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 The Eponymous Pickle
Thinkvine Partners with Acxiom for Optimization
Longtime collaborative vendor Thinkvine has announced their partnership with Acxiom. They present an interesting purpose in simulation terms. More of this should be done in business: " ... Acxiom will use ThinkVine
From The Eponymous Pickle
Business Intelligence Without Rules
On business intelligence without rules. Sometimes yo can formulate specific rules defining a business process, but sometimes you are better off using individual cases about how a process performs. We used both in the enterprise…
From Computer Science Teachers Association
Dates for Data?
It's high school. It's Valentine's Day. The air is thick with hormones. But just as important as x's and o's are 1's and 0's. As a part of the CS Principles pilot this year I have struggled to make the curriculum engaging and…
From Schneier on Security
Cryptanalysis of Satellite Phone Encryption Algorithms
From the abstract of the paper:
In this paper, we analyze the encryption systems used in the two existing (and competing) satphone standards, GMR-1 and GMR-2. The first main contribution is that we were able to completely reverse…From The Eponymous Pickle
Searching Without Tracking
Mashable reports on a new search engine that uses novel methods to remove any tracking from your searching. Search privacy. " ... Stealth is a search engine that does not store cookies, track IP addresses or save search
From Writing
Seven Languages in Seven Weeks: Prolog, Day 3
After a rocky day 2 of Prolog, I'm back for a 3rd day in my Seven Languages in Seven Weeks series of blog posts.Prolog, Day 3: ThoughtsToday, I got to see Prolog flex its muscles. After just 2 days of using the language, we were…
From My Biased Coin
Advantages of a Bigger Class
I'm several weeks into the super-sized class this semester. Mostly, I find it's going fine -- indeed, there are some advantages, I'm finding, to the larger class size.1) Student participation. While I'm sure the fraction of…
From The Computing Community Consortium Blog
LIVE Video Today: The Impact of NITRD
Beginning at 8:15am EST today, we will be streaming live via the web
From Schneier on Security
Lousy Random Numbers Cause Insecure Public Keys
There's some excellent research (paper, news articles) surveying public keys in the wild. Basically, the researchers found that a small fraction of them (27,000 out of 7.1 million, or 0.38%) share a common factor and are inherently…
From Putting People First
GE infographics offer hints about future of data-driven management
A pair of remarkable projects created by Ben Fry (co-developer of Processing) and his company Fathom may seem like simple marketing, but one day soon could enterprise software look like this? “The point is, as the data we produce…
From Putting People First
Why user experience is critical to customer relationships
User experience is a priority that should, in some way, find a home within the design of any new-media strategy, writes Brian Solis. “The reality is that the relationship businesses hope to have with customers through these new…
From Putting People First
What the demise of Flash means for the user experience
Adobe
From Computer Science Teacher - Thoughts and Information From Alfred Thompson
National STEM Video Game Challenge TweetChat
The National STEM Video Game challenge kicked off a couple of months ago but it starting to come down to the wire. IF you missed the spring deadline for the Imagine Cup you can still enter this event though.
Inspired by the …
From Putting People First
Increasing privacy infringement on the Internet has set off a campaign to uphold the
From The Eponymous Pickle
Innovation for a Smarter Planet Mind Map
I have been examining a number of styles of knowledge and concept maps for a project. Discovered this interesting example in the mind map library Biggerplate. It is called: Innovation for a Smarter Planet with Andy Stanford…
From The Female Perspective of Computer Science
Life as a Professor
Systers just started a 'best of' blog that highlights useful conversations that have happened on the popular mailing list for technical women. The first post, Life as a Professor, is all about what being a professor is like,…
From Schneier on Security
Dumb Risk of the Day
Joanne Kuzma of the University of Worcester, England, has analyzed photos that clearly show children's faces on the photo sharing site Flickr. She found that a significant proportion of those analyzed…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Key Developments in Integrated Retailer Marketing and Merchandising
In the IBM smarter commerce blog. A post that relates directly to the DemandTec acquisition. It extends beyond to the 'social' integration and communications all the way back to the manufacturer of retail products sold and…
From Computer Science Teachers Association
New Programs from Google
Google is looking for excellent educators to teach as part of its Computing and Programming Experiences (CAPE) Summer program. Faculty will be an integral part of CAPE Summer's programming and students success over the summer…
From The Eponymous Pickle
P&G Seeks More Discontinuous Innovation
From The Eponymous Pickle
IBM Announces Completion of DemandTec Acquisition
Announced today. The integration of the DT abilities into IBM's Smarter Commerce effort makes much sense. Looking forward to see the details of how it will all integrate together. I have followed DT here since their first…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Gartner Quadrant on Business Intelligence
Good recent view of the business intelligence market " ... In 2011, business users continued to exert significant influence over BI decisions, often choosing data discovery products in addition to…
From Computational Complexity
Sloans and More
The Alfred P. Sloan Research Fellows were announced today including Northwestern's own Nicole Immorlica. Other winners in theoretical computer science include Xi Chen, Nate Foster and Prasad Raghavendra. A shout out to TTIC who…
From Schneier on Security
The Sudafed Security Trade-Off
This writer wrestles with the costs and benefits of tighter controls on pseudoephedrine, a key chemical used to make methamphetamine:
Now, personally, I sincerely doubt that the pharmaceutical industry has reliable estimates…From My Biased Coin
Using Piazza
My TAs forced me to "get with the program" and use Piazza as our mechanism for student questions. In the past I've simply used a central e-mail address that got forwarded to all the TAs (and me); questions sent there would…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Exploring the Brain of the Consumer
Just now completing a read of Neuromarketing: Exploring the Brain of the Consumer. by Leon Zurawicki of the University of MassachusettsI had the pleasure of chairing a session with Professor Zurawicki at the Neuroconnections…
From Computer Science Teacher - Thoughts and Information From Alfred Thompson
Microsoft Developer Day: Entertainment Reimagined
From The Eponymous Pickle
Power Outlets that Can Control Use
A development by Sony. This looks good, but also limits some of the expectations we have grown to expect from readily accessible power outlets. Not unexpected direction as electricity moves closer to the general standard for…
From The Eponymous Pickle
SAP Labs AI Exec Joins Saffron Technology
Reported Today. I have now had to pleasure of working with Dr. Hofmann several times in AI related applications .... " Saffron Technology, Inc., a privately held big data software analytics firm, announced the appointment…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Hunting Advertising
Making advertising something you have to hunt for. A game dynamic of a different kind. Changes the context of a space to engagement rather than just pasted on ads.