Communications of the ACM
The blog archive provides access to past blog postings from Communications of the ACM and other sources by date.
March 2012
From The Computing Community Consortium Blog
CCC Launches NITRD Symposium Website;Videos, Slides, Written Summaries of Talks All Available
On Feb. 16th, over 150 Federal officials, Congressional staffers, academic researchers, and industry leaders packed a room overlooking the United States Capitol to mark two decades of coordinated Federal investment in networking…
From Putting People First
UNDP Mobile Technologies and Empowerment report
A report, recently published by UNDP, on mobile technologies and human development,
From Putting People First
M-Government
This report by Hani Eskandar (ITU), Barbara- Chiara Ubaldi (OECD) and Vyacheslav Cherkasov (UN-DESA) highlights the critical potential of mobile technologies for improved public governance, as well as for economic and social…
From Putting People First
It
The argument of this pamphlet, written by Charles Leadbeater for IPPR (the Institute for Public Policy Research, the UK
From Apophenia
The Power of Youth: How Invisible Children Orchestrated Kony 2012
To many people unfamiliar with Invisible Children, the Kony 2012 campaign looked like a brilliant example of “viral” media spread. The center of the campaign is a compelling 30-minute film where a father talks to his son about…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Stopping Email Overload
In the HBR: On stopping eMail overload. With more clients and connections the overload is becoming both broader and shallower. " ... Even if you wanted to use it less, he says, it's nearly impossible to get people by phone…
From Wild WebMink
? Not So Shire
The Hobbit is one of our local pubs. It’s a rather seedy student-focussed music venue that serves cheap booze under fanciful names taken from Tolkein’s books. I had always wondered how they managed to license the Hobbit trademarks…
From Schneier on Security
On Cyberwar Hype
Good article by Thomas Rid on the hype surrounding cyberwar. It's well worth reading.
And in a more academic paper, published in the RUSI Journal, Thomas Rid and Peter McBurney argue that cyber-weapons aren't all that destructive…From Wild WebMink
Worsening Patent Wars
Yahoo’s litigation against Facebook is one more example in an unending sequence that demonstrates patents are now primarily a weapon to chill competition rather than a protection for innovation. Read more over at ComputerWorldUK…
From Computer Science Teacher - Thoughts and Information From Alfred Thompson
Tic Tac Toe for Windows Phone
Introduction
We are going to create a simple Tic Tac Toe game for Windows Phone. We
From Computational Complexity
How do legit fields of knowledge decide between competing fields? How does Astrology?
Euler was born April 15, 1707. Hence by the Western Astrology that we all ignore he is an Aries. However, I recently heard about another way (also worth ignoring) of doing the signs where he is a Pisces (see here). The otherhere…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Encyclopedia Britannica's 2010 Issue will be its Last in Print
In a true knowledge milestone, the 244 year old Encyclopedia Britannica will cease print editions with the 2010 edition this year. They will continue to produce online editions and other educational material. The demise has…
From The Eponymous Pickle
SAS and Hadoop Connector
From Steve Polilli of SAS:" ... SAS published news of a newly available Hadoop access connector, The new Hadoop support allows the industry
From The Female Perspective of Computer Science
Building Better Rubrics Using Game Design
Game-like grading systems, a sense of playfulness, and more. Ian Schreiber gave a talk for AltDevConf on using principles of game design when teaching and showed us that it's about more than just gamifying education in the reward…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Browsers and Buyers
Roger Dooley gives a good recap of the presentations at the SXSW conference that dealt with neuromarketing and related capabilities.
From Schneier on Security
A Negative <i>Liars and Outliers</i> Review
Ths person didn't like it at all.
It'll go up on the book's webpage, along with all the positive reviews.
From Schneier on Security
The Security of Multi-Word Passphrases
Interesting research on the security of passphrases. From a blog post on the work:
We found about 8,000 phrases using a 20,000 phrase dictionary. Using a very rough estimate for the total number of phrases and some probability…From The Eponymous Pickle
Store Scanning Devices vs Apps
A short piece in the Boston Globe which notes that Stop & Shop is still the only major company that is generally providing in-aisle retail scanning. I worked in this area for years and we experimented with the design of such…
From Wild WebMink
? Writing For InfoWorld
You may have spotted two posts by me on InfoWorld in the US recently (one about LibreOffice and one about OIN). I’m pleased to say that I was approached by them to take over the widely-read “Open Sources” column. Naturally I…
From The Eponymous Pickle
SAP Seeking to Work With Startups
In the WSJ: An article about how SAP is trying to promote its HANA methods with big data startups. It is naturally difficult for large enterprises to work with startups. A large company works in different time frames, and…
From The Eponymous Pickle
On Weak Neuroimaging Science
Stan Dyck sends along a link to this paper about weak neuroimaging science. I did some work with a company in trying to understand how well neuroscience was being used statistically for commerce applications. It was clear…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Storytelling for Brands.
Storytelling for brands, and storytelling has a timeline, so Facebook timelines can tell a story, including those about brands.
From U.S. Public Policy Committee of the ACM
USACM and SIGCHI Comment on Section 508 Refresh on Accessibility
USACM and SIGCHI submitted comments this week to the Access Board on the Draft ICT Standards and Guidelines on accessibility of federal government information and communication technologies.
From The Computing Community Consortium Blog
DoE Announces EERE Postdoctoral Research Awards
The Department of Energy’s Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy (EERE) has issued a call for
From Computer Science Teachers Association
Make a Difference
n January 2008, CSTA launched the CSTA Leadership Cohort. The goal of the cohort is to identify and support two teacher leaders in each state who are working to improve K-12 computer science education. Among other responsibilities…
From The Computing Community Consortium Blog
DARPA Director Stepping Down, Heading to Google
As our colleagues at CRA’s Policy Blog
From Schneier on Security
Video Shows TSA Full-Body Scanner Failure
The Internet is buzzing about this video, showing a blogger walking through two different types of full-body scanners with metal objects. Basically, by placing the object on your side, the black image is hidden against the scanner's…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Backstage at the P&G Digital Meeting
More information about last week's meetings at Procter & Gamble on the power of digital. Background interviews.
From The Eponymous Pickle
Ethics of Blogging
In the NYT section on Media and Advertising: Good piece by David Carr on the ethics of blogging. On the aspects of aggregation versus completely novel column writing. I aggregate in this blog, curate is the new term, it…
From The Eponymous Pickle
PepsiCo Expands Digital Incubator
Continued progress in how companies interact with digital innovation. Something we started in 2000 via innovation center and related technology efforts:" ... During this year's SXSW, PepsiCo will announce the expansion of incubator…