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 Putting People First
Meet Microsoft
Seattle Times technology reporter Sharon Pian Chan profiles Bill Buxton, principal researcher at Microsoft Research. “Bill Buxton is multiplatform the way Leonardo da Vinci was multiplatform. The Microsoft researcher is a technologist…
From Computational Complexity
How I'm Spending my Spring Break
This week I returned to Dagstuhl for the workshop on Computational Complexity of Discrete Problems. I come here so often that when I tweeted that I was om way Dagstuhl tweeted back that they want another typecast. But no Bill…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Microsoft Resarch: Probase and AI
Good piece in Readwriteweb that describes some items still cooking in MS Research. We had heard hints of these over the years. In particular Probase, which we heard descriptions of after we had taken a close look at the much…
From The Computing Community Consortium Blog
CCC Council chair Ed Lazowska is one of eight columnists featured in a New York Times “Room for Debate” essay series on education.
From The Eponymous Pickle
Nerve Electronic Hybrids
Will mind and machine be more intimately connected? What are the implications? The idea has been around for some time, but with little firm results yet on the shelf. In Wired Science News: " ... Nerve-cell tendrils readily…
From Schneier on Security
Times Square Video Screen Hacked with an iPhone
I didn't post about it when I first saw it because I suspected a hoax. Turns out, I was right. It wasn't even two guys faking hacking a Times Square video screen. It was a movie studio faking two guys faking hacking a Times…
From The Eponymous Pickle
A Mathematics of Cooperation
An interview in New Scientist about the quantitative logic of success: " ... Martin Nowak has concluded that an ability to cooperate is the secret of humanity's success. He talks to Michael Marshall about drawing fire from…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Solar Goose
A friend and colleague of mine, Tom Chorman, former P&G exec, is running a company that manufactures and sells solar powered rechargeable lights and related products. Check out Solar Goose. Interesting to follow a startup that…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Thinking Too Much
In HBS Working Knowledge: Are We Thinking Too Little, or Too Much? With a retail example. I agree that it is a context thing, but the recent writing about the value of snap 'blink' decision making is troubling. It depends"…
From BLOG@CACM
Call to Arms: Science and Engineering For Privacy
It is our responsibility as scientists and engineers to understand what can or cannot be done from a technical point of view on privacy.
From Schneier on Security
RSA Security, Inc Hacked
The company, not the algorithm. Here's the corporate spin.
Our investigation has led us to believe that the attack is in the category of an Advanced Persistent Threat (APT). Our investigation also revealed that the attack…From Putting People First
Experientia intern wins Gore-tex and La Sportiva boot design challenge
Experientia intern Gina Taha has just been announced a winner in the GORE-TEX
From Computer Science Teacher - Thoughts and Information From Alfred Thompson
Interesting Links Post 21 March 2011
My travel is over for a couple of weeks. Well, about three weeks. Then I will be headed out to Seattle for the US Finals of the Imagine Cup. Look for news of the public
From Wild WebMink
? Oslo Position
I’ll be speaking at GoOpen in Oslo on Tuesday (on the Grand Panel at 20:00) and Wednesday (the closing keynote). I’d love to meet with you if you’ll be in Oslo this week – find me at the event. I was asked for a two-paragraph…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Open Data and Transparency
Matthew Hurst posts on the fact that Open Data is Not Transparency. Yes, clearly. This also occurs in the enterprise, where there are multiple and rich sources of data. Yet if they are not understood in the context of specific…
From The Computing Community Consortium Blog
CS PostDocs: What is the
The following is a special contribution to this blog by CCC Council
From Wild WebMink
? Delicious Broken AGAIN
Thanks to everyone who has been alerting me to the fact that the same post has been showing up here over & over again. The problem is once again that Delicious has gone crazy and the auto-post task over there is stuck in a state…
From BLOG@CACM
Explaining Science and Engineering
As I have followed the international news regarding the Japanese disaster, I have been struck by the challenges each news organization has faced in explaining technical concepts. We live in a technological society, where understanding…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Internet Research
Nice post by Walter Riker on Internet Research And Learning - Sometimes The Hard Way. Good stuff, lots of links. And thanks for the mentions Walter! Add him to your feed.
From The Eponymous Pickle
Neuromarketing
Ron Wright of Sands Research sends along this interview with Graham Page, head of Millward Brown's consumer neuroscience practice, about how market research is putting methods like eye tracking, EEG scanning and implicit association…
From Wild WebMink
links for 2011-03-20
A legacy from the 1800s leaves Tokyo facing blackouts | ITworld Turns out that the electricity crisis triggered by the multiple tragedies in Japan is the result of never having fixed the standards duality in the power supply…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Behavioral Classification by Burnett
Suspicious of highly generalized views of human behavior, but here is another for consideration: In AdAge Blogs " ... As Leo Burnett moved from considering itself a "brand-centric" agency to one focused on "HumanKind," it decided…
From The Noisy Channel
LinkedIn: HCIR for Fun and Profit
This afternoon, I met with a couple of Stanford seniors to advise them on a startup they’ve been developing and targeting towards mid-sized online retailers. I’d expected to spend most of the time talking about their technology…
From Wild WebMink
links for 2011-03-20
A legacy from the 1800s leaves Tokyo facing blackouts | ITworld Turns out that the electricity crisis triggered by the multiple tragedies in Japan is the result of never having fixed the standards duality in the power supply…
From Putting People First
Book: Designing and Conducting Ethnographic Research
Designing and Conducting Ethnographic Research: An Introduction Paperback, 376 pages AltaMira Press; Second edition 2010 [Amazon link] The Ethnographer’s Toolkit series begins with this primer, which introduces novice and expert…
From The Computing Community Consortium Blog
The 10th GENI Engineering Conference
Over 280 leading networking researchers from around the country gathered this week for the 10th GENI Engineering Conference (GEC).
From The Eponymous Pickle
Agile Commerce
In ReadwriteWeb: On the nature of agile commerce. Is it what we can expect in the near future? What are the architectures and planning required? Who makes sure that the data is there and is correct?
From Wild WebMink
? Unthankyou
You’d think given the number of places I track music and the number of things I have given permission to spam me with music information that something would have mentioned that The Unthanks had a new album coming out, or that…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Time You Spend Grocery Shopping
Hardly a statistical view. But some interesting comments. I spend much more than the suggested seventeen minutes, but I am a foodie. Lots of discussion of cause oriented shopping, which I avoid.
From The Eponymous Pickle
Re-Examining Google
Danny Sullivan revisits his excellent 25 Things I hate about Google. Five years after the original article. I read that original article, and it made me think about the process of search and what I was really being provided…