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 My Biased Coin
Recent Award for Network Coding
I opened the January issue of IEEE Transactions on Information Theory and saw (what is probably old news to everyone) that Tracey Ho, Muriel Medard, Ralf Kotter, David Karger, Michelle Effros, Jun Shi, and Ben Leong have wonIEEE…
From My Biased Coin
Guest Post: Giorgos Zervas from WSDM, Part 3
I am back from WSDM and I have to say all in all it was a great experience. I think my talk went fairly well although I can see some ways in which it could have been better - especially if I was more experienced in public speaking…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Google Buzz
Google gets a social networking component within Gmail. ' ... Specifically, Buzz has been designed to help users deal with the often massive amount of information they receive through their social networking sites. "Increasingly…
From Computational Complexity
What is an Elementary Proof?
What is an Elementary Proof? Different things in different contexts.
An Elementary Proof is one that does not use Complex Analysis. Basic Calculus is fine. This was the criteria when people asked for an Elementary Proof of…From The Eponymous Pickle
BI Software Making Money
Nice overview piece on business intelligence by Doug Lautzenheiser:BI Software Makes Money Business Intelligence isn't just about seeing how many cans of beans you sold last month. It's about figuring out how to sell even more…
From Schneier on Security
All Subversive Organizations Now Must Register in South Carolina
This appears not to be a joke:
The state's "Subversive Activities Registration Act," passed last year and now officially on the books, states that "every member of a subversive organization, or an organization subject to foreign…From Computer Science Teachers Association
Beginning to Rethink CS Education at NSF
The President released his $3.8 trillion budget on Monday setting off a flurry of activity in the Nation's Capital. The budget sets the Administration's priorities for the big stuff, like how much he wants to spend on education…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Public vs Private Sector Costs
Michigan economist Mark J. Perry continues to be an excellent source for gathering economic data and providing commentary on its implications. Recent post: the relative cost of US public and private sectors. Here is a snippet…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Martin Lindstrom on Personal Branding
Intriguing learnings and video: Look at Me Now! Personal Branding on TODAY Show (Pt 1)New York City. In a world growing increasingly more obsessed by celebrities, we tend to overlook one important fact: as individuals, celebrities…
From Putting People First
New Philips phone for the elderly
Philips reports that its new Lifeline Cordless Phone System has been designed “to enable the frail and elderly to maintain independence, despite their changing physical needs.” “The Philips Lifeline Cordless Phone System is a…
From Wild WebMink
? Leaving a bad taste
From Schneier on Security
Outguessing the Terrorists
Isn't it a bit embarrassing for an "expert on counter-terrorism" to be quoted as saying this?
Bill Tupman, an expert on counter-terrorism from Exeter University, told BBC News: "The problem is trying to predict the mind of the…From BLOG@CACM
Terms of Service, Ethics and Bias
Data mining researchers, application builders, and social scientists want to collect and analyze data about your activities online. But when do we cross the line?
From Computer Science Teacher - Thoughts and Information From Alfred Thompson
New Windows 7 Track on Microsoft
OK so maybe you
From BLOG@CACM
Death and the Digital World
Imagine you’re a parent who has suffered the unthinkable: your child has died. How do you cope with such a traumatic, painful, and disorienting experience? For some parents, information technologies can play an important role…
From BLOG@CACM
Investigating Old Problems in a New Light at CSCW, Day 2
This post will give a summary of one paper each from sessions on Groupware Technologies, the experimental CSCW Horizons, and Everyday Healthcare.
From Putting People First
Designing financial services for the poor
The Institute for Money, Technology and Financial Inclusion (IMTFI) at the University of California, Irvine, headed by Bill Maurer, Professor of Anthropology, aims to foster a community of inquiry and practice on new forms of…
From Schneier on Security
The Limits of Visual Inspection
Interesting research:
Target prevalence powerfully influences visual search behavior. In most visual search experiments, targets appear on at least 50% of trials. However, when targets are rare (as in medical or airport screening)…From The Eponymous Pickle
Chefs, Not Bakers
A collaborator from some time ago, Mark Capper, pointed me to his blog: Chefs Not Bakers. I much like the premise and am adding it to my feed, add it to yours: ... ' This is a blog about entrepreneurship of the high-tech variety…
From The Female Perspective of Computer Science
Networking is Key
Time and time again I find that networking truly is the key to a successful career. It's amazing what kind of opportunities arise because of who you know.During my undergrad years, I never thought that getting a job would have…
From Daniel Lemire's Blog
Trading latency for quality in research
I am not opposed to the Publish or Perish mantra. I am an academic writer. I am what I publish. We all think of researchers as people wearing laboratory coats, working on exotic devices. And my own laboratory includes a one-million…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Intel Monitors Social Networks
Several reports are out about how Intel is monitoring the buzz in social networks regarding their Superbowl ads. This is hardly news, since if I had spent four million dollars on ads I also would have wanted to know how effective…
From U.S. Public Policy Committee of the ACM
Hill Tech Happenings, Week of February 8
February 10
Hearing: The Senate Judiciary Committee will hold a hearing on cybercrime and identity theft. 10 a.m., 226 Dirksen Building
The House Science and Technology Committee will take testimony from Office of Science and…From Wild WebMink
links for 2010-02-08
Good to see SourceForge being responsive here and deciding to take this risk. The draconian US export laws do leave US corporations in an invidious position…
From Schneier on Security
More Details on the Chinese Attack Against Google
Three weeks ago, Google announced a sophisticated attack against them from China. There have been some interesting technical details since then. And the NSA is helping Google analyze the attack.
The rumor that China used a…From Computer Science Teacher - Thoughts and Information From Alfred Thompson
Interesting Links 8 February 2010
Well did you watch the Super Bowl? I confess that I did not. I
From Putting People First
Microsoft Research Social Computing Symposium 2010
For the past four years, Microsoft Research (MSR) has sponsored a symposium on social computing that “brings together academic and industry researchers, developers, writers, and influential commentators in order to open new lines…
From BLOG@CACM
Clay Shirky: Doing Work, or Doing Work?
In a keynote delivered to this year's ACM conference on Computer Supported Cooperative Work (CSCW), author and academic Clay Shirky captured the distinction between work and Work.
From BLOG@CACM
Time Travel Is Now Possible
I will be reporting on two of the sessions I attended this afternoon. One session was on analyzing interactions, which dealt primarily with methods for measuring interactions, and the second was entitled meeting in the middle…
From BLOG@CACM
Paucity to Plethora: Jevons Paradox
I suspect much of computing is still socially conditioned by its roots in computational paucity to recognize fully the true opportunity afforded by computational plethora. Many of us are still wed to a stimulus-response model…