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 Putting People First
UX methodologies for pharmaceutical companies
PMLiVE, the news site for the pharmaceutical industry, is quite outspoken on the need for UX and customer experience methodologies in the pharmaceutical industry. Here are some recent posts: A five-step plan for patient-centred…
From insideHPC
Podcast: John Gustafson on What’s Next for Parallel Computing
In this podcast from Radio New Zealand, John Gustafson from the A*STAR Agency for Science, Technology and Research discusses parallelism and high performance computing. Gustafson is the father of Gustafson’s Law, which gives …
From The Computing Community Consortium Blog
CCC Council Member Shwetak Patel Named Extraordinary Early-Career Scientist by President Obama
President Obama has named 105 researchers recipients of the Presidential Early Career Awards for Scientists and Engineers. This is the highest honor bestowed by the United States Government on science and engineering professionals…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Google Cloud Vision for Image Tagging
Spent quite a bit of time looking at at the problem of recognizing and tagging images for marketing applications. It turned out to be a key requirement for systems that deal with asset and engagement management. So this announcement…
From Wild WebMink
Joining The Document Foundation Board
At the end of 2015 I was honoured to be elected to serve as a director of The Document Foundation — the charity that develops LibreOffice — for two years. The new Board commenced yesterday, February 18 and immediately started…
From Schneier on Security
Security Implications of Cash
I saw two related stories today. The first is about high-denomination currency. The EU is considering dropping its 500-euro note, on the grounds that only criminals need to move around that much cash. In response, Switzerland…
From Computer Science Teacher - Thoughts and Information From Alfred Thompson
LitDev (little developer) extension for Small Basic
People using Small Basic may be interested in the LitDev (little developer) extension for Small Basic. They add a lot of functionality to the language and open up a lot of possibilities. The LitDev (little developer) extension…
From The Eponymous Pickle
GE's Big Bet on Data and Analytics
MIT Sloan: GE’s Big Bet on Data and AnalyticsSeeking opportunities in the Internet of Things, GE expands into industrial analytics.February 18, 2016 by Laura Winig.GE has bet big on the Industrial Internet — the convergence of…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Whats a Security Graph?
So whats a security graph? " ... Data visualization is a booming segment of the big data job market, and it’s found an obvious foothold in security. The requirement of data visualization in job descriptions has increased in…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Mind Palaces
The topic of Mind Palaces have come up often as plot points on memory problem oriented TV programs. Could you have ever guessed there were many of these? How can a human effectively remember large volumes of data? The…
From Daniel Lemire's Blog
Things you have probably not seen coming…
The world changes but we often do not pay attention. Did you see these changes coming? Paper dictionaries being good as door stoppers and not much else. Major conservative newspapers stopping the presses and being solely available…
From The Computing Community Consortium Blog
Global City Teams Challenge Tech Jam March 22-23!
