Communications of the ACM
The blog archive provides access to past blog postings from Communications of the ACM and other sources by date.
April 2018
From insideHPC
ANSYS Software Powers Additive Manufacturing of Metal Components
Ansys is hoping to transform how industries such as aerospace and defense, biotech and automotive can manufacture metal parts thanks to its new solutions for metal additive manufacturing. "Our technology spurs the efficient creation…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Wal-Mart new Website Design vs Amazon
Like the mention of 'Choice and Control'. And thinking of retail as therapy? Not really quite a science here, but reasonable design considerations.
This Is How Walmart Should Design Its New Website (According to Science) …
From insideHPC
HPE Deploys “Genius” Supercomputer at KU Leuven
Today HPE announced a new supercomputer installation at KU Leuven, a Flemish research university consistently ranked as one of the five most innovative universities in the world. HPE collaborated with KU Leuven to develop and…
From insideHPC
Researchers using HPC to help fight Bioterrorism
Researchers are using computational models powered by HPC to develop better strategies for protecting us from bioterrorism. "Recent advances in data analytics and artificial intelligence systems are fundamentally transforming…
From insideHPC
RCE Podcast Looks at MEEP Software for Simulating Electromagnetic Systems
In this RCE podcast, Brock Palen and Jeff Squyres discuss MEEP, a free finite-difference time-domain (FDTD) software for electromagnetic simulations. Their guests are Dr. Steven G. Johnson and Dr. Ardavan Oskooi. "Meep is a free…
From insideHPC
The Use of HPC to Model the California Wildfires
Ilkay Altintas from the San Diego Supercomputer Center gave this talk at the HPC User Forum. "WIFIRE is an integrated system for wildfire analysis, with specific regard to changing urban dynamics and climate. The system integrates…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Sony, CMU looking at Cooking Robots
The idea of further looking at task oriented interaction with recipes, techniques and recipes. As a long time cook, and having worked in the Food industry. Also involves close cooperation with people. Been examining how assistants…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Calm Software
We were members of the MIT Media Lab for some time and I got to visit many times. The most unusual and intriguing part of it was the 'Tangible Media Group', which I recalled then studied things identifying themselves, known…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Symantec Detects Threats with AI
Had some conversations on threats as specific patterns of behavior, by people or agents. Seems there is lots of data of this type now being gathered to train systems.
Symantec seeks out targeted attacks with AI-based threat detection…
From Schneier on Security
Computer Alarm that Triggers When Lid Is Opened
"Do Not Disturb" is a Macintosh app that send an alert when the lid is opened. The idea is to detect computer tampering. Wire article: Do Not Disturb goes a step further than just the push notification. Using the Do Not Disturb…
From insideHPC
The Machine Learning Potential of a Combined Tech Approach
This is the first in a five-part series from a report exploring the potential of unified deep learning with CPU, GPU and FGPA technologies. This post explores the machine learning potential of taking a combined approach to these…
From Schneier on Security
Russia is Banning Telegram
Russia has banned the secure messaging app Telegram. It's making an absolute mess of the ban -- blocking 16 million IP addresses, many belonging to the Amazon and Google clouds -- and it's not even clear that it's working. But…
From BLOG@CACM
The Era of Hackers Is Over
The ability to hack algorithms and make data structures optimal was a virtue of programmers a few decades ago. The current reality is much different, with the ability of programmers to work remotely, communicate, and share information…
From The Eponymous Pickle
The Nature of Shopping for Gen Z
How much are specific 'generations'. Still have my doubts about how different the generations are. Still worth paying attention to understand measures involved.
Shopping for Gen Z George Anderson in Retailwire with expert…
From Computational Complexity
Find an 8-digits number such that ....
(June 29th, co-located with STOC, will be a workshop to celebrate Vijay Vazarani's 60th birthday. As computer scientists shouldn't we use 64 as the milestone? See here for details about the workshop, not about 60 vs 64.)
I
…
From insideHPC
Earth-modeling System steps up to Exascale
A new Earth-modeling system unveiled today will have weather-scale resolution and use advanced computers to simulate aspects of Earth’s variability and anticipate decadal changes that will critically impact the U.S. energy sector…
From insideHPC
Quantum Computing at NIST
Carl Williams from NIST gave this talk at the HPC User Forum in Tucson. "Quantum information science research at NIST explores ways to employ phenomena exclusive to the quantum world to measure, encode and process information…
From insideHPC
Radio Free HPC Looks at the New Coral-2 RFP for Exascale Computers
In this podcast, the Radio Free HPC team looks at the new Department of Energy’s RFP for Exascale Computers. "As far as predictions go, Dan thinks one machine will go to IBM and the other will go to Intel. Rich thinks HPE will…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Expectations of Communicating with Brands
The bar has been set high. Communications yes, but meaningful conversations are yet another thing. We did early experiments there, and found it tough to maintain them.
Survey Shows Consumers Have High Expectations for Communicating…
From insideHPC
Intel HPC Technology: Fueling Discovery and Insight with a Common Foundation
To remain competitive, companies, academic institutions, and government agencies must tap the data available to them to empower scientific breakthroughs and drive greater business agility. This guest post explores how Intel’s…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Measuring Innovation
Includes video. Standards of measurement are always useful.
Taking the measure of innovation By Guttorm Aase, Erik Roth, and Sri Swaminathan
Don’t overlook the insight that two simple metrics can yield about the effectiveness…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Amazon Wants to Build a Home Robot
Been following the Kuri as an existing example. An Alexa with wheels sounds like a bit much, but they already have an existing infrastructure to build on.
Bloomberg: Amazon wants to build a home robot
'I need your clothes, your…
From Schneier on Security
Yet Another Biometric: Ear Shape
This acoustic technology identifies individuals by their ear shapes. No information about either false positives or false negatives....
From The Eponymous Pickle
McKinsey on the Frontier of Artificial Intelligence
An 80 page non-technical overview of AI today. Perhaps not enough detail, but a useful exec view of where we are, where we are going , and some reasonable domain specific descriptions.
Mckinsey Global Institute
Artificial Intelligence…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Minecraft Content as Business
A virtual world made of process rather than place? And adding a business model? Good descriptive piece. And how Microsoft is supporting the idea.
Inside Microsoft’s Quest To Turn Minecraft Content Into A Business
Microsoft
Stefan…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Blockchain Jargon
Not enough detail, but still interesting, Might be useful to add at least a Wikipedia link to each. Further an example of practical use in each case.
A glossary of blockchain jargon
The terminology makes the technology seem either…
From Daniel Lemire's Blog
Enough with the intrusive updates!
This week-end, I went to my gaming PC in my living room. The PC did not respond when I grabbed the mouse. Puzzled, I pressed the “on” button on the PC. Then I saw that Microsoft saw fit to update my PC while I wasn’t looking.…
From Daniel Lemire's Blog
Science and Technology links (April 22nd, 2018)
You probably can’t write the two forms of the letter g, even if you have seen them thousands and thousands of times. Some neurodegenerative diseases might result from a fungal infection. This would include diseases like Parkinson…
From insideHPC
Containers Using Singularity on HPC
Abhinav Thota, from Indiana University gave this talk at the 2018 Swiss HPC Conference. "Container use is becoming more widespread in the HPC field. There are various reasons for this, including the broadening of the user base…
From insideHPC
Call for Submissions: SC18 Workshop on Reproducibility
Over at the SC18 Blog, Stephen Lien Harrell from Purdue writes that the conference will host will host a workshop on the hot topic of Reproducibility. Their Call for Submissions is out with a deadline of August 19, 2018. "
The…