Communications of the ACM
The blog archive provides access to past blog postings from Communications of the ACM and other sources by date.
February 2021
From BLOG@CACM
How I Evaluate a College Computer Science Teaching Record
Teaching is a skill, and the best teachers use the best methods.
From The Eponymous Pickle
Autonomous Manufacturing Marketplace
Intriguing play here, will look into more details... pass them along and I will post an overview.
Fetch.ai partners with FESTO on decentralised manufacturing marketplace
AI blockchain startup Fetch.ai is partnering with industry…From Schneier on Security
Browser Tracking Using Favicons
Interesting research on persistent web tracking using favicons. (For those who don’t know, favicons are those tiny icons that appear in browser tabs next to the page name.)
Abstract: The privacy threats of online tracking have…From Schneier on Security
Virginia Data Privacy Law
Virginia is about to get a data privacy law, modeled on California’s law.
From Schneier on Security
WEIS 2021 Call for Papers
The 20th Annual Workshop on the Economics of Information Security (WEIS 2021) will be held online in June. We just published the call for papers.
From The Eponymous Pickle
Neural Network Has Learned to Identify Tree Species
Relates to my forestry work, could have been used to update inventories of species.
Neural Network Has Learned to Identify Tree Species
By Skolkovo Institute of Science and Technology (Russia), February 9, 2021
An algorithm developed…From Schneier on Security
Malicious Barcode Scanner App
Interesting story about a barcode scanner app that has been pushing malware on to Android phones. The app is called Barcode Scanner. It’s been around since 2017 and is owned by the Ukrainian company Lavabird Ldt. But a December…
From Schneier on Security
Deliberately Playing Copyrighted Music to Avoid Being Live-Streamed
Vice is reporting on a new police hack: playing copyrighted music when being filmed by citizens, trying to provoke social media sites into taking the videos down and maybe even banning the filmers:
In a separate part of the …From Schneier on Security
On Vulnerability-Adjacent Vulnerabilities
At the virtual Engima Conference, Google’s Project Zero’s Maggie Stone gave a talk about zero-day exploits in the wild. In it, she talked about how often vendors fix vulnerabilities only to have the attackers tweak their exploits…
From insideHPC
New EU Consortium Awarded €12.4M by the German Ministry of Education and Research
Feb. 12, 2021 – Today, IQM announced a quantum project consortium that includes Europe’s leading startups (ParityQC, IQM), industry leaders (Infineon Technologies), research centers (Forschungszentrum Jülich), supercomputing …
From insideHPC
Altran Collaborates With Ciena’s Blue Planet Division on Virtualization and Orchestration for 5G
New York – February 12, 2021 – Altran, part of Capgemini, and Blue Planet, a division of Ciena, today announced a collaboration to provide network operators with intelligent automation solutions. This collaboration will support…
From insideHPC
Czech Hydrometeorological Institute Puts NEC SX-Aurora Tsubasa Supercomputer into Operation
Tokyo, February 12, 2021 – NEC Corporation (NEC; TSE: 6701) today announced that the Czech Hydrometeorological Institute (CHMI) put an NEC SX-Aurora TSUBASA supercomputer into service. The newly deployed HPC solution is used …
From insideHPC
CHIPS Alliance Adds Antmicro and VeriSilicon
San Francisco, Feb. 11, 2021 – CHIPS Alliance, a consortium advancing common and open hardware for interfaces, processors and systems, has added Antmicro and VeriSilicon to the company’s platinum membership level. Antmicro, one…
From The Eponymous Pickle
3D Scene Understanding
Intelligence allows us to quickly understand our world, here a good example, our visual world, based on sensors. To establish context we can depend on. Many new kinds of sensors now, and means of using them.
In the Google…From The Eponymous Pickle
Augmented AI for Creative Invention
Have we stopped getting return from creative investment, and can AI change that?
‘Augmented creativity’: How AI can accelerate human invention By Adi Gaskell in Venturebeat.
