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 Schneier on Security
Friday Squid Blogging: Recreational Squid Fishing in Washington State
There is year-round recreational squid fishing from the Strait of Juan de Fuca to south Puget Sound. A nighttime sport that requires simple, inexpensive fishing tackle, squid fishing-or jigging-typically takes place on the many…
From The Computing Community Consortium Blog
NSF/Intel Partnership on Visual and Experiential Computing (VEC) Program Webinar
The National Science Foundation (NSF) Directorate for Computer Science and Engineering (CISE) in partnership with Intel announced a joint funding opportunity called Visual and Experiential Computing (VEC), aimed at fostering …
From Schneier on Security
Incident Response Webinar on Thursday
On 12/18 I'll be part of a Co3 webinar where we examine incident-response trends of 2014 and look ahead to 2015. I tend not to do these, but this is an exception. Please sign up if you're interested....
From The Computing Community Consortium Blog
NSF Algorithms in the Field Webinar
Recently, the Computing Community Consortium (CCC) posted an article about Algorithms in the Field (AitF) a new program in the Directorate for Computer Science and Engineering (CISE) at the National Science Foundation (NSF). …
From The Eponymous Pickle
Google Lets Devices Commune
In NetworkWorld:" ... A new Google project aims to create nothing less than an open standard for the entire “Internet of Things,” which the company’s Chrome team is calling the Physical Web. ....The idea is to create a comparatively…
From Schneier on Security
Who Might Control Your Telephone Metadata
Remember last winter when President Obama called for an end to the NSA's telephone metadata collection program? He didn't actually call for an end to it; he just wanted it moved from an NSA database to some commercial database…
From Computer Science Teacher - Thoughts and Information From Alfred Thompson
Dot and Dash–My New Robots
I got some robots the other night. Dot and Dash come from Wonder Workshop which is a Kickstarter project I backed. That is Dot on the right and Dash on the left in the picture below.
Right now I am programing them using aBlockly…From Computer Science Teacher - Thoughts and Information From Alfred Thompson
International 3D Game Creation Activity for CSEdWeek
I saw this on the CSTA mailing list this morning. Looks like fun.
A collaboration between the University of Colorado, USA, Tecnológico de Monterrey, Mexico, and the University of Applied Sciences and Arts, Nordwestern Switzerland…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Cognitive Advising Veterans
Finally got a bit closer look at this effort. A good example of an advisory system. Announced this past July. " ... IBM and USAA announced Wednesday that IBM Watson is taking on the challenge of advising US military personnel…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Infrastructure for Data Driven Science
A very good direction, working with infrastructure is often more complex than it should be.Laying the groundwork for data-driven scienceNSF announces $31 million in awards to develop tools, cyberinfrastructure and best practices…
From Schneier on Security
Comments on the Sony Hack
I don't have a lot to say about the Sony hack, which seems to still be ongoing. I want to highlight a few points, though. At this point, the attacks seem to be a few hackers and not the North Korean government. (My guess is that…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Biologically Inspired Design
Attended a talk today in the Cog Sci Institute on the status of work being done at Ga Tech on Biologically Inspired design, or Biomimicry. Given by Prof. Ashok Goel Most often examples in this space look at how designs in…
From BLOG@CACM
Yet Another Major Data Breach, But Will This Time Be Any Different?
Why is our community having such an anemic response to all of these major data breaches? What can we do differently? What should we be doing differently?
From The Computing Community Consortium Blog
CCC BRAIN Workshop: Research Interfaces between Brain Science and Computer Science
Early pioneers of computing such as Alan Turing, John Von Neuman and Herb Simon were fascinated by the possibility of computing opening a window into our understanding of the brain, and how understanding the brain might advance…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Seeing More Bad UX
It seems like I have been experiencing increasing numbers of bad user experiences lately. ComputerWorld writes about the bad UX in Apps. New standards need to be created and broadly applied.
From Computational Complexity
The Ethics of Saving Languages
The linguist John McWhorter wrote an NYT opinion piece entitled Why Save a Language? where he argues why we should care about saving dying languages, basically that language gives us a window into culture. As a computer scientist…
From Schneier on Security
Not Enough CISOs to Go Around
This article is reporting that the demand for Chief Information Security Officers far exceeds supply: Sony and every other company that realizes the need for a strong, senior-level security officer are scrambling to find talent…
From The Eponymous Pickle
A History of Boston Computing
Part one of an article on the early history of computing technology in the Boston area. As the piece suggests, it's often forgotten after the emergence of personal technologies in Silicon Valley. So this is positioned as a…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Re examining Analytics 3.0
In the HBR. by Thomas Davenport. This 2013 article suggested that analytics 3.0 would put us in an era of data enhanced analytics offerings. Worth re reading his proposed definition of 3.0. Are we there today? Not yet…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Drone Photography
BBC examples of stunning drone photography. Shows how the point of view is being extended into the third dimension for still photography. Impressive shots.
From U.S. Public Policy Committee of the ACM
Federal Spending Bill – What’s in the ‘Cromnibus’ for Tech Policy?
The House last night released the $1 trillion “Cromnibus” bill to fund the government through September 2015. It combines an omnibus spending bill for 11 of the 12 annual appropriations bills for FY 2015 and a continuing resolution…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Internet of Things Heating Up
In Knowledge@Wharton: Good overview of the current state of the IOT. " ,,, Stories about the Internet of Things — everyday objects that have been upgraded to send and receive data — are growing ever more common in the media…
From My Biased Coin
Stress, Continued: Jobs
Continuing from last post, I aim to focus on some of the issues related to stress in academia. Today's post will be related to stress and the nature of academic employment.The most stressful issues I can think of in academia…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Future of Cognitive Computing
A video view of the future of cognitive computing in Japan. With an emphasis about the cognitive interaction between people and devices. In the retail and food service and financial sectors. Very nicely done. A strong assumption…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Multi Sided Platforms
Was unaware of this classification. Here a working paper on a choice model for this approach. " ... There is growing interest in the economics of multi-sided platforms (MSPs), which-like eBay, Uber, and Xbox-get two or more…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Skills and Practical Considerations for Data Science
On the must have skills for the data scientist. A pretty good overview, including some information about where to get more detail. I will emphasize: Either direct experience in the use of business data in that business sector…
From Schneier on Security
Effects of Terrorism Fears
Interesting article: "How terrorism fears are transforming America's public space." I am reminded of my essay from four years ago: "Close the Washington Monument."...
From The Eponymous Pickle
Why BI Projects Fail
In Infoworld: Interesting review piece, bottom line its always about focusing on the business need. If you don't know that clearly, you cannot fix it.
From Daniel Lemire's Blog
The Smartest Kids in the World: stories from Finland, Poland and South Korea
I have always been interested in what makes us smart. So I read Amanda Ripley’s The Smartest Kids in the World in almost a single sitting. She is a good writer. The core message of the book is simple and powerful. Entire countries…
From The Female Perspective of Computer Science
An Update on Our CS2 Experiment with C++ and Java
Back in September, I reported on an experimental course design I was trying out for our CS2 class. The main idea was to start with C++ and slowly transition to Java so that we could use the explicit nature of C++ to better understand…