Communications of the ACM
The blog archive provides access to past blog postings from Communications of the ACM and other sources by date.
April 2011
From Schneier on Security
New French Law Reduces Website Security
I didn't know about this:
The law obliges a range of e-commerce sites, video and music services and webmail providers to keep a host of data on customers. This includes users' full names, postal addresses, telephone numbers…From The Eponymous Pickle
The Future of Cameras in SmartPhones
Pelican's smart arrays and computational imaging. A good Technology review article on the future of small embedded cameras, like those in Smartphones: " ... The next generation of smartphone cameras might actually be 25 cameras…
From U.S. Public Policy Committee of the ACM
Hill Tech Happenings, Week of April 11
April 12
Hearing:
The Subcommittee on Federal Financial Management, Government Information, Federal Services, and International Security of the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee will hold a hearing…From The Eponymous Pickle
Martin Lindstrom on Building Smashable Brands
In FastCompany: How to Build an Unforgettable, "Smashable" Brand Identity (Hint: It's Not the Logo). Very good overview by Martin Lindstrom on the concept of a Smashable brand. Have heard him talk about this concept a number…
From The Computing Community Consortium Blog
Computing Research at the NIH: Funding Opportunities, Tips for Applying
The following is a special contribution to this blog by Peter Lyster, Program Director for biological modeling and bioinformatics in the Center for Bioinformatics and Computational Biology at the NIH’s National Institute of General…
From The Eponymous Pickle
How to Fail
Seth Godin on How to Fail. Provocative thoughts.
From Schneier on Security
The CIA and Assassinations
The former CIA general counsel, John A. Rizzo, talks about his agency's assassination program, which has increased dramatically under the Obama administration:
The hub of activity for the targeted killings is the CIA
From Computer Science Teacher - Thoughts and Information From Alfred ThompsonXozGaming
XozGaming is an Imagine Cup game development team made up of two high school juniors from Lick-Wilmerding High School. Julius is the artist and Xander is the programmer behind their XNA Game
From Wild WebMink? Balancing Transparency and Privacy
One of the keys to a successful open source community is appropriate transparency. A community with strong values around transparency will also be likely to respect its participants privacy. Such a community will also be unlikely…
From The Eponymous PickleBusiness Intelligence With the Cloud and Internet as Data
Always intriguing Recorded Future blog spins some ideas about the Internet as data. I have had the opportunity to commission and examine some very large scale econometric based simulation models that used the Internet in part…
From Computer Science Teacher - Thoughts and Information From Alfred ThompsonFinal US Imagine Cup Teams Announced - 2011
After a trip to Seattle (space needle, Pike Place Market, etc.) last night the US Imagine Cup teams started today at the Microsoft store in down town Bellevue WA. There they had breakfast, tried out a lot of cool hardware (I…
From The Eponymous PickleMaking Money With Mobile
In Fast Company Epicenter: Mobile is the next big thing? Wasn't it already? Well, yes, but it is getting much bigger and even more valuable if you just do the right few things. Just a few issues along the way to watch out…
From The Eponymous PickleOpen Data Hubs
BuzzData writes about what makes an Open Data Hub. " ... Which open data communities are thriving?Which ones are flailing or stalled? What are reliable indicators of either state? ... ". The recently published a map ofOpen.…
From Wild WebMinklinks for 2011-04-10
Groklaw Articles Ending on May 16th Pamela declares victory, resists the temptation to diversify and announces Groklaw will no longer publish original articles. (tags: Groklaw FOSS Law SCO osinews) OSI Board Members, Officers…
From The Eponymous PickleAbstraction in Data Management
Good, relatively technical overview of the concept with useful examples.
From Putting People FirstBook: A new culture of learning
A New Culture of Learning: Cultivating the Imagination for a World of Constant Change by Douglas Thomas and John Seely Brown Publisher: CreateSpace – January, 2011) Paperback, 140 pages (Amazon link) The 21st century is a world…
From Computer Science Teacher - Thoughts and Information From Alfred ThompsonUS Imagine Cup Finals 2011
I have been in the Seattle area (mostly Bellevue and Redmond) the past couple of days for the US Imagine Cup Finals. And it has been an amazing time with the best yet to come. There are teams from all over the US here. They…
From The Computing Community Consortium BlogBioinspired Design: Method in the Beautiful Madness?
The following is a special contribution to this blog by Ashok Goel, Associate Professor of Computer and Cognitive Science in the School of Interactive Computing and Director of the Digital Intelligence Laboratory at Georgia Tech…
From Wild WebMink? Protei
Hunter Daniel and Protei-003, originally uploaded by cesarharada.com. Here’s a Kickstarter project that deserves your attention. A worldwide group of experts and enthusiasts is designing an autonomous marine robot that can be…
From Wild WebMink? Investment
@wouterdewanckelwouter dewanckel CFO asks CEO "What happens if we invest in developing our people & then they leave us?" CEO: 'What happens if we don't, and they stay?" April 6, 2011 10:34 via TweetDeckReplyRetweetFavorite
From The Eponymous PickleNew Internet Probe Can Track within Hundreds of Meters
In New Scientist: a new method claims to be able to track someone on the Internet within 690 meters. Note this has nothing to do with GPS on a mobile device, but probes the infrastructure of the net to approximate a location…
From The Eponymous PickleOverlapping Experimental Infrastructure
In the innovation centers we were continually constructing experiments. Multiple options that would ultimately examine the space occupied by a new product, technology or process. Once tested in a laboratory setting, the focused…
From The Eponymous PickleLive Streaming from YouTube
This roll out fromYouTube can provide some useful training and information delivery opportunities. " ... The goal is to provide thousands of partners with the capability to live stream from their channels in the months ahead.…
From Schneier on SecurityFriday Squid Blogging: A New Book About Squid
Wendy Williams, Kraken: The Curious, Exciting, and Slightly Disturbing Science of Squid.
Kraken is the traditional name for gigantic sea monsters, and this book introduces one of the most charismatic, enigmatic, and curiousKraken…
From Computer Science Teachers AssociationIn Praise of Brevity
For those of us at universities, the school year is winding down. I am teaching our second semester course this spring, and I usually try to add some off-syllabus material at the end about Java Swing, layouts, event handling…
From ApopheniaHow Can We Help Miguel?
[Written for DML Central. More comments there.] One of the hardest parts of doing fieldwork is hearing difficult, nuanced stories that break my heart. The more complicated the story, the harder it is to tell, but I feel a responsibility…
From Schneier on SecurityGet Your Terrorist Alerts on Facebook and Twitter
Colors are so last decade:
The U.S. government's new system to replace the five color-coded terror alerts will have two levels of warnings
From The Eponymous PickleSleepless Elite
A friend sends me this WSJ article on the Sleepless Elite. As a night owl myself I find this intriguing, can we make more use of our time this way, or is it less than health? " ...For a small group of people
From The Eponymous PickleOscilloscope on an IPhone
Another example of a sensor connected to a smartphone. Here a multiple signal Oscilloscope. A device which was an early introduction of mine to electronics. Used to observe the wave shape of electronic signals, it was an early…
From Wild WebMinklinks for 2011-04-08
OSI Board reponds to FCO Questionaire concerning CPTN Transaction | Open Source Initiative The OSI Board was asked by the German cartel authority for further comment on the acquisition of Novell's patent portfolio by CPTN (Microsoft…