Communications of the ACM
The blog archive provides access to past blog postings from Communications of the ACM and other sources by date.
February 2013
From The Eponymous Pickle
3D Desktops
More from TED: The next logical step in interface? Or does this go a dimension too far? Even a real desktop is flattened, unless you are dealing with 3D architectural models. It reminds me too of using 3D to present visualization…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Txt Speak as Linguistic Miracle
Ars Technica on a TED Talk. I am still skeptical that our languages will evolve into a simpler, acronym ridden shortening of tokens and meme pointers. The article and talk think that this is emerging art.
From The Eponymous Pickle
Naked Statistics
Part of my role long ago was to explain analytics to executives. That included many things, from analytical methods, predictive systems to statistics. So I was always on the lookout for good introductory books I could handNaked…
From The Female Perspective of Computer Science
What We're Not Doing to Tackle the Women in Tech Issue
Venture Beat recently ran an article about tackling tech's gender problem the right way (according to them, by teaching women to code). Part of the article discusses how initiatives like Hackbright Academy (a 10 week all-female…
From Schneier on Security
The Court of Public Opinion
Recently, Elon Musk and the New York Times took to Twitter and the Internet to argue the data -- and their grievances -- over a failed road test and car review. Meanwhile, an Applebee's server is part of a Change.org petition…
From The Computing Community Consortium Blog
CCC Sponsored Workshop on Extreme Scale Design Automation (ESDA)
The following is a special contribution to this blog from Patrick H. Madden, Associate Professor of Computer Science at Binghamton University. In this blog entry Patrick highlights the CCC-sponsored visioning activity on Extreme…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Social Marketing Analytics
An interesting set of examples, from GE and others: " ... Offloading content development has allowed the company to develop an overarching social media strategy that plays to each platform's strength. Marcum considers Facebook…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Revolutionizing Disease Treatment
Via a social network. Noted in the CACM: Relates to some of my own writings on health care networks, " ... The social network PatientsLikeMe plans to build an open science platform that would aid users in measuring the progression…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Online Grocery Shopping
Interesting connections that are driving the increasing use of online for grocery shopping. " ... According to a Hartman Group report, 18% of households purchased groceries online in the past three months, and the market could…
From Putting People First
How teachers are using technology at home and in their classrooms
A survey by the Pew Internet & American Life Project of teachers who instruct American middle and secondary school students finds that digital technologies have become central to their teaching and professionalization. At the…
From Putting People First
Future Imperfect: Evgeny Morozov vs. Steven Johnson
A couple of weeks ago Evgeny Morozov and Steven Johnson had a very public spat (writers’ favorite kind), prompted by Evgeny’s review of Johnson’s latest book in the New Republic. The result was predictable: two geeky boys with…
From Putting People First
On legitimacy, place and the anthropology of the Internet
In this thoughtful piece for Ethnography Matters, Sarah Kendzior (@sarahkendzior) discusses the ways in which the internet has transformed the relationship between the writer and the people about whom he or she writes. Sarah…
From Putting People First
Computer interfaces: tech’s next great frontier
Since the invention of personal computing three decades ago, how we interact with computers has remained about the same: monitor, keyboard, mouse. Monitors have gotten a bit bigger, keyboards are smaller, and mice are wireless…
From Computational Complexity
Our Government at Work
Barring a surprise deal, the sequester goes into effect tomorrow. NSF Director (and soon to be CMU President) Subra Suresh announced a sequestration impact statement. At NSF, the major impact of sequestration will be seen in…
From Schneier on Security
Brazen Physical Thefts
Three brazen robberies are in the news this week.
The first was a theft at a small museum of gold nuggets worth $750,000:
Police said the daring heist happened between daytime tours, during a 20-minute window. Museum employees…From The Computing Community Consortium Blog
Your ideas needed: Coding is to computer science as X is to Y
Yesterday we posted a link to a terrific new video by code.org extolling the virtues of learning to program. Despite the “learn to code” rhetoric, code.org is really about “computer science is cool” and “let’s make AP computer…
From Computer Science Teachers Association
CSTA Annual Conference News
Planning is well underway for 2013 CSTA Annual Conference, formerly known as the CS&IT Symposium. This year's conference will be held in Quincy, MA (just outside of Boston) on July 15-16. You can check out the program at:
…From The Eponymous Pickle
GMDC
Brought to my attention: GMDC.org " ... GMDC is the premier non-profit global trade association dedicated to serving Health Beauty Wellness and General Merchandise retailers, wholesalers and suppliers. GMDC promotes critical…
From The Eponymous Pickle
CPGs Replace Likes with Call to Action
In Adage: " ... RB, Lever Add Interactive Games, Digital Deals to Online Branding Efforts ... " ... After studying effects of brand advertising on e-commerce sites and elsewhere, the U.S. chief strategy and marketing officer…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Beyond Supermoms
In Adage: CPG starts to advertise without the supermom stereotypes. With some examples from recent Superbowl ads. " ... Advertising's legacy of depicting women in commercials has seemingly veered between two supermom cliches…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Measuring Stress Levels in an Unmanageable World
An insightful piece in the HBR. Which came up in a lunch conversation today. Many of us are managing multiple devices now. Will the number of devices creep upwards or downwards? Do we need device free zones? An unmanageable…
From Schneier on Security
Alan F. Westin Died
Obituary here. His 1967 book, Privacy and Freedom, almost single-handedly created modern privacy law.
From The Eponymous Pickle
Amazon vs WalMart Sales
In Wired: Intriguing comparison between Walmart and Amazon. An indicator for the future? Pointing to new Walmart activities: " ... Walmart recently reported net sales of more than $466 billion for its fiscal year 2013, which…
From My Biased Coin
Discussing STOC 2013 PC with Joan Feigenbaum
Joan Feigenbaum is the Program Committee Chair for STOC 2013, where papers decisions were recently announced; I served as part of the Executive Committee. Joan did an excellent job running the entire process, and experimented…
From Schneier on Security
How Complex Systems Fail
Good summary list. It's not directly about security, but it's all fundamentally about security. Any real-world security system is inherently complex. I wrote about this long ago in Beyond Fear.
From Computer Science Teacher - Thoughts and Information From Alfred Thompson
2013 CSTA Annual Conference Registration Open
Just announced via the CSTA member email system – registration is now open for this summer’s Annual CSTA conference. Some great sessions in the line up. Something for just about everyone in computer science education. Oh andYou…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Cheesecake Factory Restaurant Analytics
The Cheesecake Factory delivers an exceptional brand experience with IBM Big Data analytics http://goo.gl/Mfn5c #IBMPWLCI had yet to see a restaurant application of this type, so it was fun to see the linked to video. I have…
From Daniel Lemire's Blog
Does academic research cause economic growth?
In most developed countries, government massively funds through academic grants, government laboratories, tax credits and research contracts. In Canada, the government loves tax credits. In the US, the government spends about…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Partner World
IBM colleagues inform me that Partner World has started.The agenda can be found here. You can also watch sessions online. #IBMPWLC Lots of interesting work that connects with analytics, will report on some of it here.I see…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Upcoming Free Seminars
I intend to attend these: ... University of Cincinnati's research seminars organized by the Operations, Business Analytics, and Information Systems (OBAIS) department at the Carl H. Lindner College of Business. Please reply to…