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 Daniel Lemire's Blog
How close are AI systems to human-level intelligence? The Allen AI challenge.
With respect to artificial intelligence, some people are squarely in the “optimist” camp, believing that we are “nearly there” as far as producing human-level intelligence. Microsoft co-founder’s Paul Allen has been somewhatContinue…
From Schneier on Security
Kuwaiti Government will DNA Test Everyone
There's a new law that will enforce DNA testing for everyone: citizens, expatriates, and visitors. They promise that the program "does not include genealogical implications or affects personal freedoms and privacy." I assume…
From insideHPC
Intersect360 Publishes New Report on the Hyperscale Market
Today Intersect360 Research published a new research report on the Hyperscale market. This report provides definitions, segmentations, and dynamics of the hyperscale market and describes its scope, the end-user applications it…
From U.S. Public Policy Committee of the ACM
2016 State of the Net Wireless
Join top government officials and private sector experts this afternoon for this year’s State of the Net Wireless. Beginning at 2 pm ET, the forum provides a lively discussion of trends and public policies shaping the mobileContinue…
From The Computing Community Consortium Blog
NSF WATCH Talk- Crypto Wars: Plus ça Change, Plus c’est la Même Chose
The next WATCH talk, called Crypto Wars: Plus ça Change, Plus c’est la Même Chose is Thursday, April 21, 2016 from Noon-1pm EDT. The presenter will be Susan Landau, professor of Cybersecurity Policy in the Department of Social…
From insideHPC
Jetstream – Adding Cloud-based Computing to the National Cyberinfrastructure
Matt Vaughan from TACC presented this talk at the HPC User Forum. "Jetstream is the first user-friendly, scalable cloud environment for XSEDE. The system enables researchers working at the "long tail of science" and the creation…
From Phys.org Technology News
Drone collision with jet highlights growing aviation danger
A collision between a British Airways passenger jet and a drone over London has left the plane undamaged but the aviation industry deeply shaken.
From Computational Complexity
Its hard to tell if a problem is hard. Is this one hard?
Here is a problem I heard about at the Gathering for Gardner. Is it hard? easy? boring? interesting? I don't know. Let N={1,2,3,...} PROBLEM: parameters are s (start point) and f (not sure why to call it f). both are in N Keep…
From insideHPC
Exxact to Distribute NVIDIA DGX-1 Deep Learning System
The NVIDIA DGX-1 features up to 170 teraflops of half precision (FP16) peak performance, 8 Tesla P100 GPU accelerators with 16GB of memory per GPU, 7TB SSD DL Cache, and a NVLink Hybrid Cube Mesh. Packaged with fully integrated…
From insideHPC
Who Is Using HPC (and Why)?
In today's highly competitive world, High Performance Computing (HPC) is a game changer. Though not as splashy as many other computing trends, the HPC market has continued to show steady growth and success over the last several…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Doing it Smarter, Faster, Better
Brought to my attention:Mind Over MatterEveryone wants to be more productive. And as a result, there is a not insignificant industry of books, conferences, and speakers pitching miracle cures for getting things done more effectively…
From Schneier on Security
Security Risks of Shortened URLs
Shortened URLs, produced by services like bit.ly and goo.gl, can be brute-forced. And searching random shortened URLs yields all sorts of secret documents. Plus, many of them can be edited, and can be infected with malware. Academic…
From Computer Science Teacher - Thoughts and Information From Alfred Thompson
Interesting Links 18 April 2016
Last week was both long and short. Short in that I only spent three days at school. Long in that I spent the weekend and Monday working at the K 12 Computer Science Framework Stakeholders Convening Time well spent of course even…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Marketing Bots
This article doesn't provide much useful detail. But the direction is clear. Bots can provide simplified applications of AI in any communicating system. Then adapt them to provide all sorts of value propositions. Results…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Biofactories of the Future
Pointing to a Nature article of interest. " ..... From an evolutionary perspective, yeast has no business producing a pain killer. But by re-engineering the microbe's genome, Christina Smolke at Stanford University in California…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Commoditizing Software
And further by adding new tools to integrate code and problems, and codes written by multiple people.Commoditization of CodingThe cloud- or industry-specific approach is another facet of commoditization involving product line…
From The Female Perspective of Computer Science
Mastering Difficult Conversations
Do you dread bringing up a problem in your relationship because you know your partner will be blinded by emotion? Are your 1:1s at work just happy recaps of your weekend because nobody wants to bring up the hard issues? Sometimes…
From Phys.org Technology News
Poll: Vast majority of Americans don't trust the news media
Trust in the news media is being eroded by perceptions of inaccuracy and bias, fueled in part by Americans' skepticism about what they read on social media.
From Phys.org Technology News
British Airways flight believed to hit drone on approach
Police say a British Airways flight from Geneva hit an object believed to be a drone while on approach to London's Heathrow Airport.
From The Eponymous Pickle
Gaming Industry Technologies
We often looked to to the gaming industry for hardware and software that was driving decisions and operations. Here a good set of examples of current technology being used.
From insideHPC
Video: How to Build a Neural Net in 4 Minutes
In this video, Siraj Rival from Twilio presents a quick tutorial on How to Build a Neural Net in 4 Minutes. Siraj describes himself as the Bill Nye of Computer Science.
The post Video: How to Build a Neural Net in 4 MinutesinsideHPC…From insideHPC
Call for Participation: hpc-ch Forum on Intra- and Inter-Site Networking
The hpc-ch Forum on Intra- and Inter-Site Networking has posted its Call for Participation. Hosted by the University of Zurich, the event will take place Thursday, May 19, 2016.
The post Call for Participation: hpc-ch Forum on…From insideHPC
Using High Performance Interconnects in Dynamic Environments
"Over the last years the OFA community has shown the potential of using high performance networks (InfiniBand) to boost the performance of virtualized cloud environments, however, the network reconfiguration challenges still …
From insideHPC
Job of the Week: Senior Director of HPC Sales at DDN
DDN in Santa Clara is seeking a Senior Director of HPC Sales in our Job of the Week. "We are currently seeking an Account Executive to drive the development of new Cloud Content & Media accounts in the Bay Area. The role requires…
From The Eponymous Pickle
AI for High Frequency Trading
Via the Financial Revolutionist:Note the statement that this simulates the insights of experienced traders. So more of an expertise based system rather than a machine learning approach? Likely some combination of the two.Securities…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Combining Data and Creativity
Broadly a favorite topic. Ultimately it has always been there as a combination of generate-and-test methods. Your creativity will always be tested in the market. But now the data defines the world better than it ever has…
From The Eponymous Pickle
What Exactly is a Bot?
The word Bot has started to be used again. But what is it? I was struck by Matt Galligan's piece in Medium which takes a broad look at the definition. We built one that for a short time in the 80s represented a major brand's…
From Schneier on Security
Friday Squid Blogging: Replicating Reflecting Squid Tissue
New research. As usual, you can also use this squid post to talk about the security stories in the news that I haven't covered....
From The Eponymous Pickle
Poets and Script Writers for Virtual Assistants, Bots
In the WaPo: Intriguing idea. Make a Virtual Assistant as human and engaging as possible with clever writing and narratives. I have seen aspects of this work in assistants. Integrating humor, entertainment, music, social…
From Computer Science Teacher - Thoughts and Information From Alfred Thompson
Teaching Binary with a Clock
There has been a Binary clock on my desk at school for some years now. I like using it to help students learn Binary numbers. A few years ago I wrote a software version to display on my white board so everyone could see it. (More…