Communications of the ACM
The blog archive provides access to past blog postings from Communications of the ACM and other sources by date.
March 2017
From The Eponymous Pickle
Cars Learning
More broadly, what kinds of things can cars learn to make them better and cheaper? Gets to better understanding the consumer needs and related processes. Have been there.
Machine Learning and Data Are Fueling a New Kind
Here…
From insideHPC
RWTH Aachen University Deploys NEC LX Supercomputer
Today NEC Corporation announced the deployment of an LX supercomputer at RWTH Aachen University in Germany. Featuring offering high performance computing services for engineering and scientific research. "We selected the NEC
…
From insideHPC
HPE Supercomputer to Power Chemical Research at BASF
Today Hewlett Packard Enterprise announced plans to deploy one of the world’s largest supercomputers for industrial chemical research at BASF's Ludwigshafen headquarters. Based on the latest generation of HPE Apollo 6000 systems…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Amazon Outfit Compare
We worked on a number of related virtual comparison ideas over the years. Aimed at things like eyeware and cosmetics. None were completely successful. Can Amazon crack this by funneling their large customer base through…
From Gödel's Lost Letter and P=NP
Leprechauns are Multiplying
Littlewood’s Law and Big Data “Leprechaun-proofing” data source Neil L. is a leprechaun. He has visited Dick on the eve of St. Patrick’s Day many times. Up until this night I had never seen him. Today Neil’s message is more important…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Singularity by 2045?
Says Kurzweil, Google's Director of Engineering. Will that mean Google Drive will be the approved recepticle? Google Analytics the means of understanding? Deep Mind the means for running offline? Very ambitious I think.
…
From Schneier on Security
Friday Squid Blogging: Squid Catches Down in Argentina
News from the South Atlantic: While the outlook is good at present, it is too early to predict what the final balance of this season will be. The sector is totally aware that the 2016 harvest started well, but then it registered…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Bots Build their Own Language
More on applications of reinforcement. We did something similar using a genetic driver, but no mention of that here. Would that improve learning?
It Begins: Bots are Learning to Chat in their own Language by Cade Metz In…
From Computer Science Teacher - Thoughts and Information From Alfred Thompson
Hip Hip Array
My programming courses are a semester long. That’s it. After that someone else gets to teach them more programming and computer science. A semester is not a lot of time so we can only cover so much material. There are days when…
From insideHPC
Video: How Smart is a Supercomputer?
In this video from The Good Stuff program, Katherine Riley and Argonne National Laboratory describes what a supercomputer really is and how Argonne uses high performance computing to solve the world's most challenging problems…
From insideHPC
OFA Workshop in Austin to Put Spotlight on InfiniBand and RoCE
"The OpenFabrics Alliance (OFA) workshop is an annual event devoted to advancing the state of the art in networking. The workshop is known for showcasing a broad range of topics all related to network technology and deployment…
From Daniel Lemire's Blog
Science and Technology links (March 17, 2017)
We live in a world where the most powerful companies in the world have super smart people working on trying to emulate human intelligence in machines. Yann LeCun, a Frenchman who directs Facebook’s artificial intelligence research…
From insideHPC
Call for Papers: 2nd International Workshop on Performance Portable Programming Models for Accelerators
The 2nd International Workshop on Performance Portable Programming Models for Accelerators (P^3MA) has issued its Call for Papers. He held in conjunction with ISC 2017, the event takes place June 22 in Frankfurt, Germany.
The…
From insideHPC
LANL Donates Supercomputer to University of New Mexico
Los Alamos National Laboratory has donated a decommissioned supercomputer to the University of New Mexico Center for Advanced Research Computing. The machine was acquired through the NSF-sponsored PR0bE project, which is run
…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Deep Mind Memory Trick
A deeper yet biomimicry?
