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 insideHPC
Saving East African Crops with Supercomputing
"Because the silverfly species are identical to look at, the best way to distinguish them is by examining their genetic difference, so we are deploying a mix of genomics, supercomputing, and evolutionary history. This knowledge…
From insideHPC
Chalk Talk: What is a Data Lake?
"If you think of a data mart as a store of bottled water – cleansed and packaged and structured for easy consumption – the data lake is a large body of water in a more natural state. The contents of the data lake stream in from…
From insideHPC
Registration Opens for Inaugural Nimbix Developer Summit in Dallas
Registration is now open for the inaugural Nimbix Developer Summit. With an impressive lineup of speakers & sponsors from Mellanox, migenius, Xilinx, and more, the event takes place March 15 in Dallas, Texas. "The summit agenda…
From XRDS
Women Who Paved the Way for the Internet of Things: A Teacher Finds Her Voice
If my story connects with a single person, I will have succeeded. It’s been a busy, challenging, and exhilarating 15 years since, punctuated by a wide variety of significant events for both me and the university. In 2010, I created…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Serious Games Industry News
Newly referenced: Useful read." ... We believe that the current growth of the gamification and serious gaming market is about to accelerate for the following reasons:The Digital Generation which will represent 75% of the workforce…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Google and Real Time Ads
In AdExchanger:" ... Google sounds more and more like Twitter, heralding ways marketers can tap into live events for engagement.As such, the company on Wednesday rolled out a new ad product called Real-Time Ads at a press event…
From Schneier on Security
Tracking Anonymous Web Users
This research shows how to track e-commerce users better across multiple sessions, even when they do not provide unique identifiers such as user IDs or cookies. Abstract: Targeting individual consumers has become a hallmark of…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Ordering Pizza from your Echo
You can now order a Dominos Pizza verbally from your Amazon Echo. No, it won't print/bake it locally yet. The piece in TechCrunch correctly points out that for these add-on 'skills' you need to phrase your order in a specific…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Wharton Pushes Data Science
Note the inclusion of 'Decision' in the new department title. Good move,As tech skills grow in value, Wharton increases focus on data scienceBy Aliza Ohnouna in the Daily PennsylvanianWall Street and Silicon Valley may be 2…
From Computer Science Teachers Association
The Teacher Certification Committee
The Certification Committee is primarily concerned with issues surrounding teacher certification for Computing teachers. Our most recent effort was the publication of the white paper, Bugs in the System: Computer Science Teacher…
From insideHPC
Anton 2 Supercomputer to Speed Molecular Simulations at PSC
Today the Pittsburgh Supercomputing Center (PSC) announced a $1.8-million National Institutes of Health grant to make the next-generation Anton 2 supercomputer developed by D. E. Shaw Research (DESRES) available to the biomedical…
From insideHPC
CCRT in France Acquires 1.4 Petaflop “Cobalt” Supercomputer from Bull
Today Atos announced that the French CEA and its industrial partners at the Centre for Computing Research and Technology, CCRT, have invested in a new 1.4 petaflop Bull supercomputer. "Three times more powerful than the current…
From insideHPC
Video: Bill Dally on Scaling Performance in the Post-Dennard Era
"It was indicated in my keynote this morning there are two really fundamental challenges we're facing in the next two years in all sorts of computing - from supercomputers to cell phones. The first is that of energy efficiency…
From The Computing Community Consortium Blog
NSF CISE 2016 CAREER Proposal Writing Workshop
The following is a guest blog post by Thyaga Nandagopal, National Science Foundation (NSF) Program Director for Computer and Network Systems (CNS). The NSF Directorate for Computer & Information Science & Engineering (CISE)…
From insideHPC
Coarse Grained Parallelism
"MPI is generally a coarse-grained, as the parallelism where MPI is used would be higher up in the algorithm. Using MPI for an application requires a developer to think more about the individual servers and how to distribute …
From The Eponymous Pickle
