Communications of the ACM
The blog archive provides access to past blog postings from Communications of the ACM and other sources by date.
February 2014
From The Computing Community Consortium Blog
Nominations Sought for New CCC Council Members
The Computing Community Consortium (CCC) invites nominations for members to serve on its 20-person Council. We are looking for individuals who have ideas, energy, initiative, and time to work with the community and on its behalf…
From Putting People First
How to involve children in the design process?
What are the advantages and challenges inherent in working with children in the design process for creating games or apps? How do you stop them getting bored, and get useful information? This case study by Monica Ferraro (a UX…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Google and Deep Learning
In Technology Review. Google seeking Deep learning. More on the DeepMind acquisition. With some concerns by those doing academic research. And motivation: " ... Companies like Google expect deep learning to help them create…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Bosch and the Integration of Things
In the Forrester Blog: About Bosch making acquisitions to set themselves up for this integration. Worth thinking. Not sure there is enough difference between integration/Internet. The latter only being a means, and we will…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Modeling Vehicle Choice and Simulating Market Share with Bayesian Networks
Via Stefan Conrady of Bayesia: Modeling Vehicle Choice and Simulating Market Share with Bayesian Networks Useful example of the technical application of Bayesian. Downloadable overview whitepaper. See also their latest newsletter…
From Schneier on Security
DRM and the Law
Cory Doctorow gives a good history of the intersection of Digital Rights Management (DRM) software and the law, describes how DRM software is antithetical to end-user security, and speculates how we might convince the law to …
From Schneier on Security
"The Mask" Espionage Malware
We’ve got a new nation-state espionage malware. "The Mask" was discovered by Kaspersky Labs:
The primary targets are government institutions, diplomatic offices and embassies, energy, oil and gas companies, research organizations…From Putting People First
Tricia Wang’s PhD dissertation — Talking to Strangers: Chinese Youth and Social Media
Talking to Strangers: Chinese Youth and Social Media by Tricia Wang Doctor of Philosophy in Sociology, University of California, San Diego, 2013 Professor Richard Madsen, Chair Abstract The sudden availability of social media…
From The Eponymous Pickle
IBM Consumer Study: Value for Data
Consumers want value for personal information. The survey specifics are interesting. " ... A new IBM (NYSE: IBM) study of more than 30,000 global consumers released today at the 2014 National Retail Federation convention…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Sonification Assist for the Blind
Assisting the blind with sonification, changing sensory information to sound. " ... Researchers at Universidad Carlos III de Madrid (UC3M) have developed an assistive technology system that works by sounds which contributesThe…
From Schneier on Security
WISTFULTOLL: NSA Exploit of the Day
Today's item from the NSA's Tailored Access Operations (TAO) group implant catalog:
WISTFULTOLL (TS//SI//REL) WISTFULTOLL is a UNITEDRAKE and STRAITBIZZARE plug-in used for harvesting and returning forensic information from…From The Eponymous Pickle
Internal Social Networks at BASF
BASF's internal network. An area we also worked in the enterprise, and were influenced by both BASF and IBM. Worth a closer look now regarding where they have traveled." ... An industrial company with approximately 110,000BASF…
From The Computing Community Consortium Blog
New DARPA Memex program seeks to develop next generation of search technologies
DARPA’s new Memex program seeks user-defined, domain-specific search of public information, and plans to use its groundbreaking research to fight human trafficking. What makes this a groundbreaking new initiative? Currently web…
From The Computing Community Consortium Blog
NSF Launches Search for Division Director of Information and Intelligent Systems
Farnam Jahanian, Assistant Director at the National Science Foundation (NSF) for the Computer and Information Science and Engineering (CISE) Directorate has sent the following Letter to the Computing Community: Dear Colleagues…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Open Science
Open science and its implications. See Open Science Foundation, and its twitter feed. " ... The Open Science Federation is a nonprofit alliance working to improve the conduct and communication of science. We are open source…
From Schneier on Security
NSA/GCHQ Accused of Hacking Belgian Cryptographer
There has been a lot of news about Bengian cryptographer Jean-Jacques Quisquater having his computer hacked, and whether the NSA or GCHQ is to blame. It's a lot of assumptions and hyperbole, mostly related to the GCHQ attack…
From Computer Science Teacher - Thoughts and Information From Alfred Thompson
Interesting Links 10 February 2014
A lot of people seem the be ready for spring. I’m enjoying the snow in my yard and around the area. Inspired in part by the Winter Olympics going on my family and I went snowshoeing in the woods over the weekend. I’m ok withI…
From Computational Complexity
Superbowl underdogs and overdogs
(Stephen Colbert tells me that NFL guards their copyright of the name of the game they played on Sunday, which is why stores say they have a `big game sale on beer'. I will get around this the same way he does. I hope he doesn't…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Nike Fuel Infographic as a Model
Currently thinking about how a visual could be used to provide an easily scan-able graphic. Consider the infographic as an easy to refer to summary of the data. The details remain for those that want to click through.An example…
From Putting People First
Adam Gopnik: “Why I don’t tweet”
Adam Gopnik, who writes for the New Yorker, has only ever sent nine tweets. In this long BBC article he explains why: ” Everyone insists that the technological transformation of the daily shape of our lives by new gadgets is…
From Putting People First
Move over product design, UX is the future
Rick Wise, CEO of Lippincott, says experience innovation is the next design imperative. Here are five things you can do this year to make that happen. “Today’s enlightened leaders are achieving success by crafting the entire…
From Putting People First
There is no UX, there is only UX
Leisa Reichelt, Head of User Research at the Government Digital Service [GDS] in the UK Cabinet Office, argues that UX belongs everywhere and nowhere. That there is no UX team, but that everyone is the UX team. “At GDS we don…
From Putting People First
A review of Adam Greenfield’s Against the Smart City
Chris Carlsson started reading Adam Greenfield’s new book, Against the Smart City, “with the expectation that it would be a critical view of the ways our urban lives have changed during the past half decade with the massive adoption…
From Putting People First
How Big Brother’s going to peek into your connected home
The tech industry easily convinced the public to accept a myriad of free services for the price of some loss of privacy. But getting them to embrace the smart home is going to be a far harder sell, writes Nick Statt. “A Google…
From The Eponymous Pickle
DARPA Open Catalog of Resources
Brought to my attention, the DARPA open catalog, which links to available computational, analytical and visualization resources. Note mention of XDATA and Big Data resources. Worth a look: " ... contains a curated list ofThe…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Grocery and Twitter
Orlando Publix using Twitter. Good example of simple social media use in physical retail. " .... A year ago this month, Publix realized its customers were already talking about it on Twitter, so it was time to join the conversation…
From The Eponymous Pickle
The Visual Organization
Forthcoming book brought to my attention, an idea we have frequently supported here. For example, see the following post. Look forward to a deeper examination:The Visual Organization: Data Visualization, Big Data, and the Quest…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Get to the Point and the Focus
A long time enterprise goal was to facilitate focus to tasks. Projects like P&G's Business Sphere, starting with earlier work in executive information systems, focused the right data as a means to provide that focus. Fastmakes…
From Gödel's Lost Letter and P=NP
Black Versus White Boxes
What is better than how (?) History of filters source. Wilhelm Cauer was a German mathematician and engineer who worked in Göttingen and the US between the two world wars. He is associated with the term “black box,” although…
From CERIAS Blog
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