Communications of the ACM
The blog archive provides access to past blog postings from Communications of the ACM and other sources by date.
April 2013
From Putting People First
Steamrolled by Big Data
“Some problems do genuinely lend themselves to Big Data solutions,” writes Gary Marcus in The New Yorker. “But not every problem fits those criteria; unpredictability, complexity, and abrupt shifts over time can lead even the…
From Putting People First
Gestural, Wearable, Neural – the new pillars of interaction design
This is an exciting time to be a digital designer, as the future of digital interaction is all around us, writes Nev Fordyce, reflecting on his SxSW experience. “What many have touted as the rise of the ‘Digital Native’, may…
From Computational Complexity
Gary Miller to Receive the Knuth Prize
From Schneier on Security
NSA Crossword Puzzles
Two puzzles from a 1977 issue of Cryptolog.
From Putting People First
Jan-Christoph Zoels speaker at three Salone del Mobile events
Jan-Christoph Zoels, one of Experientia’s founding partners and our creative director, is going to be a lot in Milan next week. Aside from his participation on Monday 8 April at the IxDA organized “The Long View of Interaction…
From BLOG@CACM
Apocalypse No! (Part 2)
Catastrophism and reliance on dubious studies have no place in serious discussions of software engineering.
From The Eponymous Pickle
Vega: A Visualization Grammar
Intriguing idea, for any visualization." ... Vega is a visualization grammar, a declarative format for creating, saving and sharing visualization designs. With Vega you can describe data visualizations in a JSON format, and…
From The Eponymous Pickle
What we Don't Know
In the Edge: Posed as questions from our own field that we dread being asked. The examples are very interesting. Mapping out what we know we don't know. For the social to the physical sciences. One that strikes me is one "How…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Nanotech Motors
In Foresight: A good place to follow progress in the nanotech space. A visual of a nanotech motor that might be used in some spectacular ways: " ... Near-term application of artificial molecular motors based on this work are…
From The Computing Community Consortium Blog
New York Times Article Highlights ‘Gentle’ Robots
A recent article in the New York Times describes the newer generation of robots that are able to interact with and learn from humans. In the past, factories separated industrial robots from humans to in order to prevent potential…
From The Eponymous Pickle
About Risk
In Corporate Governance: I particularly like the discussion of how you deal with different kinds of risk. Risk is often considered an afterthought, even in sophisticated organizations. Often not really considered quantitatively…
From My Biased Coin
Harvard E-Mail, Again
Yesterday was the long-awaited faculty meeting after the news that Harvard had examined the e-mail (metadata) of the Resident Deans looking for a leak of what was labelled confidential information. It was actually quite informative…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Basics of Bitcoin
A NewYorker overview of what Bitcoin is and where its future might be. A P2P open source digital currency, they say, but what does that really mean? It has been much in the news recently as classic global financial systems seethe…
From Computer Science Teacher - Thoughts and Information From Alfred Thompson
The Problem With Projects
When teaching beginners how to program there are a whole cast of variables to deal with. One of them is finding learning projects or exercises that are complicated enough to be interesting but simple enough that students can …
From The Female Perspective of Computer Science
Upcoming Eye Surgery
I'll be out of commission for the next little while as I embark on my second of two eye surgeries. I have a corneal disease called keratoconus, which makes the bonds in my cornea weak so that the surface bulges (my sixth ever…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Infographics, Socially
I have written before that infographics are a poor way to provide data to people. It can often be used to twist information to your purposes, using slick graphics and integrating that with your data. If does not typically allow…
From Schneier on Security
IT for Oppression
Whether it's Syria using Facebook to help identify and arrest dissidents or China using its "Great Firewall" to limit access to international news throughout the country, repressive regimes all over the world are using the Internet…
From Putting People First
EthnographyMatters on combining qualitative and quantitative data (edition by Nicolas Nova)
The April 2013 EthnographyMatters edition is edited by Nicolas Nova, consultant and researcher at the Near Future Laboratory, and is about combining qualitative and quantitative data. In his introduction, Nova writes: “While…
From Putting People First
SAP sponsors the Interaction Design Foundation (IDF)
SAP has become the first major sponsor of the Interaction Design Foundation (IDF), writes Gerd Waloszek on the SAP Design Guild blog. The HCI encyclopedia, which recently appeared in its second edition, is one of IDF‘s major…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Viz of the Day
Tableau Software has a feature called visualization of the day. It shows examples of Tableau data visualization. Good to look for inspiration and ideas for interactive visualization. You can also subscribe to the examples.
From Writing
Some ground rules for debate
For some reason, you've gotten into a debate with me about philosophy, software, psychology, history, life, the universe, and everything. Awesome!Before we go any further, let's lay down a few ground rules to help ensure that…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Wharton Future of Advertising
Lots of interesting bits here on the topic. Just brought to my attention by Herb Sorensen. " ... Since its inception in 2008, the WFoA has become the intellectual hub/lightening rod to spark conversations and collaborations…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Cautions About Augmented Reality
Pictoral look at the future of Augmented Reality in Business Insider. Disturbing view, especially of the dehumanizing aspect of wearing devices, and having them implanted to increase your bandwidth into the Web. At some point…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Shrinking Workforces
In the HBR: I hear this from lots of former colleagues. Leaner, and sometimes regrettably meaner. More outsourcing, but is consulting supported more than before? Not necessarily.
From Putting People First
Michele Visciola of Experientia speaking on ‘Town_Re-coding’
On 11 April, Experientia president Michele Visciola will be a guest speaker at the Town Re-coding seminar (pdf), a Turin event to discuss perceptions, tensions and actions for change in the physical and social spaces of cities…
From Schneier on Security
Narratives of Secrecy
How people talked about the secrecy surrounding the Manhattan project.
From Putting People First
An uplifting experience – the ethnography of the elevator user experience
Rebekah Rousi, a researcher of user psychology and PhD candidate of Cognitive Science at the University of Jyväskylä, Finland, describes on EthnographyMatters how the combination of qualitative and quantitative data collection…
From Putting People First
Why data without soul is meaningless
As we move towards a quantified society, one shaped by data, we start to dismiss things that are unquantified, writes Om Malik of GigaOm. Empathy, emotion and storytelling — these are as much a part of business as they are of…
From Computer Science Teacher - Thoughts and Information From Alfred Thompson
Computer Science Education and New York City
I’ve been following CS education events in my old home of New York City from a distance with great interest. As the song says if you can make it in New York you can make it anywhere. True or not a success or two in NYC wouldAcademy…
From Putting People First
The hidden biases in Big Data
Data and data sets are not objective, writes Kate Crawford, principal researcher at Microsoft Research, in the Harvard Business Review. They are creations of human design. We give numbers their voice, draw inferences from them…