In 2012, economist Robert Gordon published a controversial…From Schneier on Security
Medieval Security Techniques
Sonja Drummer describes (with photographs) two medieval security techniques. The first is a for authentication: a document has been cut in half with an irregular pattern, so that the two halves can be brought together to prove…
From Schneier on Security
Attack against Florida Water Treatment Facility
A water treatment plant in Oldsmar, Florida, was attacked last Friday. The attacker took control of one of the systems, and increased the amount of sodium hydroxide — that’s lye — by a factor of 100. This could have been fatal…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Vaccines by Drone
Don't quite see what this buys you, excerpt in remote locations.
ACM TECHNEWS
Drones Could Begin Vaccine Deliveries in April, Firm Says
By The Hill, February 11, 2021
Drone delivery service Zipline said it is partnering with a leading…From The Eponymous Pickle
Quantum Software, Hardware Seeding the Market
Good review of what quantum players and users are looking for in the market. Despite the early days.
Quantum Computing Hardware, Software Players Seeding the Market By John P. Desmond, AI Trends Editor
While quantum computing…From The Eponymous Pickle
Artificial Emotional Intelligence
Fascinating thoughts on emotional intelligence. Given how much I trust all the ads pushing 5G I see, scary too.
Artificial emotional intelligence: A safer, smarter future with 5G and emotion recognition by Incheon National…From The Eponymous Pickle
Disinfection Robotics in Retail
Another example of robotics addressing problems of today.
Ahold Delhaize’s RBS pilots UV disinfection robots
Ava Robotics technology aids COVID-19 cleaning in two distribution centers
Russell Redman 1 | Jan 08, 2021
Ahold Delhaize…From insideHPC
Core Scientific Partners with HPE on Greenlake HPC as-a-Service Offering
Bellevue, WA – Core Scientific, an infrastructure and software solutions provider for artificial intelligence and blockchain, today announced a partnership with Hewlett Packard Enterprise (HPE) to deliver its software solutions…
From insideHPC
Arm Ecosystem Reports Record 6.7 billion Arm-based Chips Shipped in Q3 2020
February 11, 2021 — Arm reported today that its silicon partners in the third quarter of 2020 shipped a record 6.7 billion Arm-based chips, which equates to ~842 chips shipped per second. To date, Arm partners have shipped more…
From The Computing Community Consortium Blog
NSF CISE to Hold Workshop on CAREER Proposal Writing on April 5
The National Science Foundation (NSF) Directorate for Computer & Information Science & Engineering (CISE) will host a one-day workshop on CAREER Proposal Writing on April 5, 2021. This workshop will be held virtually. The goal…
From insideHPC
MIT Researchers Develop Neural Networks for Computational Chemistry Using SDSC, PSC Supercomputers
Even though computational chemistry represents a challenging arena for machine learning, a team of researchers from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) may have made it easier. Using Comet at the San Diego Supercomputer…
From The Eponymous Pickle
The Risks and Challenges of the Global COVID-19-vaccine Rollout
Good piece by McKinsey. Note the interactive piece to explore the related complexities.
The risks and challenges of the global COVID-19-vaccine rollout
McKinsey: January 26, 2021 | Article
The COVID-19 vaccines of the BioNTech…From The Eponymous Pickle
India Analyzing Data Goals and Gaps with AI
Notable use of AI and other pattern recognition approaches: What data do we have, its ability, to achieve certain levels of understanding of our economy. Then what data, quality of data, and metadata is needed at what cost…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Scale of Autonomous Truck Startup
Considerable launch, had several people contact me re a recent post agreeing that this will promote the implementation of analytical improvements in supply chains. Providing more solutions. Still waiting for these to be generally…
From The Eponymous Pickle
The State of Virtual Reality Hardware
Well done piece, suggesting we will soon be there for general usage wearable screens for our eyes to give the illusion of three dimensional immersive experiences. Saw examples in industry in the 80s, is it ready? Leading to…
From Putting People First
Crypto Sentiment Advisor
The Crypto Sentiment Advisor (CSA) is an EIT-Digital supported platform for investors holding cryptocurrencies, to anticipate swings in the sentiment for their investments. Experientia is in charge of the UX research that will…