Communications of the ACM
The blog archive provides access to past blog postings from Communications of the ACM and other sources by date.
February 2010
From CERIAS Blog
Blast from the Past
Yes, I have been quiet (here) over the last few months, and have a number of things to comment on. This hiatus is partly because of schedule, partly because I had my laptop stolen, and partly health reasons. However, I'm going…
From Computer Science Teachers Association
Analogies in the Classroom
I don't know about you, but when I teach I am constantly using analogies to relate computing concepts to real-world experiences the students are familiar with. Some of these are pretty standard and well known among CS teachers…
From Putting People First
Why can
Why not use the iPhone interface as the basis for a new round of Apple computers? What if Microsoft scrapped the front end of Windows 7 and the troubled Vista OS and moved to the new, elegant interface it is using for its Windows…
From Putting People First
For newspapers to survive, they must put users first
If publications continue to rely on selling advertising to support their costs, how does that serve the audience’s needs? Fast Company provides three ideas for how newspapers can refocus on readers. “If it’s true that readers…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Podcast on Advanced BIS
From the Business Intelligence Network:Teradata and SAS Address the Challenges of Advanced Business AnalyticsRob Berman, Teradata Vice President, and Scott Van Valkenburgh, Director of Global Alliances at SAS, present the top…
From Computational Complexity
Doing it OLD SCHOOL!
If you browse the Univ of MD Schedule Web pages for the last few years I would:
From Putting People First
The Netherlands
Focusing on improving and innovating services is a smart way to foster economic growth. Jeneanne Rae reports from the Netherlands. “Recognizing the need to steer the typical conversation about innovation away from technology…
From Putting People First
Article series on futures thinking
Jamais Cascio, who covers the intersection of emerging technologies and cultural transformation for Fast Company, is in the process of publishing an ‘occasional’ series of articles “about the tools and methods for thinking about…
From Putting People First
Diabetes Innovation Fair videos online
Videos of the November 23, 2009 Diabetes Innovation Fair at the IIT Institute of Design are now on the web. Graduate students presented design innovation proposals from three courses: Platform Strategy, Persuasive Technology,…
From My Biased Coin
STOC Budget Questions
I hate to follow the interesting conversations on FOCS/STOC/SODA (please keep commenting) with the mundane, but Lance forced me asked me to be General Chair for STOC, which means looking over things like the budget. Registration…
From Wild WebMink
links for 2010-02-25
Very welcome - and beuatifully-constructed - from Europe's data protection supremo. While we should not let up…
From Schneier on Security
Small Planes and Lone Terrorist Nutcases
A Washington Post article concludes that small planes are not the next terror threat:
Pilots of private planes fly about 200,000 small and medium-size aircraft in the United States, using 19,000 airports, most of them small.…From Computer Science Teacher - Thoughts and Information From Alfred Thompson
Students to Business Career Streams
Microsoft is doing a number of things to help people enter and grow in technology careers. Yesterday there was a post on Microsoft On The Issues called Microsoft Bolsters Efforts to Create More Opportunity for College Grads about…
From Wild WebMink
Blog Move
With the change from Sun in the UK almost complete, I've decided to move my blog. Please adjust your feed, and read on over at Wild Webmink.
From The Eponymous Pickle
Superbowl Ad Analyses
Sands Research sends along complete rankings and background from their yearly Superbowl Ad study. " ... Leading neuromarketing firm Sands Research announced today that it has completed its annual study gauging the effectiveness…
From The Computing Community Consortium Blog
Want a Job? Major in CS.
Carolyn Duffy Marsan writes in Network World that undergraduate enrollments in computer science are rising significantly at some of the nation’s large CS departments.
From The Eponymous Pickle
In-Store Food Preparation
Some time ago I mentioned the increasing dive for in-store automatic preparation of foods, here in the Chicago Sun Times, the manufacture of snack chips in the store. High margin and shopper engagement with the process . See …
From Apophenia
Empowering Parents & Protecting Children in an Evolving Media Landscape
The FCC published a Notice of Inquiry (NOI) on the important topic of empowering parents and protecting youth in an era of an evolving media landscape.
From The Eponymous Pickle
Convergence of BI and BPM Examined
Holger Kisker in the Forrester blog writes about the convergence of business intelligence and business process management. ' ... When business processes finally become intelligent? Over the past several months I have done a lot…
From Schneier on Security
Remotely Spying on Kids with School Laptops
It's a really creepy story. A school issues laptops to students, and then remotely and surreptitiously turns on the camera. (Here's the lawsuit.)
This is an excellent technical investivation of what actually happened.
This…From Putting People First
Millennials
This report on the values, attitudes, behaviors and demographic characteristics of the Millennial generation was prepared by the Pew Research Center, a nonpartisan
From Putting People First
Luca De Biase, the journalist I translated this morning, continues to add interesting commentary: Excerpts from this post (translated into English): “The Italian sentence on Google says fundamentally that the judges do not consider…
From Wild WebMink
links for 2010-02-24
Remember I mentioned the "Special 301" list yesterday, that US corporations can use to place pressure on places where they find it hard to…
From Schneier on Security
NSA Historical Documents
Just declassified: "A Reference Guide to Selected Historical Documents Relating to the National Security Agency/Central Security Service, 1931
From Putting People First
Google Video: Italian law is complicating the world
This Italian reflection on the Italian Google sentence, written by journalist Luca De Biase (in charge of the N
From BLOG@CACM
Preparing For the DARPA Network Challenge
In late 2009 DARPA held its Network Challenge, a competition designed to see how online social networks could locate 10 red weather balloons moored throughout the continental US. This series describes one team's experiences in…
From Computer Science Teacher - Thoughts and Information From Alfred Thompson
Small Basic is Moving And Other Resources
Small Basic is not part of the Beginning Developer Learning Center. Looks like the whole landing page for the BDLC has been updated as well. Check out the Kids
From The Eponymous Pickle
The Design of Procter and Gamble
I have been reading The Design of Business: Why Design Thinking is the Next Competitive Advantage by Roger L. Martin of the Rotman School of Management in Toronto. The book does an excellent job of introducing you to design concepts…
From My Biased Coin
Guest Post from David Karger
Continuing from my last "controversial" post, David Karger offered the following long comment, turned into a guest post:------------I wanted to post a comment on Mike's FOCS/STOC post, but fittingly for one of the dinosaurs he…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Simplicity is King
Simplicity is the mother of adoption, by Tim McLaughlin. Could not agree more.-