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 Blog@Ubiquity
Test Early and Often
Developing software requires a mix of analytical and creative approaches, involving different types of people who have different blends of thinking. But how can one achieve software quality in the competitive IT marketplace?Read…
From The Computing Community Consortium Blog
ACM Recognizes Former CCC Council Member Eric Horvitz
The Association for Computing Machinery (ACM) has announced the recipients of four prestigious technical awards. These innovators were selected by their peers for making significant contributions that enable the computing field…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Seeing AI Interest and an AI Talent Grab
Indications of where the interest is, and where the talent is coming from. I see it myself in a number of general inquiries I see that ask How do we do that? And what is cognitive? How much is available and how much ready-built…
From insideHPC
Video: HPE Persistent Memory
"HPE Persistent Memory products deliver the performance of memory with the persistence of traditional storage. The HPE 8GB NVDIMM Module is the first offering in the HPE Persistent Memory product category. Customers are looking…
From insideHPC
Report: US At Risk of Falling Behind in Supercomputing
Today the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation (ITIF) published a new report that urges U.S. policymakers to take decisive steps to ensure the United States continues to be a world leader in high-performance computing…
From insideHPC
Interview: Jeff Bonwick on the Secret Sauce behind DSSD
We caught up Jeff Bonwick from DSSD to learn more about their exciting storage technology for HPC. "Our mission statement was four words: fastest storage on earth. That was our singular goal from day one, which gave the team…
From insideHPC
Slidecast: Getting Started with HPC using the New IBM Platform LSF Suites
In this slidecast, Gabor Samu from IBM describes the newly available IBM Platform LSF Suites for Workgroup and HPC. Designed to make it much easier to "kick the tires" on LSF, the new suites can help you configure install, maintain…
From insideHPC
Code Modernization for High Performance Hardware
"Parallel software and parallel hardware, used together will give the best results for an application. If the application is serial in nature, and the processor is serial, then there will obviously not be a great gain in performance…
From The Eponymous Pickle
McDonalds and Gaming Tablets
In the Verge: A look at how McDonald's is testing and potentially integrating tablets into store experiences. Not enough detail in the article. This opens the conversation to many new possibilities. For example, the use of…
From Schneier on Security
Amazon Unlimited Fraud
Amazon Unlimited is a all-you-can-read service. You pay one price and can read anything that's in the program. Amazon pays authors out of a fixed pool, on the basis of how many people read their books. More interestingly, it…
From Phys.org Technology News
Augmented games can increase the diversity of sports
Augmented climbing wall increases social interaction, helps to attract wider target audiences and empowers users to become content creators.
From Phys.org Technology News
Body Electric
Ever played with K'nex? If so, you know how the construction set, a classic for any child growing up in the '90s, can create more than just toys. It can build rollercoasters, architectural grandeurs worthy of Frank Gehry—and…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Wal-Mart Largest IT Investor
Surprising that they are tops across industries: Details. In RISNews: " ... For the second year in a row retail powerhouse Walmart has spent the most money on IT ($10.5 billion) — more than another other company across industries…
From Computer Science Teacher - Thoughts and Information From Alfred Thompson
2016 Cutler-Bell Prize contest now OPEN!
The Cutler-Bell Prize is awarded to outstanding high school students who do computer science work well beyond the bounds of an ordinary high school computer science course. The first awardees did some amazing work. You can read…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Smartstones and Speech
Mentioned here a number of times, I have a small connection ...An Entrepreneur Makes Speech a Reality for All" ... Smartstones, Inc., a company taking great leaps in improving communication technology, is today releasing a new…
From The Computing Community Consortium Blog
Computing Community Consortium Symposium
Over the past 10 years, the Computing Community Consortium has hosted dozens of research visioning workshops to imagine, discuss, and debate the future of computing and its role in addressing societal needs. The Computing Research…
From insideHPC
Video: Managing Large Production Cloud Deployments
"Cycle Computing software leverages cloud resources to make computation in the cloud productive at any scale, by orchestrating workflows, managing data, balancing cloud options, and enabling users in a secure, controlled way.…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Cisco and Much Smarter LED Lighting
Taking LEDs beyond lighting, to the Internet of Things:" ... In PoE lighting, both electricity and data flow over Ethernet cables that connect to LED troffers and luminaires, which become network nodes and which typically include…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Research in a Virtual World
Can you do research in a virtual world? Simulation has often been used to create a model of a system, and then do research, such as sensitivity analysis, in that world. Here a step beyond that in CACM.
From The Eponymous Pickle
Power of How Google Search Works
Its been a while since I have thought of Google search beyond the basics. I knew there was more power and subtlety there, but not how to apply it. Now in the BBC, I was re-introduced to Google search and implications of how…
From Daniel Lemire's Blog
We know a lot less than we think, especially about the future.
The inventors of the airplane, the Wright brothers, had little formal education (3 and 4 years of high school respectively). They were not engineers. They were not scientists. They ran a bicycle repair shop. At the time of their…
From Gödel's Lost Letter and P=NP
Get A Job
Doo wop, doo wop Richard Lewis, Bill Horton, Earl Beal, Raymond Edwards, and John Wilson—the Silhouettes—were a doo wop/R&B group whose single Get A Job was a number 1 hit on the Billboard R&B singles chart and pop singles chart…
From insideHPC
Podcast: Using Docker for Science at TACC
In this TACC podcast, Joe Stubbs from the Texas Advanced Computing Centter describes potential benefits to scientists of open container platform Docker in supporting reproducibility, NSF-funded Agave API. "As more scientists…
From insideHPC
Video: ASC16 Student Supercomputing Challenge Wraps Up in China
In this video from CCTV News, ASC16 wraps up their Student Supercomputing Challenge. Huazhong University of Science won the overall competition, which concluded April 22 in Wuhan at the Central China University of Science.
The…From The Eponymous Pickle
Big Data's Problem
Good piece with an apt warning. Its always about some form of sampling. Even if you could get all observations of the data, say if you are controlling an experiment, you won't have all the contextual metadata. I have have…
From insideHPC
Understanding Your HPC Application Needs
Many HPC applications began as single processor (single core) programs. If these applications take too long on a single core or need more memory than is available, they need to be modified so they can run on scalable systems.…
From Schneier on Security
Two Good Readings on the Encryption "Going Dark" Debate
Testimonies of Matt Blaze and Danny Weitzner, both on April 19th before the House Energy and Commerce Committee. And the hearing....
From Phys.org Technology News
Paralyzed by indecision? Forget therapy—you need an algorithm
Information overload and "fear of missing out" may rank among the biggest contributors to chronic indecision. But help is at hand.
From Phys.org Technology News
Reducing the transmission of infectious diseases in transport hubs
Transport plays a major role in the spread of transmissible diseases. PANDHUB, a project coordinated by VTT Technical Research Centre of Finland Ltd, develops ways of reducing the risk of pandemics and managing other high-threat…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Kasisto Virtual Assistant
My continued look at virtual assistants " ..... AI-Driven Virtual Assistant from Kasisto Powers India's First Mobile-Only Bank ... Asian banking innovator DBS Bank makes strategic investment in Kasisto ... " Some good details…