Communications of the ACM
The blog archive provides access to past blog postings from Communications of the ACM and other sources by date.
February 2011
From The Eponymous Pickle
No Successor Signaled at P&G
In Adage: Procter & Gamble's Reorganization Signals No CEO Successor Yet Decision Not to Replace Vice Chairman Steele Speaks Volumes Procter & Gamble Co.'s re-organization in the wake of the impending departure of Vice Chairman…
From The Noisy Channel
Google vs. Bing: A Tweetle Beetle Battle Muddle
Unless you’ve been living in a cone of silence, you’ve probably heard about the epic war of words between Google and Bing. But just in case, here’s a quick summary: Amit Singhal, Google Fellow: “Microsoft
From The Eponymous Pickle
Searching With Privacy
Need to protect what you are searching about? Startingpage claims to keep your searches and IP address private. To try it, click here. Though most people don't seem to care much about the privacy of what they search about…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Whorf on Language
The Whorfian hypothesis (Also called linguistic relativity) came up a number of times as we started to think of product descriptions in many languages. Are translations equivalent? How much so? I recall reading many veryHere…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Treadmill with a Browser
Nice idea. I have been doing more internet browsing on the equipment of late. Perhaps the speed of the interaction should be proportional to the speed of the mill?
From Wild WebMink
links for 2011-02-05
Affirmative action in procurement for open standards and FLOSS This paper asserts what I have heard from many directions – that government procurement remains closed to open source, regardless of the official political policy…
From Putting People First
How video calls are changing our daily life
From deaf people who previously had little use for mobile phones to grandparents wanting to connect with their grandchildren, video calls are changing our lives. Skype is at the forefront of the revolution, but companies including…
From Putting People First
Core77 book review: Living with Complexity, by Donald Norman
The same Robert Blinn who reviewed Jon Kolko’s new book (see previous post), also wrote a review on Core77 on the latest book by Donald Norman: Living with Complexity (also reviewed on Putting People First in December 2010).…
From Putting People First
Core77 book review: Exposing the Magic of Design, by Jon Kolko
Robert Blinn reviewed Jon Kolko’s new book Exposing the Magic of Design (amazon) for Core77: “Kolko’s book is subtitled “A Practitioner’s Guide to the Methods and Theory of Synthesis,” and this reviewer joked that it sounded…
From Putting People First
How do you create hybrid interfaces you touch, talk to and poke?
With so many ways to control our interfaces, from touch to voice, what’s the key to designing for them all? Rob Tannen gives his take on things: “Providing a choice in how to interact with product is not entirely new — for years…
From Putting People First
Rentalship is the new ownership in the networked age
Wired UK has published an article by David Rowan, that was published last month in his tech column in the UK’s Cond
From The Eponymous Pickle
Simulating Worst-Case Scenarios
From the work of Joshua M Epstein at Johns Hopkins. We had connected with him on the topic of 'Generative Social Science', based on his book of the same name. Some very interesting work on modelng systems of people. In particular a…
From Wild WebMink
? Getting Online Abroad
One of the best travel purchases I have made is an unlocked high-speed USB 3G modem. It allows me to get broadband-speed internet access for the duration of each trip abroad for a per-trip price comparable to one night of internet…
From Schneier on Security
Friday Squid Blogging: Reducing Squid Odor
Research from Japan: "Improvement of 'kurozukuri ika-shiokara' (fermented squid meat with ink) odor with Staphylococcus nepalensis isolated from the fish sauce mush of frigate mackerel Auxis rochei."
From Schneier on Security
UK Immigration Officer Puts Wife on the No-Fly List
A UK immigration officer decided to get rid of his wife by putting her on the no-fly list, ensuring that she could not return to the UK from abroad. This worked for three years, until he put in for a promotion and -- during …
From The Eponymous Pickle
Kraft Social Media
Kraft ramps up social media in preparation for the Super Bowl.
From The Eponymous Pickle
Innovation in the West
Colleague Sammy Haroon reports on innovation and entrepreneurism in the West.
From The Eponymous Pickle
Linkedin Skills
I have recently been helping a few people use Linkedin for the first time and have found it complicated to set up the right kind of adaptable presence I think they need. Newly released Linkedin Skills looks like it might help…
From Wild WebMink
links for 2011-02-04
What to Do When You Receive a BSA Audit Letter The very best thing to do is write back and say "you are mistaken, we only use open source software and there is no need for any audit". But if you can't honestly say that, this…
From Schneier on Security
Terrorist Targets of Choice
This makes sense.
Generally, militants prefer to attack soft targets where there are large groups of people, that are symbolic and recognizable around the world and that will generate maximum media attention when attacked. Some…From Computer Science Teacher - Thoughts and Information From Alfred Thompson
Kindergarten Computer Science
Well actually Karen North, an energetic elementary school computer science teacher and a friend of mine, has twice testified before the Texas State Board of Education about the need for more real computer science in grades K-5…
From The Noisy Channel
Got Skills?
Last October, a certain blogger said: LinkedIn needs to implement
From The Eponymous Pickle
Winning in Two Worlds: Supply Chain Adaptability
Very good piece in Wharton about supply chain adaptability:" ... Companies must create adaptable supply chains in a two-speed world that work for both slow- and fast-growing markets -- without sacrificing sales volumes or margins…
From The Eponymous Pickle
US and World Surnames
In the National Geographic, an interactive map of the relative uses of surnames in the US. This is a fun style infographic, but difficult to get specifics from. Related, you can also search for the relative occurrence of surnames…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Thingmagic and 100 Uses of RFID
I talked to Thingmagic about ten years ago, shortly after their creation from work started at MIT, when the enterprise took a close look at the uses of the 'internet of things' in retail. I don't follow this space as closely…
From Wild WebMink
? Rating OpenJDK Governance
I used to be a member of the Interim Governance Board for the OpenJDK project I helped Sun start to host an open source implementation of the Java platform under the GPL. For various reasons, the governance was never fully defined…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Augmented Reality at the Big Game
Junaio and USA Today will be including an example of augmented reality at the Superbowl football game this weekend. This should expose this idea to many people, at least in the US, and could get many more consumers interested…
From Computer Science Teachers Association
A New Direction for CS
This past Tuesday I had the privilege of attending a presentation titled Developing a New National Course in Computer Science presented by Dr. Owen Astrachan of Duke University. The presentation was sponsored by the RISE Network…
From The Female Perspective of Computer Science
Introduction to Educational Games
Last week I did a quick introduction to educational games for our game development club. There is a client who is hoping to give students an opportunity to create some games relating to Canadian history for use on their website…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Procter & Gamble Innovation in Asia
A very good HBR article on the topic. Bruce Brown, P&G's CTO, talks about the challenges of the future for a global company. A number of interesting specifics are addressed.