Communications of the ACM
The blog archive provides access to past blog postings from Communications of the ACM and other sources by date.
April 2016
From The Eponymous Pickle
Martin Lindstrom Podcast on Small Data
Martin Lindstrom discusses his new book about 'small data'Podcast: Small Data coverMartin Lindstrom has spent time with 2,000 families in more than 77 countries to get clues to how they live — resulting in the acquisition ofAn…
From insideHPC
Supercomputing the Zika Virus at Purdue
Researchers at Purdue University are using HPC to help fight the Zika virus. "Purdue’s award-winning Community Cluster Program played a significant role in enabling the research team to create the first detailed, 3-D structural…
From insideHPC
Manage Reproducibility of Computational Workflows with Docker Containers and Nextflow
"Research computational workflows consist of several pieces of third party software and, because of their experimental nature, frequent changes and updates are commonly necessary thus raising serious deployment and reproducibility…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Store Formatting by Kroger and other Retailers
In Retailwire: Something we examined in the innovation centers. At both the shelf and broader store design level. Here some interesting views of how this is linked to demographics. How has the emergence of online changed…
From Schneier on Security
Breaking Semantic Image CAPTCHAs
Interesting research: Suphannee Sivakorn, Iasonas Polakis and Angelos D. Keromytis, "I Am Robot: (Deep) Learning to Break Semantic Image CAPTCHAs": Abstract: Since their inception, captchas have been widely used for preventing…
From Putting People First
Markus Giesler on customer experience design
At Experientia, we live the mantra that experience design is always contextual experience design. Understanding and designing for people within a culture, a context and how people evolve and change within these, is at the very…
From Putting People First
Welcome to the ‘unstore’ of the future: retailers go experiential
As technology enables ad blocking online and ad skipping on TV, marketers are increasingly searching for ways to better engage consumers in person, Adrianne Pasquarelli explains. As consumers get more comfortable with e-commerce…
From Putting People First
On the need for ethnography in user experience design
Michael Thomas of Ford Motor Company argues in a thoughtful personal piece that User Experience design is greatly enhanced by establishing classical ethnographic methods as foundational for defining the domain of design intervention…
From The Eponymous Pickle
SAS on Machine Learning
Good, high level, largely non technical view of machine learning from SAS: Machine Learning ... What it is & why it matters Machine learning is a method of data analysis that automates analytical model building. Using algorithms…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Boston Childrens Thinking Voice Hubs
Voice as a means to deliver health 'Know How': In addition to the three partnerships announced last year, Brownstein told Xconomy there's a partnership in the works with Amazon to “embed Children’s Hospital know-how” in the Amazon…
From Computer Science Teachers Association
Introducing CSPdWeek
We shine a spotlight on CS education for students each December during CSEdWeek. Why not do the same with a perennial offering for CS professional development for teachers? After all, professional development has long been recognized…
From insideHPC
Live Report from LUG 2016 Day 2
In this special guest feature, Ken Strandberg offers this live report from Day 2 of the Lustre User Group meeting in Portland. "Scott Yockel from Harvard University shared how they are deploying Lustre across their massive three…
From insideHPC
TYAN Rolls Out POWER8-Based 1U Server at OpenPOWER Summit
Today TYAN showcased the GT75-BP012, a new POWER8-based 1U server platform at the OpenPOWER Summit 2016 in San Jose. The 1U TYAN GT75-BP012 platform is a POWER8-based server solution that reveals the spirit of the OpenPOWER Foundation…
From The Eponymous Pickle
More on Generating Smells
This is a topic that we covered in the innovation center, and this blog has covered for about the same time. Have seen dozens of examples claiming generated digital scent. We looked and tested how it could be integrated into…
From The Eponymous Pickle
SAP Startups on Augmented Reality and IOT
From SAP's Startup focus blog. Emphasizing augmented reality and internet of things applications. Not unexpected or really novel applications, but good to see a major player showing examples of what this might look like in the…
From The Eponymous Pickle
What Do We Mean by Shopper Journey?