The Global City Teams Challenge Tech Jam date has been set! It will take place at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) campus in Gaithersburg, MD on March 22-23, 2016. The Tech Jam will provide opportunities…
From insideHPC
GE & DOE Partner on HPC4Mfg Projects
Today GE Global Research announced that it has been awarded two projects under the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) High Performance Computing for Manufacturing (HPC4Mfg) Program. Teams of Global Research experts will work with…
From insideHPC
SC16 Student Volunteers Program now Accepting Applications
Applications are now being accepted for the Student Volunteers Program at the SC16 conference. As the premier international conference for high performance computing, networking, data storage and analysis, SC16 takes place Nov…
From insideHPC
Advanced Hands-On OpenCL Tutorial To Kick-Off IWOCL 2016
Registration is now open for the Advanced Hands-On OpenCL Tutorial at the IWOCL 2016 conferernce. The tutorial focuses on advanced OpenCL concepts and is an extension of the highly successful "Hands on OpenCL" course which has…
From insideHPC
HPC Podcast Looks at Intel’s Pending Distribution of Python
In this HPC Podcast, Don Kinhorn and Chris Stevens from Puget Systems discuss the boom in FPGAs at SC15 as well as Intel’s announcement that the company is going to maintain a build of Python. "Python is a pretty important programming…
From Putting People First
By studying underserved communities, Microsoft wants to improve UX for everyone
August de los Reyes came to a new understanding of design after thinking about (and experiencing) disability. Disability, writes Cliff Kuang (who interviewed him), is “an engine of innovation simply because no matter what their…
From insideHPC
Changes Afoot from the HPC Crystal Ball
In this special guest feature from Scientific Computing World, Andrew Jones from NAG looks ahead at what 2016 has in store for HPC and finds people, not technology, to be the most important issue. "A disconcertingly large proportion…
From insideHPC
OpenMP and OpenCL on Intel Xeon Phi
"In a heterogeneous system that combines both the Intel Xeon CPU and the Intel Xeon Phi coprocessor, there are various options available to optimize applications. Whether one has an advantage over another is somewhat dependent…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Preparing IT Systems for the Internet of Things
Preparing IT systems and organizations for the Internet of ThingsTo accommodate the development and support of smart devices, companies will need to update existing IT architectures and operating models. Here’s a potential road…
From Computational Complexity
Posting Papers
In the ancient days of the 80's, if someone wanted a paper from you, they would ask and you would mail via post. Sometimes I would get a self-addressed envelope asking for a certain paper. Departments would maintain collections…
From Schneier on Security
Underage Hacker Is behind Attacks against US Government
It's a teenager: British police have arrested a teenager who allegedly was behind a series of audacious -- and, for senior U.S. national security officials, embarrassing -- hacks targeting personal accounts or top brass at the…
From The Eponymous Pickle
NY Times Builds a Slack Bot
Probably will see more bots that watch what we say. Or the streamed data we need to pay attention to. Or engage us in conversation. Just started using Slack and I can see how that would work. " .... The New York Times built…
From The Eponymous Pickle
VR Reinventing the Digital Circular
n Retailwire: This is possible, if all the architecture is there. It can also add the augmentation to where it should be, in the aisle.
From The Eponymous Pickle
GE is Top Twenty World's Innovative Company
GE Recognized Again by Fast CompanyFeb 16, 2016 Source: Communications -A A +AFast Company's "The World's 50 Most Innovative Companies 2016"Number 20: GE General ElectricFor leading the Industrial Internet of Things. …
From The Computing Community Consortium Blog
CCC at AAAS 2016 Summary
Last week we reported that the Computing Community Consortium (CCC) would be a part of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) 2016 Annual Meeting, February 11-15, 2016, in Washington, DC. CCC Vice Chair…
From Schneier on Security
Judge Demands that Apple Backdoor an iPhone
A judge has ordered that Apple bypass iPhone security in order for the FBI to attempt a brute-force password attack on an iPhone 5c used by one of the San Bernardino killers. Apple is refusing. The order is pretty specific technically…
From Computer Science Teacher - Thoughts and Information From Alfred Thompson
What do I mean by CS for All?
Let me start with a statement of belief about computer science education in K-12 schools.
…Teaching computer science is no more about creating more software developers than teaching English is about creating more novelists.
From insideHPC
VSC in Belgium Moves to EDR InfiniBand for Medical Research
Today Mellanox announced that the Flemish Supercomputer Center (VSC) in Belgium, has selected Mellanox’s end-to-end 100Gb/s EDR interconnect solutions to be integrated into a new LX-series supercomputer that is to be supplied…
From insideHPC
10 New HPC Projects to Advance U.S. Manufacturing & Energy Technology
Today U.S. Department of Energy’s announced 10 new High Performance Computing for Manufacturing (HPC4Mfg) projects. Under the HPC4Mfg program, National laboratory experts in advanced modeling, simulation and data analysis collaborate…