Communications of the ACM
The blog archive provides access to past blog postings from Communications of the ACM and other sources by date.
February 2016
From The Computing Community Consortium Blog
Computing Community Consortium at AAAS 2016
The Computing Community Consortium (CCC) is proud to be a part of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) 2016 Annual Meeting this weekend, February 11-15, 2016 in Washington, DC. The AAAS Annual Meeting…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Pinterist Leveraging Deep Learning AI
How Pinterest can better leverage its contentHad thought there was some opening for interesting deep learning based image understanding in Pinterest. To direct our online shopping? Will these systems be able to understand"…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Rethinking BYOD
Recently experienced aspects of BYOD in the enterprise, so this is interesting. True you can now use your smart phone there, But do expect that the enterprise will reach into your devices to secure them in unexpected ways…
From insideHPC
Second Intel Parallel Computing Center Opens at SDSC
Intel has opened a second parallel computing center at the San Diego Supercomputer Center (SDSC), at the University of California, San Diego. The focus of this new engagement is on earthquake research, including detailed computer…
From insideHPC
ExaNeSt European Consortium to Develop Exascale Architecture
In this special guest feature, Robert Roe from Scientific Computing World reports that a new Exascale computing architecture using ARM processors is being developed by a European consortium of hardware and software providers,…
From insideHPC
Video: Theta & Aurora – Big Systems for Big Science
"Aurora’s revolutionary architecture features Intel’s HPC scalable system framework and 2nd generation Intel Omni-Path Fabric. The system will have a combined total of over 8 Petabytes of on package high bandwidth memory and …
From The Eponymous Pickle
Re Emergence of AI in the Enterprise
Seeing this directly and also through increasing queries about what to do next to play. Good overview.Artificial intelligence in the enterprise: It’s on Companies as diverse as Pitney Bowes, General Electric and Twitter are…
From Schneier on Security
10,000-Year-Old Warfare
Evidence of primitive warfare from Kenya's Rift Valley....
From The Eponymous Pickle
Gamifying in the Lumberyard
One of the reasons that gamification is hard to do is that good, engaging games are hard to develop. Thus expensive to create and test and adapt. This prevented us from adequately testing and delivering the idea. Announced…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Supply Chain Management Prorities
In the APQC Blog: Not unexpected view This is a survey to look at expectations. I would have further looked at expectations that technologies, like the internet of things, might influence the supply chain.
From Schneier on Security
The 2016 National Threat Assessment
It's National Threat Assessment Day. Published annually by the Director of National Intelligence, the "Worldwide Threat Assessment of the US Intelligence Community" is the US intelligence community's one time to publicly talk…
From insideHPC
2016 OpenPOWER Summit Announces Speaker Agenda
Today, the OpenPOWER Foundation announced the lineup of speakers for the OpenPOWER Summit 2016, taking place April 5-8 at NVIDIA’s GPU Technology Conference (GTC) at the San Jose Convention Center. The Summit will bring together…
From The Computing Community Consortium Blog
President Establishes a Commission on Enhancing Cybersecurity
President Obama just announced his plan to implement a Cybersecurity National Action Plan (CNAP) that will take near-term actions and put in place a long-term strategy to enhance cybersecurity awareness, protect privacy, maintain…
From insideHPC
Video: Supercomputing at the University of Buffalo
In this WGRZ video, researchers describe supercomputing at the Center for Computational Research at the University of Buffalo. "The Center’s extensive computing facilities, which are housed in a state-of-the-art 4000 sq ft machine…
From The Computing Community Consortium Blog
NSF CISE Distinguished Lecture Series – Erik Winfee
The National Science Foundation (NSF) Directorate for Computer and Information Science and Engineering (CISE) is pleased to announce a distinguished lecture on Wednesday, February 10, 2016 at 2:00 pm EST by Dr. Erik Winfee titled…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Goals for Thermostats in the Smart Home
In the midst of putting together a 'practical smart home'. We experimented with this idea at the innovation centers from 2000 on, and I demonstrated the idea to many people, but always with quite a bit of skepticism. Is the…
From insideHPC
New CFD and Geometry Interfaces in Pointwise Meshing Software
Today Pointwise announced the latest release of its meshing software featuring updated native interfaces to computational fluid dynamics (CFD) and geometry codes. Pointwise Version 17.3 R5 also includes geometry import and export…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Tom Davenport: Beyond Automation ... CSIG Talk
" ... Cognitive Systems Institute Group Speaker Series call this week, on Thursday, February 11, 2016 at 10:30 am ET (7:30 am PT). Our presenter on Thursday will be Tom Davenport, Distinguished Professor at Babson College and…
From The Eponymous Pickle
A Look at Less well Known Visual Tools
Visualization is a key way to understand your data. I believe it is the key first step to any analytics problem. Here a look at a number of tools, many of which I have not worked with. Worth knowing the landscape.