How IBM Watson Analytics is being used in Business
Good examples in CIO: " ... IBM says Watson represents a new era of computing — a step forward to cognitive computing, where apps and systems interact with humans via natural language and help us augment our own understanding…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Open Source is New Normal for Big Data
A trend I am seeing. In CWorld:" ... It's no secret that Hadoop and Apache Spark are the hottest technologies in big data, but what's less often remarked upon is that they're both open-source.Mike Tuchen, a former MicrosoftThe…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Towards Robotic Self Design
The ultimate in robotic capability. Extensive look at the idea. In CACM: Self-Repair Techniques Point to Robots That Design Themselves By Chris Edwards " ... David Johan Christensen, associate professor at the Technical…
From Computational Complexity
Go Google Go
In 2009 I posted about a surprising new approach that moved computer Go from programs that lose to beginners to where it could beat good amateurs. That approach, now called Monte Carlo Tree Search, involves evaluating a position…
From Schneier on Security
The Internet of Things Will Be the World's Biggest Robot
The Internet of Things is the name given to the computerization of everything in our lives. Already you can buy Internet-enabled thermostats, light bulbs, refrigerators, and cars. Soon everything will be on the Internet: the…
From U.S. Public Policy Committee of the ACM
Nominations for 5th Annual FCC Chairman’s Awards for Advancement in Accessibility
The FCC invites nominations for the 5th Annual FCC Chairman’s Awards for Advancement in Accessibility. The Chairman’s Awards aim to highlight and encourage innovation in accessible technologies, standards, and best practices…
From Computer Science Teacher - Thoughts and Information From Alfred Thompson
Presidential Awards for Excellence in Mathematics and Science Teaching
This announcement went out to CSTA members (and others) this week.This award does include computer science teachers!
The Presidential Awards for Excellence in Mathematics and Science Teaching (#PAEMST) is launching its 2016 Nomination…
From ACM on Huffington Post
Do Computer Scientists Hold the Key to Treating Cancer?
To prepare for that revolutionary leap, we need to draft software experts immediately who can leverage advances in cloud computing and machine learning while protecting patient privacy to start building open-source tools that…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Future of Programming Languages
Robert Martin talks on the past and future of programming languages. Always thought we would be much closer to very visual and service oriented methods by now. Or even completely automated, robotically assembled systems.
From The Eponymous Pickle
Does Gamification Work?
In K@W: A look at the evidence. Everyone agrees that games are engaging, and they can be designed, built and delivered. They can get you to a place where your presence has value. But can the concepts in games be built into…
From U.S. Public Policy Committee of the ACM
U.S. EAC Technical Guidelines Development Committee Will Meet on February 8-9
The U.S. Election Assistance Commission’s Technical Guidelines Development Committee will hold its next meeting on February 8-9 in Washington, D.C. The meeting will provide updates on the development of the next generation of…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Omni Channel Shoppers
Google opines on micro moments. Where these confirmed during the past holidays? " ... Micro-moments are transforming the way consumers shop. Retailers have to win micro-moments to win omni-channel shoppers. .... Google's VP…
From insideHPC
ALCF Celebrates 10 Years of Leadership Computing
This week, the Argonne Leadership Computing Facility (ALCF) turns one decade old. ALCF is home to Mira, the world's fifth-fastest supercomputer, along with teams of experts that help researchers from all over the world perform…
From insideHPC
Video: Mars – A 64-Core ARMv8 Processor
In this video from the 2015 Hot Chips Conference, Charles Zhang from Phytium presents: Mars - A 64-Core ARMv8 Processor. Formed in China in 2012, Phytium is a unique technology provider of HPC servers, focusing mainly on high…
From U.S. Public Policy Committee of the ACM
Hill Tech Happenings, Week of February 1
Tuesday, February 2, 2016 Closed Hearing: Classified Hearing on the FISA Amendments Act House Judiciary Committee 10 am | 2141 Rayburn House Office Building Hearing: Status of the Public Safety Broadband Network House Energy…