Communications of the ACM
The blog archive provides access to past blog postings from Communications of the ACM and other sources by date.
April 2017
From insideHPC
Seagate Unveils All-Flash and Hybrid Storage Arrays
Today Seagate introduced two new additions to its RealStor 5 series of all-flash storage and hybrid arrays. According to Seagate, ReaslStor 5 gives businesses the kind of high-performance storage that has previously only been…
From insideHPC
Catalyst Grants Foster Innovative Projects in Computational Science
The Michigan Institute for Computational Discovery and Engineering has awarded its first round of Catalyst Grants, providing $75,000 each to four innovative projects in computational science. The proposals were judged on novelty…
From insideHPC
GEN-Z: An Overview and Use Cases
Greg Casey from Dell EMC presented this talk at the OpenFabrics Workshop. "This session will focus on the new Gen-Z memory-semantic fabric. The speaker will show the audience why Gen-Z is needed, how Gen-Z operates, what is expected…
From insideHPC
NVIDIA Tesla P100 GPU Speed AI Workloads in the IBM Cloud
Today IBM announced that it is the first major cloud provider to make the Nvidia Tesla P100 GPU accelerator available globally on the cloud. By combining NVIDIA’s acceleration technology with IBM’s Cloud platform, businesses
…
From Putting People First
[Book chapter] Behavioral economics and health
![[Book chapter] Behavioral economics and health](/system/assets/0000/1953/030209_Vanderbeeken_Mark_250.small_square.jpg?1476779420&1260281963)
Behavioral Economics and Health Judd B. Kessler and C. Yiwei Zhang Oxford Textbook of Public Health 2014 Behavioral Economics combines the insights of Economics and Psychology to identify how individuals deviate from the standard…
From Putting People First
Designing for the circular economy
As reported by Knowledge@Wharton, the London-based Agency of Design (AoD) came up with three different approaches, “each of which embodies a different strategy to designing circularity from the outset”: They are (1) designing…
From Schneier on Security
Clever Physical ATM Attack
This is an interesting combination of computer and physical attack: Researchers from the Russian security firm Kaspersky on Monday detailed a new ATM-emptying attack, one that mixes digital savvy with a very precise form of physical…
From Computational Complexity
Proving Langs not Regular using Comm Complexity
From The Computing Community Consortium Blog
Great Innovative Idea- Report Now, Report Often: Overcoming the Challenges within Cybercrime Reporting
The following Great Innovative Idea is from Morvareed Bidgoli, a Ph.D. candidate in the College of Information Sciences and Technology at the Pennsylvania State University. Bidgoli presented her work at the Computing Community…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Microsoft Does Captioning in Camera App
I was involved in a project, and later a startup that looked at the process of 'captioning', or selectively describing what is on an image. A difficult problem. Microsoft is providing a camera app to this that would be interesting…
From Schneier on Security
Encryption Policy and Freedom of the Press
Interesting law journal article: "Encryption and the Press Clause," by D. Victoria Barantetsky. Abstract: Almost twenty years ago, a hostile debate over whether government could regulate encryption -- later named the Crypto Wars…
From insideHPC
Raid Inc. Launches ARI-500 Flash Array
Today Raid Inc. announced the ARI-500 High Performance Low Cost All Flash Array. "The ASIC-based architecture of the ARI-500 Series has an enormous cost advantage over other all flash array solutions, that's a differentiator
…
From Daniel Lemire's Blog
How much are elite universities worth?
Will you do better if you attend a selective college? If you are Caucasian (white) and from a middle class or better background… you will not: “Our estimates of the return to college selectivity (…) are generally indistinguishable…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Fooling Video Classification
In the Verge ...
