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
Steampunking interaction design and other Interaction Magazine articles
Interactions Magazine is no longer the influential voice in the interaction design community that it used to be a few years ago. Lots of the reason why has to do with the fact that the bulk of the articles are behind a membership…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Shoppers Want Mobile Empowerment
On the Need for Mobile: " ... While American and European shoppers show little interest in purchasing groceries through mobile devices, a survey by Symphony EYC shows that solid majorities want to be able to use mobile devices…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Mobile Mind Shifts
Via Josh Bernoff: yes, have seen this in my own behavior, and its not just about retail. I now look everything up, including information about what I encounter in the real world. Its like I have a mega complete encyclopedia…
From Schneier on Security
Random Links on the Boston Terrorist Attack
Encouraging poll data says that maybe Americans are starting to have realistic fears about terrorism, or at least are refusing to be terrorized.
Good essay by Scott Atran on terrorism and our reaction.
Reddit apologizes. Icommentary…From Putting People First
Video online of Milan debate: “The Long View of Interaction Design”
The people behind the upcoming IxDA Interaction14 conference organized on 6 April a panel discussion in Milan on the “Long View of Interaction Design”. 5 panelists debated with Interaction14 chair Alok Nandi on how to design…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Pingage Supports Pinterest
In BizJournals: Cincinnati based startup Pingage provides analytics support for Pinterest. " ... Three Procter & Gamble brands are among the first to try out the tool, launched publicly in March. The outdoor furniture company…
From Daniel Lemire's Blog
You probably shouldn’t use a spreadsheet for important work
Following the Reinhart-Rogoff case, where famous scientists go formulas wrong in the Excel spreadsheet that supported their research, a lot of people commented on the adequacy of a spreadsheet tool for important work. Excel does…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Data Science of Facebook
In the Wolfram Blog A very interesting article on data visualization of anonymized contributed Facebook data. " ... Over the decades I’ve been steadily accumulating countless anecdotal “case studies” about the trajectories…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Risk Exposure Index
Useful, measurement accurate and comparable indices are always useful. " ... Risk Exposure Index Starting to Gain Traction, Change Supply Chain Thinking, David Simchi-Levi Says ... Concepts being Adopted by Companies AcrossIn…
From The Computing Community Consortium Blog
Seven Computer Scientists Named Members of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences
Seven computer scientists were recently named members of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, a prestigious 233-year-old national honorary society of leaders from academia, business, public affairs and the humanities. The…
From Schneier on Security
Ellen on Protecting Passwords
Pretty good video. Ellen makes fun of the "Internet Password Minder," which is -- if you think about it -- only slightly different than Password Safe.
From The Eponymous Pickle
Telling a Story with Data
Quite useful view of this interaction. Data analysis is ultimately about story telling, creating drama and then leading to decision value. Plus modifying the story to the needs of a particular group. I like the notion of…
From The Female Perspective of Computer Science
Got What it Takes to Be a Technical Co-founder? Here's an Opportunity for You!
Two recent Y Combinator graduates contacted me recently in an effort to recruit a female technical co-founder for their startup. Although any awesome engineers would be welcome in their company, they believe that women are likely…
From Computer Science Teacher - Thoughts and Information From Alfred Thompson
An Embarrassment of Riches
It seems like hardly a week goes by without hearing of some new development tool, web site or online training course for the teaching of computer science to beginners. Last week there were two – Tynker and Hopscotch. Yesterday…
From Gödel's Lost Letter and P=NP
Can We Prove Better Independence Theorems?
An approach to independence with more complexity dependence Florian Pelupessy recently defended his PhD thesis at the University of Ghent in Belgium. In joint work with Harvey Friedman, he found new short proofs for two independence…
From Schneier on Security
More Plant Security Countermeasures
I've talked about plant security systems, both here and in Beyond Fear. Specifically, I've talked about tobacco plants that call air strikes against insects that eat them, by releasing a scent that attracts predators to those…
From Wild WebMink
It Would Be Funny If It Weren’t True
Professor Elemental builds a Great Machine for Catching Villains
From BLOG@CACM
Simplifying Communication
How often have you picked up a scholarly journal in a discipline far removed from your expertise, only to be stymied and mystified by the disciplinary jargon? We cannot all be polymaths, but as writers about our research in…
From The Eponymous Pickle
How Good is Facial Recognition?
Had followed the technology for some time. Especially how it had been used in casino applications, to apparently great success. But under controlled conditions. So I watched with interest about how it was said to be successful…
From Putting People First
Plant Wars player patterns: visualization as scaffolding for ethnographic insight
The latest contribution to Ethnomining, the April 2013 Ethnographymatters edition on combining qualitative and quantitative data, edited by Nicolas Nova, is by Rachel Shadoan and Alicia Dudek who present an interesting case study…
From Putting People First
How will Big Data change design research?
Dave McColgin of Artefact writes about the relationship of design research to the ultimate outcome-focused research tool: Big Data. “Big Data [...] provides us with new resources when determining which people our products should…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Cincinnati Zoo is a MidMarket Engine
In an interesting development our local Cincinnati Zoo has been declared IBM midmarket engine of the week. I have been there many times, its a haven for things zoological and also botanical. Both interests of mine. It is…
From Schneier on Security
The Police Now Like Amateur Photography
PhotographyIsNotACrime.com points out the obvious: after years of warning us that photography is suspicious, the police were happy to accept all of those amateur photographs and videos at the Boston Marathon.
Adding to the hypocrisy…From Wild WebMink
Free Software Needs Support
Reblogged from Meshed Insights & Knowledge: This open letter from the director of Bytemark Hosting is a call for other hosting companies to help financially support the development of a new free email client. It asserts that…
From Daniel Lemire's Blog
Share your software early: the Reinhart-Rogoff case
I like stories where prestigious professors screw up spectacularly. It reminds us that everybody gets it wrong some of the time. The Reinhart-Rogoff story is one such case. Two very reputed professors at Harvard University, Carmen…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Predictive Analytics and the Organization
This article states it once again. The analytics, and all analytics is predictive, must be permanently connected to important decision process. That implies that the operation of the business must be open to the influence of…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Google Glass in the Future
In CompterWorld. An outline of the future of the head mounted display and some of the explorations being done today. I have reviewed just a few examples, and they appear to be little different from smartphone resident augmented…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Augmented Reality for Real Estate
Walter Riker sends this along. Augemented reality as a link of real spaces with information. As an App for ease of installation and use. Mostly used for retail information today, but this is an excellent example of other…
From Schneier on Security
Securing Members of Congress from Transparency
I commented in this article on the repeal of the transparency provisions of the STOCK Act:
Passed in 2012 after a 60 Minutes report on insider trading practices in Congress, the STOCK Act banned members of Congress and senior…From The Eponymous Pickle
Data Visualization and Big Data
Good piece by SAS outlining the value of visualizing data. As the article suggests, the mere act of showing data and allowing the interactive manipulation of data can provide value in cutting through its complexity. I always…