In Retailwire: Varying definitions. Suggest you read Herb Sorensen's book, soon to be republished in a second edition: Inside the Mind of the Shopper, about the science of retail. He takes it down to the data involved.
From The Eponymous Pickle
Shrinking Organization Charts
Thoughts on the shrinking org chart. Interesting and lengthy piece. Key thoughts, yes, it is shrinking, but it is still as complex. Parts of it are now being replaced by patterns in data. All we need to do is find them…
From insideHPC
Video: Past, Present, and Future of OpenFabrics Interfaces
"The first release of OpenFabrics Interfaces (OFI) software, libfabric, occurred in January of 2015. Since then, the number of fabrics and applications supported by OFI has increased, with considerable industry momentum building…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Samsung Developing new IOT Operating System
In CWorld: Previously reported on. Would like to see a demonstration of where this is going, especially how it might include connections with proposed standards." ... Samsung is developing a new operating system for the Internet…
From insideHPC
University of New Orleans Wins Silicon Mechanics Research Cluster Grant
Today Silicon Mechanics announced that the University of New Orleans is the recipient of the company's fifth annual Research Cluster Grant (RCG). Each grant awardee will receive a High-Performance Computing cluster with the latest…
From insideHPC
Italy’s E4 Computer Engineering Builds HPC OpenPOWER Server
Italy's E4 Computer Engineering announced that it has sealed an agreement with Wistron Corporation to market and distribute the OP205, the Company’s first POWER8 processor- based system in Italy and Europe. "We are very committed…
From insideHPC
Application Performance & Power Consumption on Intel Xeon Phi
"While new technology will be developed that reduces the power per operation needed, in today’s environments it is important to understand how an application affects power usage. For modern applications that have been optimized…
From Daniel Lemire's Blog
Being shallow is rational
Pundits often lament who people have become shallow. They no longer sit down to read books cover from cover. Instead of writing thoughtful 2-page emails, they write a single line. Sometimes they do not even write it themselves…
From Phys.org Technology News
People hate phone menus and don't trust virtual assistants like Siri
"Just thinking about it makes me break out into hives" reported one man in his 60's. A woman in her 30's said she does everything she can to avoid it, including pretending she doesn't speak English. A woman in her 20's said she'll…
From Schneier on Security
Bypassing Phone Security through Social Engineering
This works: Khan was arrested in mid-July 2015. Undercover police officers posing as company managers arrived at his workplace and asked to check his driver and work records, according to the source. When they disputed where…
From Computational Complexity
It's All About the Jobs
In the April CACM Moshe Vardi asks Are We Headed toward Another Global Tech Bust? I agree with some of Vardi’s points, mostly that VC money chasing after unicorns (potential billion-dollar start-ups) will not continue at itsWhere…
From Computer Science Teacher - Thoughts and Information From Alfred Thompson
Cybersecurity Summer Workshop for High School Teachers
I wish I had more time this summer. This sounds amazing.
WHAT: Cybersecurity Summer Workshop for High School TeachersWHEN: Thursday, July 14 - Friday, July 22, 2016WHERE: Pace University, Pleasantville, NY The SeidenbergThe…
From Phys.org Technology News
Ban on drones over Pennsylvania lands gets preliminary OK
The Pennsylvania Game Commission has given preliminary approval to banning drones over 1.5 million acres of state game lands after reports of the unmanned craft near bald eagles' nests and drones interfering with migrating waterfowl…
From BLOG@CACM
SC16 Expands Focus on HPC Provider Community, Practitioners
State of the Practice focus at SC16 expands opportunities for HPC service providers and practitioners to publish their innovations and best practices.
From The Eponymous Pickle
Alibaba Exceeds Wal-Mart
Alibaba Surpasses Walmart As Largest Retail Company In The World by Tyler Durden on 04/06/2016We may not have the exact numbers yet, but in a filing with the SEC on Tuesday, China's online retail behemoth Alibaba Group announced…