Google’s AI video classifiers are easily fooled by subliminal images by James Vincent @jjvincent
" ... A recent research paper, published by the University of Washington and spotted by Quartz, makes the problem…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Internet of Things Driving Data
Via Computerweekly, New analysis points to increasing amounts of data. Driving new opportunities every day: " .... Analytics, internet of things to drive data volumes to 163ZB by 2025 .... ". Interesting to just see the…
From insideHPC
Experiences with NVMe over Fabrics
"Using RDMA, NVMe over Fabrics (NVMe-oF) provides the high BW and low-latency characteristics of NVMe to remote devices. Moreover, these performance traits are delivered with negligible CPU overhead as the bulk of the data transfer…
From insideHPC
NYU Hosts Advanced Computing for Competitiveness Forum on April 13
The New York University Center for Urban Science and Progress will host the Advanced Computing for Competitiveness Forum on April 13. Sponsored by the U.S. Council on Competitiveness, the day-long event will look at why "To out…
From insideHPC
Video: Thomas Schulthess on how HPC Propels the Global Enterprise of Science
In this video from the HPC Saudi Conference, Dr. Thomas Schulthess from the Swiss National Supercomputing Center discusses how CSCS approaches High Performance Computing. According to Schulthess, supporting legacy software is…
From insideHPC
Google becomes STEM-Trek Supporter for PEARC17 Student Program
Today STEM-Trek announced that Google, Inc. is a STEM-Trek Platinum supporter of the PEARC17 Student Program. The donation will increase the number of students who can participate in the Practice & Experience in Advanced Research…
From Schneier on Security
Acoustic Attack Against Accelerometers
Interesting acoustic attack against the MEMS accelerometers in devices like FitBits. Millions of accelerometers reside inside smartphones, automobiles, medical devices, anti-theft devices, drones, IoT devices, and many other…
From U.S. Public Policy Committee of the ACM
What Should Europe’s Cybersecurity Policy Focus On?
A report on cybersecurity policy published by the European Commission’s top scientific advisers cites the ACM Europe Council Policy Committee’s White Paper on “Advancing Cybersecurity Research and Education in Europe” and the…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Nielsen Launches Everyday Analytics
Another company launching into the power of analytics. Here focusing on consumer goods applications.
Nielsen makes science-based decision making more accessible with launch of Everyday Analytics
NEW YORK, March 30, 2017 /PRNewswire…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Artificial Intelligence is more than Machine Learning
These days when you hear about AI, it turns out to be is machine learning. While ML and Deep learning are important components, its like saying automobiles are all about tire technology. Or Engine performance. There is…
From The Eponymous Pickle
From Natural Language to AI
Reminds me of some of our own investigations of building more perceptive AIs and bots. We still don't have a workable language model of our world. Limited, focused models do exist, and are called Ontologies.
The Two Paths from…
From insideHPC
Cal Poly Wins Silicon Mechanics Research Cluster Grant
Today Silicon Mechanics announced that California Polytechnic State University is the recipient of its sixth annual Research Cluster Grant. As a result of its successful application, Cal Poly will receive a High-Performance Computing…
From Daniel Lemire's Blog
My review of ‘Ghost in the Shell’ (2017)
Ghost in the Shell was, in 1995, a forward-thinking science-fiction anime. It is said to have had a lasting influence on movies such as the Matrix. Hollywood offers us a remake featuring Scarlett Johansson. It is a beautifulContinue…
From The Eponymous Pickle
SAS Visual Analytics
Just saw a demonstration of SAS Visual Analytics. Nicely done: " ... See the big picture – and underlying connections. ... Visually explore critical drivers for making better decisions. Find out why something happened. Examine…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Microsoft Updates Deep Learning Toolkit
Good to see these advances, demonstrating the tools that will be needed for Cortana.
Cortana Intelligence and Machine Learning Blog
Microsoft Updates its Deep Learning Toolkit ... "
From The Computing Community Consortium Blog
DARPA Turning to Chemistry for New “Computing” Concepts
The following is a press release from Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA). As the complexity and volume of global digital data grows, so too does the need for more capable and compact means of processing and storing…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Amazon Dash
We tested the Amazon at-home instant replenishment system called the 'Dash Button'. I have a half dozen on my refrigerator. The idea implemented the common desire of any CPG company, put the ability to buy right next to where…