look at the differences between Chief Data and Chief Analytics Officer, but there…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Open Source Code not always Safe
In CWorld: Very good points made here about the use of software libraries. Ran into exactly this problem a little while ago. Just because everyone can see the code does not mean they have incentive to carefully check it. Good…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Choose the Right Innovation Method
In the HBR: " ... In the industries plagued by the most uncertainty, how do companies hold on to their ability to innovate? And how do they achieve, and keep, an innovation premium in the market?We found that managers who help…
From Schneier on Security
More Data on Attributing the Sony Attack
An analysis of the timestamps on some of the leaked documents shows that they were downloaded at USB 2.0 speeds -- which implies an insider. Our Gotnews.com investigation into the data that has been released by the "hackers"…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Computing Breakthroughs in AI
Technology Review outlines technology breakthroughs in artificial intelligence. 2014 has been a very big year. We are starting to see real applications in practice, though many are still avoiding the term AI itself. It has…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Donald Knuth on the History of Computing
In CACM: Stanford Prof Donald Knuth is a hero to many of us who grew up during the real emergence of computing, to the point that most every person uses it personally every day. He spent much time systematizing it as a science…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Supermarkets, Customers and Big Data
In Information Week: Looking at how well companies understand their customers." ... It's no coincidence that supermarkets and banks, which have not just the technology but the expertise to utilize their databases effectively…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Stream Computing
Systems, devices, and people now generate vast streams of data. How do we understand that data in real time?" ... Remember the blackout during Super Bowl XLVII in February 2013? Nabisco certainly does. The company that makes…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Hyundai's Exobaby
A virally spreading video a car Ad about a baby covered by a exoskin by Hyundai. This conceptual video demonstrates robotic assistance capabilities for humans. Most of the time these ideas are show with military applications…
From Computer Science Teacher - Thoughts and Information From Alfred Thompson
My Favorite Teaching Tools from 2014
This is the year I got serious about doing things differently in my class. Three tools really helped me out. Yes they are all from Microsoft and part of me really wants to be angry with the company for reasons that are outside…
From Daniel Lemire's Blog
How to learn efficiently
I am convinced that much of the gap between the best college students and the worst is explained by study habits. Frankly, most students study poorly. To make matters worse, most teachers are incapable of teaching good study…
From The Eponymous Pickle
From the Tubingen Machine Learning Summer School
A little late, but quite a rich set of resources, slides and quality video.The Machine Learning Summer Schoolat the Max Planck Institute for Intelligent Systems, Tübingen, GermanyVia Kirk Borne.
From The Eponymous Pickle
Computing What Looks Good and Fits
Have been involved in virtual makeover projects in retail since the 80s. And have seen attempts to take this beyond just how things look, to see if we can understand if a piece of clothing will fit via some virtual model. AIn…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Advances in Domestic Robotics
Will this be the era of robots beyond the Roomba? Cooperating with both us and our smart homes? Still have not seen real evidence. In the Daily Mail.
From The Eponymous Pickle
Changes in the Nature of Design
In Radar: Have always worked on the periphery of design, adding analytics as it was requested, but usually after the product development fact. It has always been been talked how we could link the two closely, but rarely done…
From The Eponymous Pickle
The Banburismus Process and Joan Clarke
After seeing and reviewing the movie about Alan Turing movie: The Imitation Game, I took my research obsession to looking further at Joan Elisabeth Clarke, Turings sometime fiance, and colleague at Bletchley Park during WWII…
From Wild WebMink
Digital Life Clippings – Christmas Break Edition
Originally posted on Meshed Insights & Knowledge:Police called to remove pre-teens just in case they pirated Hunger Games movie with cellphones – Ars Technica – Given the storyline of the movie, this is ironic. Cineworld thinks…
From Computational Complexity
2014 Complexity Year in Review
Theorem of the year goes to 2-Server PIR with Sub-polynomial Communication by Zeev Dvir and Sivakanth Gopi. In Private Information Retrieval you want to access information copied in multiple databases in a way so that no database…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Demise of the IT Department
In BaselineMag: My view: CIOs are moving from technology based solutions to services. Demand will still continue to rise, but results will be more carefully positioned and measured. I believe that this will mean that the solutions…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Apple and IBM Create Foundation Apps
These look mostly like mega-tasks in the form of Apps. Mostly data based. Would like to see a selection of them that are more strongly cognitive powered. Have we considered how they might be linked together as tasks that form…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Apple and IBM Want to Energize Enterprise Software
In Forbes: This relates to the set of sample Apps written to address specific enterprise tasks. (Will be updated)" ... This partnership has the potential to both energize the software that IBM sells to its customers and the…
From The Eponymous Pickle
CDC Seeks New Data Toolkit
Seeking a data toolkit:" ... WHAT: A request for information on data analysis and visualization by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention ...A new project called Data Collation and Integration for Public Health Event…
From The Eponymous Pickle
CPG and Social Media
In Mediapost: " ... Good or bad, the social efforts of CPG brands tend to inspire the strongest consumer responses, according to Kate Dunham, a content marketing specialist.“More than any other industry we’ve investigated, CPG…
From Schneier on Security
Leaked CIA Documents
I haven't seen much press mention about the leaked CIA documents that have appeared on Wikileaks this month. There are three: The CIA review of high-value target assassination programs, classified SECRET, from 2009. The CIA's…
From Computer Science Teacher - Thoughts and Information From Alfred Thompson
Looking Back on The Blog Posts of 2014
Last week was Christmas and I spent very little time online and did not collect a lot of good links. So with the end of the year is just around the corner I thought I would take a look back at the last year according to statistics…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Data Lakes are Data Swamps
In CACM: Have been involved in a number of re-architecture problems for the enterprise, and I generally agree. Lakes have docks and roads running around and through them. Swamps grow up around and within spaces depending their…
From The Eponymous Pickle
An Independent Thinking Mind
In Future of CIO: by Pearl Zhu. Is it a mindset that you want? What will you achieve by having this? " ... independent thinking includes "not depending on the authority of others for forming an opinion." ... Making up your…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Turning Skin Cells in Stem Cells
Learning more. Brought to my attention by Kilan Dill: A company that can make it happen: Stemgenics. " ... Stem cells can grow and develop into any cell type of the body. They are not rejected, but are accepted by the body as…