Communications of the ACM
The blog archive provides access to past blog postings from Communications of the ACM and other sources by date.
March 2009
From Putting People First
Inspiring stories at LIFT09
The last day of the LIFT conference started off with a session devoted to inspiring stories from people with extraordinary projects and lives. Designer Matt Webb talked about the relationship between science-fiction and design…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Trouble for In-Store Marketing?
Are more decisions being made at home? So says AdAge in a new post based on a survey. Trouble in Store for Shopper Marketing?. Survey: Recession-Hit Shoppers Decide at Home, Avoid Buying on Impulse ... '.Based on my own behavior…
From U.S. Public Policy Committee of the ACM
Physical Sciences May Have Modest Gains in 2009 Budget
On Wednesday the House passed a bill to cover spending for most federal agencies for the last six months of fiscal year 2009. The first six months were covered by a separate measure, a Continuing Resolution, set to expire on…
From insideHPC
Kraken Has Passed
The Cray XT5 supercomputer at Oak Ridge National Lab named ‘Kraken’ has officially been accepted by the National Science Foundation as being ready for production. We had a successful NSF (National Science Foundation) review and…
From Putting People First
Microsoft
Microsoft Office Labs is a group within Microsoft that tests ideas by building prototypes and gathering usage data to inform ongoing and future research and development in the productivity space for both work and home. The Labs…
From insideHPC
Ferrari Driving More than Sports
Ferrari is driving innovation in more than just its high performance sports cars these days.
From The Eponymous Pickle
Pinker on Genomes
One of my favorite writers, Steven Pinker in the NYT: My Genome, My Self. " ... I had my genome sequenced and am allowing it to be posted on the Internet, along with my medical history. The opportunity arose when the biologist…
From Putting People First
Tips for usability professionals in a down economy
From Putting People First
Ch
The Italian newspaper La Stampa reports today on its front page that Venezuelan president Ugo Ch
From The Eponymous Pickle
Fantastic Architectures
A collection of fantastic architecture images.-
From Putting People First
World
More than half the world’s population now pay to use a mobile phone and nearly a quarter use the internet, according to an ITU report, as reported by Associated Press. Six in 10 people around the world now have cellphone subscriptions…
From Putting People First
Ericsson and mobile communications in Africa
Ericsson is getting active in African mobile communications and it’s worth checking out what they are up to (even though they don’t prove much, despite the title of the press release). “Ericsson, the world’s leading provider…
From Putting People First
Microsoft
Microsoft has created a virtual personal assistant that can build a relationship with its user. “Meet Laura, the virtual personal assistant for those of us who cannot afford a human one. Built by researchers at Microsoft, Laura…
From Putting People First
Mapping a new, mobile internet
Business Week reports on how a nascent industry involving the likes of Google and Nokia is pinpointing the movements and behaviors of millions of cell-phone users. “Marketers have long dreamed of zeroing in on shoppers, whether…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Washing Machine Model
An example of a washing machine designed for the third world. A few years ago I was part of a panel for the World Bank that judged investment in inventions like these. Locally built, sold and used. Much better than throwing…
From insideHPC
Japan
The Mainichi Daily News, the English-language news site of Japan’s Mainichi Newspapers, is reporting today that the new earth simulator is available for gazing at Japan’s Earth Simulator 2 (ES2) supercomputer has been unveiled…
From Daniel Lemire's Blog
The missing research tool
I want to know when a new research paper…
is similar to one of my papers; cites one of my papers; is relevant to my current research.
Why can’t I have this already? Why do I have to manually go to Google Scholar to monitor…From Putting People First
Sociogeek survey presentation at LIFT09
Daniel Kaplan, CEO of the Fing Foundation, presented a quite unique way — a game — to conduct an online survey during a short open stage talk at the 2009 LIFT conference. Sociogeek: How do you expose yourself online? How do you…
From Putting People First
KashKlash booklet now online
After the project, the collaborative website, the game, now also the booklet. KashKlash is an open forum and web project focusing on alternative economies in a post-money future. What will such a world look like? How will the…
From Putting People First
Ubiquitous human computing will transcend geography
In an interview with Nokia’s IdeasProject renowned cyberlaw scholar Jonathan Zittrain talks about how ubiquitous human computing, which he describes as the ability to treat the human mind as a fungible resource, has enabled companies…
From Putting People First
Ethan Zuckerman on mobile news and mobile currency in Africa
Ethan Zuckerman, a multifaceted thinker whose work focuses on the impact of technology in developing countries, and a research fellow at the Berkman Center for Internet and Society at Harvard Law School, was interviewed on Ideas…
From insideHPC
Comparing Instanbul and
Found at Multicoreinfo.com
In well threaded applications, the best a
From Putting People First
Real-time connections are
In an interview with Nokia’s IdeasProject, social media innovator Laura Fitton talks about the most basic of human connections: our immediate physical community. This is the kind of intimacy that is built up over numerous ‘unimportant…
From insideHPC
Profiling MPI applications using Sun
From Sun’s HPC Watercooler Sun’s Yukon Maruyama and Marty Itzkowitz have published an
From Putting People First
Carlo Ratti, Dan Hill and Anne Galloway on the
One of the best sessions of the entire LIFT conference took place on Thursday afternoon. As half of the world is now living in cities, it’s undeniable that the recombination of our physical environment through technological advancements…
From Putting People First
Ramesh Srinivasan and Juliana Rotich on the power of local innovation at LIFT
Solidarity was the first afternoon theme of the LIFT conference. One of the subtle change in the last fifteen years revolves around how collective action and solidarity have changed. Ramesh Srinivasan and Juliana Rotich, two…
From Putting People First
Nicolas Nova and David Rose on change at LIFT
The entire morning of the first day of the LIFT conference was devoted to change. I selected a few presentations here that I found personally most stimulating. Note: this post contains embedded video which might now not show …
From The Eponymous Pickle
Copyright and Songsmith
On the death of copyright by capabilities like Microsoft Research's Songsmith. The article considers the further legal implications of the Web and copyright.
From Putting People First
Lifestream workshop at LIFT
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From Putting People First
The KashKlash game at LIFT
Just back from the LIFT conference and lots to blog about. My LIFT experience started off with the KashKlash game, an action-packed workshop that explored alternative methods of exchange [and I helped prepare]. The focus was…