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 CERIAS Blog
You’re invited!
Four days -- two major events!
The 15th Annual CERIAS Security Symposium
Purdue University, March 26-27, 2014
We're living in a time of transition. Cyberthreats are increasing and becoming more sophisticated, victimized organizations…From CERIAS Blog
You’re invited!
Four days -- two major events!
The 15th Annual CERIAS Security Symposium
Purdue University, March 26-27, 2014
We're living in a time of transition. Cyberthreats are increasing and becoming more sophisticated, victimized organizations…From CERIAS Blog
You’re invited!
Four days -- two major events!
The 15th Annual CERIAS Security Symposium
Purdue University, March 26-27, 2014
We're living in a time of transition. Cyberthreats are increasing and becoming more sophisticated, victimized organizations…From The Eponymous Pickle
IrezQ America Smartphone Sensors for Travel Safety
I see that my correspondent Art Caisse was the founder of and is now the executive chairman of IrezQ-America. The smartphone app automatically contacts emergency services and personal contacts when it detects an accident, based…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Expanding Paths to Online Grocery
Online grocers. An area we watched closely. It worked then, but selectively. Has the corner turned? Article contains some good current examples." ... As online grocers become bigger players in the grocery industry, many companies…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Rise of Wikidata
In Computing Now. Introduced to the idea a year ago. Worth a further look. Using Wikipedia data for a centralized source of structured public data makes much sense. " ... Wikipedia was recently enhanced by a knowledge base…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Real and Virtual Worlds and the Proteus Effect
I covered virtual worlds extensively in this blog in the past. In particular how they could be used to simulate real work interactions. See previous posts on that. We experimented in many such spaces, but that diminished in…
From Schneier on Security
Friday Squid Blogging: Radioactive Giant Squid Washes Ashore in California
And the real story.
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
Self Destructive Electronics
IBM win a contract to research the topic. I recall this idea being discussed before the need became more critical. " ... The military wants to use self-destructing technology for devices such as environmental or health monitoring…
From Schneier on Security
TRINITY: NSA Exploit of the Day
Today's item from the NSA's Tailored Access Operations (TAO) group implant catalog:
TRINITY (TS//SI//REL) TRINITY is a miniaturized digital core packaged in a Multi-Chip Module (MCM) to be used in implants with size constraining…From Schneier on Security
Another Fake NSA Codename Generator
Generate your own fake TAO implant. This is even more fun than the fake NSA program generator.
Sadly, the NSA will probably use these to help develop their R&D roadmap.
From The Eponymous Pickle
Natural Language Processing in the Enterprise
We worked with Stanford on a number of natural language processing oriented problems, including the Talking Mr. Clean effort. I note that a number of the spin offs that came from Stanford no longer exist, at least in the same…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Discomfort as Innovation
In Innovation Excellence: I don't see it as the key to innovation. Yet it is not by itself a bad sign. Some discomfort is always a sign that any change has been made.
From Daniel Lemire's Blog
The rise to power of computer scientists
Want to become CEO of a major technology company? Consider the background of the hot CEOs of the hour: Amazon: Jeff Bezos has a degree in electrical engineering and computer science. Apple: Tim Cook got a degree in industrial…
From The Computing Community Consortium Blog
NSF CISE Distinguished Lecture: The Future of Computing-Mediated Research and Innovation
UPDATE: Due to the potential storm affecting the DC Metro region, this lecture has been postponed. The National Science Foundation (NSF) Directorate for Computer and Information Science and Engineering (CISE) is pleased to announce…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Kurzweil Reviews the Movie Her
An AI view. Now beyond Minority Report, and with shades of Siri. Is this where we are headed? It does provide an interesting structure to think about how we deal with devices. Have not seen it as yet.
From The Computing Community Consortium Blog
Robotics and The Sochi 2014 Olympic Winter Games
In anticipation of the Sochi 2014 Olympic Winter games, the National Science Foundation (NSF) has partnered with NBC Learn to feature the “Science and Engineering of the 2014 Olympic Winter Games.” The series highlights the physics…
From Computer Science Teachers Association
Are We Preparing Our Children?
From Schneier on Security
SWAP: NSA Exploit of the Day
Today's item from the NSA's Tailored Access Operations (TAO) group implant catalog:
SWAP (TS//SI//REL) SWAP provides software application persistence by exploiting the motherboard BIOS and the hard drive's Host Protected Area…From The Female Perspective of Computer Science
Interactive Storytelling in Games: Next Steps
Last night I gave a lecture for our undergrad society on some of the more interesting recent developments in interactive storytelling, along with a preview of my own thesis work. Below are my slides. Interactive Storytelling…
From Apophenia
“It’s Complicated” is dedicated to Peter Lyman
As people start to get copies of my book, I want to offer more context to the brief dedication at the front of the book. “It’s Complicated” is dedicated to my beloved advisor, Peter Lyman, who passed away before I finished my…
From The Computing Community Consortium Blog
Mozilla Foundation, National Science Foundation and US Ignite announce Partnership for Gigabit Community Fund
The Mozilla Gigabit Community Fund was announced on February 6, 2014 as a partnership between the Mozilla Foundation, the National Science Foundation (NSF) and US Ignite. The Community Fund will support local innovators in Chattanooga…
From The Eponymous Pickle
iBeacon and Shopping Behavior
In Mashable: More looks into location based shopping information. With some obvious comments: " ... Will consumers embrace Apple and iBeacon's nearly frictionless in-store buying process and "I'm aware you're there" in-store…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Hangout for the Enterprise
Although I have now tested Google+ Hangouts a number of times, have never tried to work with it under enterprise constraints. A new service permits greater connectivity, but it is relatively expensive.
From Computational Complexity
Favorite Theorems: Connecting in Log Space
We start the favorite theorems with a result that might surprise many is still less than ten years old.
From The Eponymous Pickle
Big Data as Your Doctor
A very obvious conclusion, it was understood in the AI hype of the late 80's. But we didn't have all the hardware or software in place to make it happen. You gather information from steadily increasing number of medical sensors…
From Schneier on Security
Dispute Resolution Systems for Security Protocols
Interesting paper by Steven J. Murdoch and Ross Anderson in this year's Financial Cryptography conference: "Security Protocols and Evidence: Where Many Payment Systems Fail."
Abstract: As security protocols are used to authenticate…From The Eponymous Pickle
Facial Encoding by Millward Brown
I was reminded about Millward Brown by this article in Neurorelay. I met with a number of their people at a conference in Poland now a number of years ago. They write: " ... Millward Brown (global research agency specializing…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Surveillance Generating Big Data
In Computing Now: More data, now what do we do with it? " ... Big data continues to grow exponentially, and surveillance video has become the largest source. Against that backdrop, this issue of Computing Now presents five…
From Computer Science Teacher - Thoughts and Information From Alfred Thompson
Are We Going To Learn How To Do That?
The other day I was demonstrating some things to my programming students. We’re at the very beginning of a new semester and students are learning the very basics. We were doing a simple exercise to help students understand how…