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
Jülich to Build 5 Petaflop Supercomputing Booster with Dell
Today Intel and the Jülich Supercomputing Centre together with ParTec and Dell today announced plans to develop and deploy a next-generation modular supercomputing system. Leveraging the experience and results gained in the EU…
From insideHPC
10 Things You’re Wrong About in HPC
Rich Brueckner from insideHPC presented this talk at the Switzerland HPC Conferene. "While High Performance Computing has gone through dramatic changes since Seymour Cray created the supercomputer industry in the 1970's, misnomers…
From The Eponymous Pickle
AI Will Improve and Even Replace Bad Management
Yes, to the extent that it will improve all management. The way many decades of digital methods have improved the process of management. Making it faster, better, cheaper. More based on data and results. 'Bad management'…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Gartner on Future Customer Experience
In the Gartner Blog. Towards more AI intervention to drive user experience.
The Customer Experience of the Future by Jessica Ekholm
Greater competition and growing user power have eroded traditional product- and service-based…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Exploring Your Data
Nathan Yau in FlowingData points to some teachers of information visualization banning the phrase 'exploratory data analysis' in dataviz applications. As pointing to purpose-less interaction with your data. Well maybe asExploratory…
From Schneier on Security
Stealing Browsing History Using Your Phone's Ambient Light Sensor
There has been a flurry of research into using the various sensors on your phone to steal data in surprising ways. Here's another: using the phone's ambient light sensor to detect what's on the screen. It's a proof of concept…
From Putting People First
[Book] Quantitative Ethnography
![[Book] Quantitative Ethnography](/system/assets/0000/1953/030209_Vanderbeeken_Mark_250.small_square.jpg?1476779420&1260281963)
Quantitative Ethnography David Williamson Shaffer Boswell Press Available April 2017 > Download Introduction > Watch video presentation This is a book about understanding why, in the digital age, the old distinctions between
…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Amazon Doubles Down on Echo Ecosystem
Amazon is 'doubling down' on the Echo ecosystem
Amazon's future includes Alexa, AI and AWS. by Jessica Conditt ....
Amazon is off to a profitable start in 2017. The company's first-quarter sales jumped 23 percent to $35.7 billion…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Virtual Dash Buttons for Replenishment
Now there are also Virtual Dash Buttons, software shortcuts that work the same as physical buttons, can work on devices like tablets and phones. Allow for quick replenishment decisions, wherever you may be. Another example…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Build the Google Assistant on Anything
Let the competition begin for assistance. Taking a close look at the architecture. Rumors of similar capabilities from Apple/Siri are also emerging.
The Google Assistant SDK will let you run the Assistant on anything
Build
By…
From insideHPC
STEM: Keeping the Interest
In this special guest feature, Kim McMahon writes that helping get young people interested in STEM is the job of every HPC professional. "The ISC High Performance Conference is taking charge and educating with the establishment…
From insideHPC
LANL Prepares Next Generation of HPC Professionals at New Mexico High School Supercomputing Challenge
More than 200 New Mexico students and teachers from 55 different teams came together in Albuquerque the week to showcase their computing research projects at the 27th annual New Mexico Supercomputing Challenge expo and awards…
From insideHPC
European Exascale System Interconnect & Storage
"The project, called ExaNeSt, is based on ARM processors, originally developed for mobile and embedded applications. Where ExaNeSt differs from Mont Blanc, however, is a focus on networking and on the design of applications.
…
From Blog@Ubiquity
Insider Attacks Are A Bigger and Harder Threat?
There is a new trend apparently emerging to defend against data loss and data damage as a result of external hacking. Some organizations have been removing their sensitive data from the Internet or isolating such data on “private…
From insideHPC
Rock Stars of HPC: James Phillips
Recipient of a Gordon Bell Award in 2002, James Phillips has been a full-time research programmer for almost 20 years. Since 1998, he has been the lead developer of NAMD, a parallel molecular dynamics code designed for high-performance…
From insideHPC
Intel Advisor Roofline Analysis Finds New Opportunities for Optimizing Application Performance
Intel Advisor, an integral part of Intel Parallel Studio XE 2017, can help identify portions of code that could be good candidates for parallelization (both vectorization and threading). It can also help determine when it might…
From Computational Complexity
So Was I
…
From The Eponymous Pickle
R Packages for Data Wrangling
Most of this is quite well known, but provides an excellent lengthy table of resources. Like the extent of the information, there will be things you don't know. 'Data Wrangling' applies to manipulating and examining your data…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Acting Quickly
In the HBR, Its part of the risk model.
How to Act Quickly Without Sacrificing Critical Thinking by Jesse Sostrin
An unbridled urgency can be counterproductive and costly. If you’re too quick to
react, you can end up with…
From Schneier on Security
Reading Analytics and Privacy
Interesting paper: "The rise of reading analytics and the emerging calculus of reading privacy in the digital world," by Clifford Lynch: Abstract: This paper studies emerging technologies for tracking reading behaviors ("reading…
From Computer Science Teacher - Thoughts and Information From Alfred Thompson
How important is the first programming language really?
We really need people who have never faced a room full of students in their lives to teach us how to teach computer science.
Said no CS teacher ever.
What brought that on you may well ask. Long story. First Mark Guzdial posts…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Transparency not Needed in Health Care Deep Learning?
Not sure I agree. Will the accuracy and kinds of errors be the same? Liability implications. And also, who will be liable for errors that are made? Will the AMA concur? That is all wound up in the algorithmic methods. The…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Baidu and a Free OS for Cars
Quite an interesting play. Open source OS for self driving cars. An unexpected thing from a player like China via Baidu. Maybe free but not open source? In Technology Review:
Baidu Will Release a Free Operating System for…
From The Computing Community Consortium Blog
Robotics Researcher Named ACM 2017-2018 Athena Lecturer
The Noah Harding Professor of Computer Science and Professor of Bioengineering at Rice University, Lydia E. Kavraki, has been named the Association for Computing Machinery (ACM) 2017-2018 Athena Lecturer. Each year, the Athena…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Amazon Echo Look Fashion Assistant
A kind of 'magic mirror' play. We experimented with, primarily in cosmetics. Can that be far away? Following. Currently available only by invitation. In Engadget:
Amazon Echo Look is a voice-controlled camera for fashion…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Bots in the UnCanny Valley
The 'Uncanny Valley' is a term used in the physical representation of people in android form, as they get closer to reality we get uneasy. Now it has been suggested that the way bots chat is also reaching that. I have conversed…
From The Eponymous Pickle
7-Eleven Seeks Japan Labor Efficiency
There are worker shortages in Japan, so 7-Eleven stores are experimenting with RFID tagging to eliminate or greatly simplify checkout, and thus decrease labor needs. Can this test translate to the US? Can they tailor the…
From insideHPC
The Past and Future of Aircraft Engine Development
"Inside a jet engine, air flowing faster than a hurricane is combined with fuel to generate heat that powers the plane. Designers are turning to supercomputers to model these complex processes to make new engines that are cleaner…
From Computer Science Teacher - Thoughts and Information From Alfred Thompson
Surface Book–a first look
I’ve had two Surface Pros. A Surface Pro 3 and a Surface Pro 4. I love them. Make no mistake these have been idea travel computers for me. And powerful enough for just about everything I could want. They are also great for teaching…
From insideHPC
Peter Calverley Joins CoolIT Systems’ Board of Directors
Today CoolIT Systems announced that Peter Calverley, CFO of Tela Innovations, has been elected to CoolIT’s Board of Directors. Doug Reid has retired from the Board after 5 years of service. "I am excited to join the Board of
…