Communications of the ACM
The blog archive provides access to past blog postings from Communications of the ACM and other sources by date.
March 2011
From Wild WebMink
? The Fire Falls
My favourite photographer is the late Galen Rowell, whose books (especially The Inner Game of Outdoor Photography, sadly out of print for UK readers) were my inspiration for returning to photography as an adult. My favourite…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Shortened Links Slowing the Web
Via ACM. Are a number of link-shortening capabilities slowing the web? A strange case of unexpected side-effects of a popular capability.
From The Eponymous Pickle
Echo Nest
There are 30 million songs stored at the Echo Nest. So what are they good for? Intriguing article at Fast Company.
From The Eponymous Pickle
New Burden on Retail Infrastructure
A good e-Commerce Times article brings up the issue of how retail infrastructures can be weighted down by any number of new transactions that may be required by new sensors in the store: " ...thousands of transactions taking…
From Wild WebMink
? Unexpected Goodness
Microsoft Says Please, Please Stop Using Internet Explorer 6 Friends don
From The Eponymous Pickle
Message Minus Meaning
Nick Carr discusses Message Minus Meaning in his review of James Gleick's new book: The Information. We now gather, update, use and mis-use and store more information than ever before. What are the cautions for understanding…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Dealing with Presentation Nerves
In the Presentation Zen Blog. With some emphasis on Steve Jobs as an example of a casual, conversational approach.
From The Eponymous Pickle
Bing Aggregates Coupons
Microsoft builds a coupon aggregator into their search engine Bing. ' ... "This is a savvy move on Microsoft's part," said Azita Arvani, principal of the Arvani Group. "Instead of building their own daily offers, they are becoming…
From Schneier on Security
Friday Squid Blogging: Giant Squid Washes Ashore
A giant squid washed ashore in New South Wales.
From The Computing Community Consortium Blog
Data as a Driver for Scientific Innovation
If you haven’t seen it already, the February 11 issue of Science magazine is worth a look.
From The Eponymous Pickle
Conducting a Virtual Choir
The following is pretty remarkable. A virtual choir. Play the video. Now if we could only do the same thing with a conductor/manager performing in front of a group of people who are attempting to do something like conduct" …
From CERIAS Blog
A Recent Interview, and other info
I have not been blogging here for a while because of some health and workload issues. I hope to resume regular posts before too much longer.
Recently, I was interviewed about the current state of security . I think the interview…From Wild WebMink
? New OpenAM and OpenDJ Releases
Today has been a big landmark for many of the developers at ForgeRock and in the communities in which they participate. Both the OpenAM (identity authentication, authorisation and federation) and OpenDJ (LDAP server) projects…
From The Female Perspective of Computer Science
One Positive Thing, Martial Arts, and Hitting the Proverbial Wall
The other day I read Cate's post on One Positive Thing:The power of sustained small achievements is underrated. If every day I did one positive thing for my health, my living space, and my relationship, what would my worldI…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Robonaut 2
Launched into space, a humanoid robot. Not sure what the humanoid aspects gets you exactly besides overblown implications about it 'thinking' and being autonomous. Impressive though, and it tweets as well.
From Putting People First
Videos of Interaction 11 Keynotes
Videos are now available for all seven Interaction11 keynote presentations. Interaction is a yearly conference organised by the Interaction Design Association (IxDA). The 2011 conference took place on February 9-12 in Boulder…
From Schneier on Security
Interesting Research in Using Animals to Detect Substances
Fascinating research summarized in The Economist. Basically, detecting dogs respond to unconscious cues from their handlers, and generate false alarms because of them.
It makes sense, as dogs are so attuned to humans. I'll…From Wild WebMink
? Owning The Problem?
Android Gingerbread update broke Google Voice on the Nexus One So this is Google’s update to Google’s operating system badly breaking Google’s app for interacting with Google’s service. I thought the whole point of owning every…
From Computer Science Teacher - Thoughts and Information From Alfred Thompson
Student Develops Games For Windows Phone 7
Jakub Poznanski, Jake to most people, is studying computer science at Carnegie Mellon University. He was born in Bia?ystok, Poland, but has lived most of his life in the United States. Jake was an intern at Microsoft last summer…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Post PC World
Engadget editorial about how Apple is creating a post-pc world. They are sure selling a lot of things. And doing that very well. But are they really new ideas? Or are they just re sculpting things that have been done for a…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Four New CIO Types
In Readwriteweb: It is suggested that " ... Chief "Infrastructure" Officers, Chief "Integration" Officers, Chief "Intelligence" Officers, and Chief "Innovation" Officers .. " need to be considered as part of a new structure…
From The Computing Community Consortium Blog
Recapping the Recent OECD-NSF Workshop on Smart Health
As we previously blogged in this space (here and here), approximately 130 individuals — including 43 speakers — from 16 countries around the world came together at the NSF last month to discuss the challenge of “Building a Smarter…
From Computer Science Teacher - Thoughts and Information From Alfred Thompson
New XNA Jump Start Mini-course
Microsoft recently released a new XNA Jump Start Mini-course.
Programming with C# and XNA 0.5: Jump Start is an exciting and engaging 4-5-week introduction to simulation and game programming using the C# language and XNA…From Computational Complexity
Greetings from Porto
Today we just finished the thesis defense of Andre Souto at University of Porto. Good News: He passed the defense so now we call him Dr. Souto. Better news: By law he has to be paid more in his current teaching job. Not so good…
From Michael Nielsen
TEDxWaterloo
I’m speaking today about open science at the TEDxWaterloo event, just outside Toronto. I’m really looking forward to the event, and to all the talks – I’m especially excited to see Abby Sunderland and Roberta Bondar. There will…
From The Eponymous Pickle
A New Kind of Consulting
Of interest, related to my recent note on social networks in the enterprise. CapGemini is reorganizing to use social networks to do consulting. Also, consultancy Atos Origin plans to eliminate all e-email with three years,…
From The Eponymous Pickle
RStudio for R
RStudio: A new IDE (Integrated Development Environment) that looks to make coding easier for the open source statistics language R. Much more here.
From Schneier on Security
Pickpockets are a Dying Breed
Pickpockets in America are dying out. This is the bit I found interesting:
And perhaps most important, the centuries-old apprenticeship system underpinning organized pickpocketing has been disrupted. Pickpocketing has always…From Computer Science Teacher - Thoughts and Information From Alfred Thompson
The Body As Mouse
Hopefully you have heard of the Kinect for Xbox 360 by now. Perhaps you even have one. Millions of them have been sold and it has really started to change how we think about games and even dealing with the computer. It readsAcademics…
From Wild WebMink
? Open Source Procurement: Subscriptions
When you procure proprietary software, you buy a right-to-use license and then a support agreement. But when you buy open source, you already have the right-to-use from the OSI-approved free license, so you should compare the…