From insideHPC
SURFsara in the Netherlands Upgrades Bull Supercomputer to 1.8 Petaflops
Today SURFsara in the Netherlands announced it will expand the capacity of their Cartesius national supercomputer in the second half of 2016. With an upgrade to 1.8 Petaflops, the Bull sequana system will enable researchers to…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Showing Computers a Better Way to Learn
Interesting view. Still think there is a big gap understanding the hardware, software and algorithms used by the brain. Yet this is a good first step, accurately knowing what happens in a given context. And learning is only…
From insideHPC
HPE to Deliver SGI UV Technology for Mission Critical Solutions
Today, SGI and Hewlett Packard Enterprise announced an agreement in which HPE will OEM the SGI UV technology as the foundation for an 8-socket system – the HPE Integrity MC990 X Server. Extending HPE’s solution portfolio for …
From The Eponymous Pickle
Power of How to Videos
Google on how to videos, pitching YouTube, with as always, interesting stats. I remember the family using a 'how to tie a necktie' in the early days of the Web, left a lasting impression." ... For big projects and small fixes…
From Schneier on Security
Large-Scale FBI Hacking
As part of a child pornography investigation, the FBI hacked into over 1,300 computers. But after Playpen was seized, it wasn't immediately closed down, unlike previous dark web sites that have been shuttered" by law enforcement…
From Computational Complexity
The Moral Hazard of Avoiding Complexity Assumptions
Moshe Vardi's CACM editor letter The Moral Hazard of Complexity-Theoretic Assumptions practically begs a response from this blog. I also encourage you to read the discussion between Moshe and Piotr Indyk and a twitter discussion…
From The Eponymous Pickle
L'Oreal and Programmatic Digital Advertising
We did early work in this area. By analytically matching advertising to predicted outcomes based on costs. Essentially a big data optimization problem. This worked for about a decade, but eventually the idea was outsourced…
From Schneier on Security
Data and Goliath Published in Paperback
Today, Data and Goliath is being published in paperback. Everyone tells me that the paperback version sells better than the hardcover, even though it's a year later. I can't really imagine that there are tens of thousands of…
From insideHPC
Students: Apply for International Summer School on HPC Challenges by Feb. 15
The deadline is just one week away for Students to apply for the International Summer School on HPC Challenges in Computational Sciences. "Graduate students and postdoctoral scholars from institutions in Canada, Europe, Japan…
From insideHPC
Call for Contributions: Hot Chips 2016
hotchipsThe Hot Chips 2016 conference has issues its Call for Proposals. The event takes place August 21-23 in Cupertino, California. "Presentations at HOT CHIPS are in the form of 30 minute talks using PowerPoint or PDF. Presentation…
From The Computing Community Consortium Blog
National Academy of Engineering Elects New Members
The National Academy of Engineering (NAE) has elected 80 new members and 22 foreign members. This brings the total U.S. membership to 2,275 and the number of foreign members to 232. Many of the newly elected members work in fields…