Communications of the ACM
The blog archive provides access to past blog postings from Communications of the ACM and other sources by date.
February 2012
From Computer Science Teacher - Thoughts and Information From Alfred Thompson
Interesting Links 20 February 2012
Happy President
From The Eponymous Pickle
Commercial Drones
I read an article recently about a commercial drone being shot down. Then this NYT article about how commercial drones are now allowed in general. Heard of unintended circumstances? Sounds scary. " ... A new federal law,Federal…
From The Eponymous Pickle
QR Codes for a Timeclock
Colleague Walter Riker sends along an interesting application for QR codes. Using them as a contactless time and attendance system. Simple idea. See the Timestation Site.
From The Eponymous Pickle
Floating Cities
Mark J Perry points us to markets in floating cities. And the Seasteading Institute. Floating pioneer cities for everyone. Designed to inspire communities around the world, wet and dry, to live together.
From Wild WebMink
? LibreOffice Video
Loved this new video that introduces LibreOffice in an easy and understandable way. It would be great to have some more LibreOffice videos like this and I know there are folk reading this who could make them – how about it?
From The Eponymous Pickle
CMapTools
On concept maps, which were much used in the enterprise: " ... Concept maps are graphical tools for organizing and representing knowledge. They include concepts, usually enclosed in circles or boxes of some type, and relationships…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Informs Business Analytics
I see that several former colleagues of mine are speaking at the upcoming Informs Business Analytics conference. (April 15-17, Huntington Beach, CA) Check out the schedule and speakers at the link. It is sometimes overlooked…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Accenture Tech Vision
A general but well put view of our tech technical future by Accenture." ...This next revolution will differ from previous disruptions. This time, technology is present in every aspect of our lives. The lines between consumer…
From Writing
Got slow download but fast upload speeds over wireless? Here's a fix.
If you find that your wireless download speeds are abysmal while your uploads speeds are pretty solid, especially with Apple devices, I've got a possible solution for you. I struggled with this issue for a while and decided to…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Braille-Like Texting Using One Finger Gestures
A prototype App developed at Ga Tech to allow texting via a touch screen. Includes video." Georgia Tech researchers have designed a texting solution that could become a modern substitute for passing notes under the table.…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Target Analytics: Bridging the Uncanny Valley
Predictive analytics at Target. Target can tell you about some intimate health details of the purchasers of goods in its stores and reveals it knows this information by sending out coupons. As others have suggested, this is…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Big Data a Magnet for Startups
In CNet: " ... Armies of entrepreneurs are trying to make money sifting through mountains of data from the Web and other sources, but one of the biggest challenges is simply getting control of the data in the first place…
From The Computing Community Consortium Blog
NSF/CISE Holding CAREER Proposal Writing Workshops
The National Science Foundation’s (NSF) Directorate for Computer and Information Science and Engineering (CISE) has announced that it will hold two workshops later this spring to help young faculty prepare CAREER proposals. The…
From The Eponymous Pickle
P&G Launches Childrens Safe Drinking Water Facebook Site
As reported in on the P&G Alumni site. Connect here. " ... We are pleased to announce that the P&G Alumni Network has a complimentary, additional way to raise awareness and help diminish the global water crisis while reducing…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Apps as Smartphone Spyware
Good piece on the ACM outlining how many smartphone Apps are spyware. Disappointing that this is not revealed upfront. Is it part of what we should expect for free Apps?
From Schneier on Security
Friday Squid Blogging: Squid Desk Lamp
Beautiful sculpture.
As usual, you can also use this squid post to talk about the security stories in the news that I haven't covered.
From The Eponymous Pickle
Pharmacy on a Chip
In ComputerWorld:' ... Researchers at MIT have developed what they're hoping will be something of a pharmacy on a chip. Scientists have developed a wirelessly controlled and programmable microchip that can be implanted into…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Twitter Ad Platform
From The Eponymous Pickle
Brands American Women and Men Desire Most
In Forbes: From a study by Buyology Inc, a former collaboration of mine:" ... According to the second-annual study just released by Buyology, a strategic neuromarketing firm, and uSamp, a provider of technology and survey respondents…
From Daniel Lemire's Blog
Bitmaps are surprisingly efficient
Imagine you have to copy an array, and update a few values in the process. What is the most efficient way implementation? Let us look at a concrete example. I am given this array: 0,5,1,4,5,1,10,4. I want to create a new array…
From Schneier on Security
What Is a Suspicious-Looking Package, Anyway?
Funny comic.
From The Eponymous Pickle
Book Bundling
David Carr on book bundling. An interesting case of combining digital and physical content together. Not much different than providing a site for a book to provide updates and a place for corrections and comments.
From The Eponymous Pickle
QR Codes vs Mobile Visual Search
Are QR codes days numbered? The suggestion that MVS will take over from them soon is suggested. People have just become trained in using MVP, so I doubt it. They still have to know there is something there, and the QR is…
From Computational Complexity
People solve math problems for the prize money! NOT!
Why do people or organizations offer Prize Money for mathematics? Paul Erdos: He offered money to solve problems that he found interesting. I assume he wanted them solved but he also wanted to encourage a line of research…
From BLOG@CACM
Most Smartphone Apps Are Spyware
Why does this flashlight app use an Internet connection? Why does this Bible quotes app want my location data? Why does this game want my contacts list?
From Putting People First
Why personas are critical for content strategy
The most popular content strategy tools borrow from the discipline of information architecture, but there is one invaluable tool that is imperative to the process of strategy and implementation of tactics that we can thank our…
From Putting People First
World IA Day 2012 keynote talks
World IA Day 2012 is about bringing the Information Architecture community together, and the first ever World IA Day, which took place on 11 February, featured keynote presentations by Peter Morville, Lou Rosenfeld and Jorge…
From Computer Science Teacher - Thoughts and Information From Alfred Thompson
How To Start A Computer Science Flame War
Computer Scientists and computer professionals who may not think of themselves as
From Schneier on Security
Self-Domestication in Bonobos and Other Animals
Self-domestication happens when the benefits of cooperation outweigh the costs:
But why and how could natural selection tame the bonobo? One possible narrative begins about 2.5 million years ago, when the last common ancestor…From The Eponymous Pickle
Mobile Payments Not a Game Changer Yet
In Knowledge @ Wharton: Thoughts in advance of the March Pay-Pal phone wallet acceptance at Home Depot. The uptake is still very small for the US consumer. What will it take for more general acceptance of the smartphone wallet…