How DeepMind’s Memory Trick Helps AI Learn Faster
While AI systems can match many human capabilities, they take 10 times longer to learn. Now, by copying the way the brain works, Google DeepMind has built…
From insideHPC
Intersect360 Research Testimony on China’s Pursuit of HPC World Domination
On Thursday, the U.S.-China Economic & Security Review Commission (USCC) held a hearing on the current and potential future state of supercomputing innovation worldwide, with an emphasis on China’s position on the global stage…
From Schneier on Security
New Gmail Phishing Scam
The article is right; this is frighteningly good....
From The Eponymous Pickle
UPS Testing Drones
How can they attached to the supply chain? Nests in the truck roof? Discussion: In Retailwire:
Can UPS fly past Amazon in drone delivery? by Matthew Stern
Amazon has grabbed many of the recent headlines with its efforts to
UPS…
From Computational Complexity
NP in ZPP implies PH in ZPP
If NP is in ZPP is the entire polynomial-time hierarchy in ZPP? I saw this result used in an old TCS Stackexchange post but I couldn't find a proof (comment if you know a reference). The proof that NP in BPP implies PH in BPP…
From Schneier on Security
History of US Information Warfare
An interesting history....
From The Eponymous Pickle
Conversation: Beyond Moments of Truth
Its all about conversation. It used to be about 'moments of truth', but now more about much more fluid conversations that can be generated and sustained by initial interaction. That interaction can come from data, Bots,
In…
From insideHPC
Overview of the HGX-1 AI Accelerator Chassis
"The Project Olympus hyperscale GPU accelerator chassis for AI, also referred to as HGX-1, is designed to support eight of the latest “Pascal” generation NVIDIA GPUs and NVIDIA’s NVLink high speed multi-GPU interconnect technology…
From The Computing Community Consortium Blog
CCC @ AAAS 2017- The Technology of the Future
Contributions to this post were provided by Computing Community Consortium (CCC) Council members Maja Matarić and Shwetak Patel. Recently, we have been highlighting CCC’s role at the 2017 Annual Meeting of the American Association…
From The Eponymous Pickle
McKinsey on Home Bots
Good piece, though ultimately driving the smart home will need many new 'things' present to influence digitally. We have started to see examples with Cortana, Alexa and Google Home. Which all start with easy applications.
Article…
From The Computing Community Consortium Blog
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign Computer Science Tries to Predict March Madness
Need some last minute help with your bracket before March Madness tips off? Check out the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign’s (UIUC) Bracketodds, which uses probability theory and statistics to predict and analyze the…
From The Eponymous Pickle
AI Dangers and Risks
Continued talk on the topic.
AI Dangers: Imagined and Real By Devdatt Dubhashi, Shalom Lappin
Communications of the ACM, Vol. 60 No. 2, Pages 43-45
10.1145/2953876
From The Eponymous Pickle
AI Driven Automation in Law
In some ways, the most obvious application. A heavily document and analysis driven world. Was frequently mentioned in the 80s, but not implemented because the analysis of meaning in documents was very imperfect.
AI automation…
From insideHPC
Quantum Artificial Intelligence Lab to Install D-Wave 2000Q System
Today D-Wave Systems announced that Google, NASA, and Universities Space Research Association (USRA) have elected to upgrade to the new D-Wave 2000Q system. The upgraded system will support research on how quantum computing can…
From insideHPC
Ethernet Alliance to Demo 400G Networks at OFC 2017
Today the Ethernet Alliance announced plans of details of its upcoming OFC 2017 interoperability demo featuring the full spectrum of Ethernet speeds from 1 Gigabit (1G) to 400 Gigabit (400G). "It’s an incredibly exciting time…
From insideHPC
SUSE Adds HPC Module for ARM-based Systems
Over at the SUSE Blog, Jay Kruemcke writes that the High-Performance Computing Module (HPC Module) for SUSE Linux Enterprise (SLES) is now available for 64-bit ARM (AArch64) systems. The HPC Module is delivered as an add-on product…