Communications of the ACM
The blog archive provides access to past blog postings from Communications of the ACM and other sources by date.
April 2012
From The Noisy Channel
Semantic Link and Internet Evolution
From Schneier on Security
Dance Moves As an Identifier
A burglar was identified by his dance moves, captured on security cameras:
"The 16-year-old juvenile suspect is known for his 'swag,' or signature dance move," Heyse said, "and [he] does it in the hallways at school." Presumably…From The Eponymous Pickle
Gamification for Fitness and Wellness
An example of how gamification and social networking can be used for fitness and wellness programs. " ... A major West Coast health plan has jumped on the social gaming/networking trend in fitness and wellness applications.…
From Computer Science Teachers Association
Using Computing as a Tool for Good
A March 29th press release by Northrop Grumman Corporation (1) on STEM education captured my attention. The headline was "Azusa campus recently hosted the Lego STEM project competition, to introduce [middle school] students …
From BLOG@CACM
Hot Job Market For Computer Science Graduates
The newest U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics projections predict that the already hot job market for computing professionals will become even hotter this decade.
From Computational Complexity
How important is the PROOF of Cooks theorem for my ugrad class?
I am teaching Automata theory this semester. The topics are basically (1) Regular Languages, (2) Context Free Languages, (3) Decidable, undecidable, and c.e. sets, (4) P, NP, NP-completeness.
Other things can be added like…
From The Computing Community Consortium Blog
ACM Names 2012-13 Athena Lecturer
The Association for Computing Machinery’s Council on Women in Computing (ACM-W) yesterday named MIT’s
From The Female Perspective of Computer Science
Winner of SCS TA Excellence Award
I found out this week that I was one of two winners for our department's TA award. I was nominated for my term in the fall when I TA'ed the third year graphics course for our game dev students.It's really nice to be recognized…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Quantification of Social Behavior
Averages are wrong. " ... The key here is the word "average." This is quite likely the wrong way to think about social behavior. This is actually quite common in social behavior reporting that I see online. Take another…
From The Computing Community Consortium Blog
DARPA Robotics Challenge: Q&A With the Program Manager
Last week, we reported on the
From Schneier on Security
Smart Meter Hacks
Brian Krebs writes about smart meter hacks:
But it appears that some of these meters are smarter than others in their ability to deter hackers and block unauthorized modifications. The FBI warns that insiders and individuals…From BLOG@CACM
Turing's Sunflowers
It's the Turing Centenary Year. Why not plant a sunflower to celebrate? Manchester University, Manchester Science Festival and the Museum of Science and Industry are asking people to grow sunflowers and count the number of spirals…
From Computer Science Teacher - Thoughts and Information From Alfred Thompson
Round 1 Finalists for 2012 Microsoft Partners in Learning Forum
The big news for me yesterday was at Finalists Announced for Round 1 of the Microsoft Partners in Learning 2012 US Forum. I attended this event as a judge last year and learned an incredible amount from these amazing teachers…
From Wild WebMink
Welcome to Webmink.Net readers
I finally applied an HTML redirect to Webmink.Net so it brings readers here to Webmink.Com – please update your bookmarks, and welcome!
From The Eponymous Pickle
Uncanny Valley of Targeted Advertising
An article from a while back on the phenomenon of 'uncanny valley' in targeted advertising. The emotional experience of knowing you are being watched. Noticed it in the early days of Google Adwords, and it has become increasingly…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Integrated Insights
Clorox and Roundy's develop a collaborative shopping program. More here. Identifying gaps between beliefs and behaviors.
From The Eponymous Pickle
On Retooling for the Social Era
Video. Everyone is including strong social elements in their systems, but search is still a big element in getting to focused results. Portals are still essential. So I think the demise of search is premature.
From Wild WebMink
? Eric Whitacre at Union Chapel
We went a one-off this concert with composer and conductor Eric Whitacre at Union Chapel in London last year and thoroughly enjoyed it. This official video is just about the whole concert. Enjoy! If you liked that, buy the album…
From Schneier on Security
Password Security at Linode
Here's something good:
We have implemented sophisticated brute force protection for Linode Manager user accounts that combines a time delay on failed attempts, forced single threading of log in attempts from a given remote address…From Daniel Lemire's Blog
Let us abolish page limits in scientific publications
As scientists, we are often subjected to strict page limits. These limits made sense when articles were printed on expensive paper. They are now obsolete. But we still need to print the articles on paper! At least in Computer…
From The Noisy Channel
Noah Iliinsky: Tech Talk on Designing Data Visualizations
Note: This post was written by Yael Garten, a Senior Data Scientist at LinkedIn. Yael joined Linkedin in 2011, where she leads our mobile analytics team. She previously worked at Stanford on text mining, personalized medicine…
From Putting People First
Brains, Behavior and Design
Brains, Behavior and Design is a group of IIT Institute of Design students appling findings from the fields of cognitive psychology and behavioral economics to the design process. It is not clear to what extent the group is still…
From Computational Complexity
Some Announcements
STOC early registration deadline is Thursday. This year STOC will have both tutorials and workshops and its second poster session. Hope to see you all there. The Simons Foundation is offering Ph.D. Fellowships in Theoretical…
From The Computing Community Consortium Blog
Bringing Computer Science and Journalism Together
Computer scientist — and 2009 Computing Innovation Fellow (CIFellow)
From Schneier on Security
Stolen Phone Database
This article talks about a database of stolen cell phone IDs that will be used to deny service. While I think this is a good idea, I don't know how much it would deter cell phone theft. As long as there are countries that don't…
From Computer Science Teacher - Thoughts and Information From Alfred Thompson
Better Learning Through Movement
And fun as well. Recently a co-worker sent me a link to some videos that were done by the Houston Independent School District about the pilot program they are running in several elementary schools. These schools are using video…
From Putting People First
Applying behavioral economics and cognitive psychology to the design process
Artefact is, like Experientia, a UX design consultancy that is strongly inspired by cognitive and behavioral modeling, and uses all kinds of inputs from cognitive and social science to enrich their design work: “At Artefact,…
From Putting People First
Tricia Wang on the geography of trust in social networks (video)
Tricia Wang is a cultural sociologist interested in understanding how people use digital tools in their day to day lives. In her talk at the Lift 12 conference, she focuses on a story you may have heard of, concerning a student…
From Putting People First
The future of connected cars: what Audi is driving towards
Richard MacManus writes on ReadWriteWeb that the next generation of in-car apps will be about providing “smart” services, such as taking some of the cognitive load off the driver – including making the car autonomous in some…
From Putting People First
Do walled gardens offer a better user experience?
In an extensive article by Charles Arthur, technology editor of The Guardian, on the rise of walled gardens (apps, social networks) on the net, we read this quote by John Battelle of Federated Media: “The open web is full of…