Communications of the ACM
The blog archive provides access to past blog postings from Communications of the ACM and other sources by date.
April 2015
From The Eponymous Pickle
Future Tech Offices
In the BBC: How offices are being redefined with futuristic architecture. Mostly as seen by the tech industry giants. Good examples." ... Another challenge for designers of the future office is catering for workers from…
From Computer Science Teacher - Thoughts and Information From Alfred Thompson
HOW OLD DO I LOOK?
Microsoft announced a new web site yesterday that tries to guess the age of people in images. Well guess is probably not the right word. I’m sure the researchers behind it would prefer calculate or deduce or something like that…
From Gödel's Lost Letter and P=NP
Transcomputational Problems
Problems beyond brute force search Cropped from Wikipedia source Hans-Joachim Bremermann was a mathematician and biophysicist. He is famous for a limit on computation, Bremermann’s limit, which is the maximum computational speed…
From BLOG@CACM
CHI 2015: Gangnam Style!
ACM's CHI conference April 18-23 in Seoul, Korea, featured groundbreaking research in human-computer interaction.
From The Female Perspective of Computer Science
Two Semesters Teaching CS2 With C++ and Java
As you may recall, I have been experimenting with a CS2 design that teaches both C++ and Java in a single semester. I previously reported on the success of the design after teaching a section of majors and non-majors in theIntroduction…
From Schneier on Security
Measuring the Expertise of Burglars
New research paper: "New methods for examining expertise in burglars in natural and simulated environments: preliminary findings": Expertise literature in mainstream cognitive psychology is rarely applied to criminal behaviour…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Games and Cognitive Computing
In Today's CSIG, series: Simon Ellis, Phd student from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (RPI) "Playing Games with Cognitive Computing" Slides. You can also get a recording of the talk. This is not about serious games or…
From insideHPC
RCE Podcast: Jonathan Dursi on “HPC is dying, and MPI is killing it”
In this RCE Podcast, Brock Palen and Jeff Squyres speak with Jonathan Dursi about his recent editorial entitled HPC is dying, and MPI is killing it. The article that spawned a lot of attention in good discussion for our community…
From insideHPC
Multi-GPU Cluster to Power Deep Learning Research at NYU
Over at the Nvidia Blog, Kimberly Powell writes that New York University has just installed a new computing system for next generation deep learning research. Called “ScaLeNet,” the eight-node Cirrascale cluster is powered by…
From insideHPC
EOFS Elects HP’s Frank Baetke as Chairman
Frank Baetke was recently elected by the EOFS Board to serve as the new chairman of the European Open File System organization.
The post EOFS Elects HP’s Frank Baetke as Chairman appeared first on insideHPC.
From The Eponymous Pickle
Redefining Browser Experience
Had seen the Microsoft Edge Browser demonstrated recently. It did not appear to greatly change the experience beyond adding a voice component. More.
From insideHPC
Job of the Week: HPC Administrator in Hilton Head, South Carolina
The Intergen Group in Hilton Head, South Carolina is seeking an HPC Administrator in our Job of the Week.
The post Job of the Week: HPC Administrator in Hilton Head, South Carolina appeared first on insideHPC.
From The Computing Community Consortium Blog
National Academy of Sciences Elects New Members
The National Academy of Sciences recently announced the election of 84 new members and 21 foreign associates from 15 countries in recognition of their distinguished and continuing achievements in original research. Those elected…
From Schneier on Security
Protecting Against Google Phishing in Chrome
Google has a new Chrome extension called "Password Alert": To help keep your account safe, today we're launching Password Alert, a free, open-source Chrome extension that protects your Google and Google Apps for Work Accounts…
From XRDS
Does coding style matter?
Given that usually the compiler does not complain about the coding style of a program (i.e. missing white spaces, indentation, long lines of code, name conventions, and comments), developers care only for the functionality of…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Micro Moments and Marketing
Via Google. New idea to me. The Micro Moment as describing how people use mobile. By my observation, these are not always that 'micro'. The concept is an interesting one. How much are they changing the rules of marketing…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Financial Literacy and Follow-up
In K@W: Points to an analytical study:“A one-time financial education program may have little effect, as expected, but the long-term effects of a persistent financial education program can be sizable.” .... “It’s very useful,…
From The Eponymous Pickle
IBM Advances Quantum Computing
In CW: Have followed this for years with regard to the practical application to complex combinatorial problems. See previously our interaction with D-Wave. New advances by IBM, but some suggestion there is still far to go…
From Putting People First
Human+Machine Futures forecast map
This year, the research focus of the Institute for the Future (IFTF) is on Human+Machine Futures, the blurring lines between human and machine, natural and artificial. What happens when technology allows us to automate just about…
From Putting People First
Designer and researcher: the new creative partnership
In the 20th Century creating a close partnership between copywriter and art director led to a creative renaissance in advertising. In the 21st century the relationship between designer and researcher will do the same, argues …
From insideHPC
Deep-Learning Numerical Optimization
"With the advent of massively parallel computing coprocessors, numerical optimization for deep-learning disciplines is now possible. Complex real-time pattern recognition, for example, that can be used for self driving cars and…
From Putting People First
UX in the era of the Internet of Things
As we develop smarter “things”, we’ll have to more smartly research and design them for their human environments, writes Ted McCarthy, XD researcher at ThoughtWorks. “Technology notoriously runs many times faster than government…
From insideHPC
Interview: MEGWARE Gears up for ISC High Performance
MEGWARE in Germany celebrated its 25th anniversary in February. With the company in the midst of a big cluster deployment at CERN, we caught up Jörg Heydemüller from MEGWARE to learn what they have in store for the upcoming ISC…
From Computational Complexity
Is Logarithmic Space Closed Under Kleene Star?
A Georgia Tech student asked the title question in an introductory theory course. The instructor asked his TA, the TA asked me and I asked the oracle of all things log space, Eric Allender. Eric didn't disappoint and pointed1975…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Signals Group Update
Signals Group sends along a new video on what they are up to. Have had a number of interesting interactions with them over the last year. Worth a look." ... Signals Intelligence Group is a technology-enabled solution provider…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Artificial Precognition Links Data and AI
In Datanami, the broad thought is interesting, and recalls ideas of our own to link together data analytics and cognitive computing, aka AI. Directly linking decisions and advisory components. It also makes one think of any…
From insideHPC
Supercomputing New Materials for Improved Fuel Production
Researchers are using the Mira supercomputer at Argonne to accelerate the discovery of new materials for improved biofuel and petroleum production.
The post Supercomputing New Materials for Improved Fuel Production appeared first…From insideHPC
SOSCIP in Canada Announces $20M Research Investment
Today the Southern Ontario Smart Computing Innovation Platform (SOSCIP) announced a $20 Million investment to add new areas of focus—such as advanced manufacturing and cybersecurity—to its research projects.
The post SOSCIP in…From insideHPC
Hornet and SuperMUC to Provide 247 Million Core Hours for Scientific Research
The Gauss Centre for Supercomputing (GCS) reports that the 10th PRACE Regular Call for Proposals resulted in GCS supporting 14 outstanding scientific research projects from eight European countries. A total of 246.93 million …
From insideHPC
Video: Intelligent Cache Hinting in Lustre
"Data caching can provide increased performance when using a mix of high and low performance storage, but traditional replacement algorithms like LRU may evict important data in multi-tenant environments, or in situations where…