Communications of the ACM
The blog archive provides access to past blog postings from Communications of the ACM and other sources by date.
April 2020
From The Eponymous Pickle
Contact Tracing Tracking: Privacy vs Valuable Data
More details on this, and how some descriptions about how it might proceed. Seems it has many positives for gathering information about the progress of the virus. For this example and future pandemics.
The importance of Apple…
From Schneier on Security
Ransomware Now Leaking Stolen Documents
Originally, ransomware didn't involve any data theft. Malware would encrypt the data on your computer, and demand a ransom for the encryption key. Now ransomware is increasingly involving both encryption and exfiltration. Brian…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Will Distanced Shopping Push Robot Delivery?
Yes, it will push further consideration. Distinguish companies that have the ability. There remains the complexity of broad coverage and autonomy. Note the example mentioned.
Will socially distanced shopping launch robot delivery…
From BLOG@CACM
Computational Thinking or Computational Teamwork?
Computational thinking can sound like "CS-minus." Is there a "CS-plus" that makes CS more attractive and approachable by all?
From The Eponymous Pickle
Data-Enabled Surveillance in Higher Education
Interesting and considerable piece on this in the CACM. Gathering such information can be of value to tailoring and improving the educational experience to students. Thus the temptation for value and efficiency. But is…
From Computer Science Teacher - Thoughts and Information From Alfred Thompson
Revisiting Old Coding Problem Friends
John Conway died the other day. He created the famous "Conway's Game of Life" that is familiar to so many programmers and computer scientists.
I've recently decided I want to write some fun programs and since I can't find theI…From The Computing Community Consortium Blog
Computing Researchers Respond to COVID-19: Personal Protective Equipment Fabrication
The following is a guest blog from Kristin Osborne, Communications Manager at Paul G. Allen School of Computer Science & Engineering, at the University of Washington (UW) and CCC Council member Shwetak Patel, Washington Research…
From Apophenia
Teens Are Addicted to Socializing, Not Screens
Screenagers in the time of coronavirus. (This was originally written for OneZero.) If you’re a parent trying to corral your children into attending “school” online, you’ve probably had the joy of witnessing a complete meltdown…
From The Eponymous Pickle
AI and The Future of Technical Work
Useful thoughts about the state and future of automation. Will it all be described as professional?
Artificial Intelligence and the Future of Professional Work By Mari Sako
Communications of the ACM, April 2020, Vol. 63 No…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Analog or Digital Mechanisms of the Past
Excellent summary of what is known to date about of the Antikythera Mechanism, a 'computer' found in an ancient Greek shipwreck, over 2000 years old. Not technical, but a favorite topic of interest.
The Antikythera Mechanism …
From insideHPC
PASC20 Conference postponed to 2021
The PASC20 conference in Geneva has been postponed to 2021. The new dates for the conference – PASC21 – are July 5-7, 2021, at the same location – the University of Geneva in Switzerland. "We hope that you will be able to join…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Using Microsoft Teams
Now have been a user of several remote collaboration methods for some time. Noted below a piece talks about Microsoft Teams use. Have used it since its rollout, generally very well done, and a natural thing to use if you are…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Towards an Unhackable Quantum Internet?
Interesting, but technical. General implications for personal or enterprise use?
Towards an Unhackable Quantum Internet
Harvard University John A. Paulson School of Engineering and Applied Sciences
Leah Burrows
Harvard University…
From insideHPC
HPCMP Supports the Fight Against COVID-19
The Department of Defense High Performance Computing Modernization Program (HPCMP) is using its supercomputing resources to support the federal response to the COVID-19 pandemic. "For the High-Performance Computing COVID-19 Consortium…
From insideHPC
Podcast: Bright Computing forges ex3 at Simula Research Laboratory
The eX3 infrastructure allows Norwegian HPC researchers and their international collaborators to explore bleeding-edge hardware and software that will be instrumental to the coming generation of supercomputers. "Simula chose
…
From insideHPC
EPEEC Project Fosters Heterogeneous HPC Programming in Europe
The European Programming Environment for Programming Productivity of Heterogeneous Supercomputers (EPEEC) is a project that aims to combine European made tools for programming models and performance tools that could help to relieve…
From insideHPC
insideHPC Special Research Report: Modernizing and Future-Proofing Your Storage Infrastructure
Data—the gold that today’s organizations spend significant resources to acquire—is ever-growing and underpins significant innovation in technologies for storing and accessing it. In this technology guide, insideHPC Special Research…
From Schneier on Security
Contact Tracing COVID-19 Infections via Smartphone Apps
Google and Apple have announced a joint project to create a privacy-preserving COVID-19 contact tracing app. (Details, such as we have them, are here.) It's similar to the app being developed at MIT, and similar to others being…
From Putting People First
Covid-19 and Social Innovation: Contactless sociability and hybrid communities of place
While some optimists think there will be a lasting positive change in our well-being model, with the quality of relationships and common goods at its centre, Manzini argues that things are not necessary going in that direction…
From Computational Complexity
John Conway Dies of Coronvirus
John Conway passed away on April 11, 2020 of the Coronovirus. He is the first person I knew (for some definition of `know') who has died of it. I suspect this is true of many readers of this blog.
(Fellow bloggers Scott Aaronson…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Breaking Down Service Prototyping
Upcoming Talk:
ISSIP Service Design Speaker Series: Breaking Down Service Prototyping on Wednesday, April 15, 2020, 11.00 - 11.45 AM US EDT
It is believed that a prototype of a service will never match an actual, real-world scenario…
From The Eponymous Pickle
McDonald's Bet Big On a Smart Idea. Now It's Saving Lives
Not only in selling burgers, but also as a medical services model. The very first time I saw a crowded drive-through it made me think of by Queueing analysis training. And thinking: 'There is a model we can readily do useful…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Google releases API to train smaller, faster AI models
Interesting development, note small and faster. I assume to make them useful for edge devices.. Also with the ability to retrain quickly.
Google releases API to train smaller, faster AI models Kyle Wiggers in VentureBeat
Google…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Maintaining Energy Equipment
Very key thing in an industrial world. And a good analytical view of the risk involved.
Maintaining the equipment that powers our world
By organizing performance data and predicting problems, Tagup helps energy companies keep
Zach…
From insideHPC
Video: PHIDIAS project creates HPC data-powered services for the earth science data
This week the EU launched a new portal for PHIDIAS, a Horizon 2020 project for creating sustainable HPC data-powered services for the earth, atmospheric and marine data towards researchers, industry and public sectors. "The PHIDIAS…
From insideHPC
Flinders University targets COVID-19 vaccine with Oracle Cloud
Australian researchers working with Oracle Cloud and vaccine technology developed by local company Vaxine Pty Ltd are testing a vaccine candidate against the SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus responsible for the COVID-19 pandemic. "The
…
From Daniel Lemire's Blog
Science and Technology links (April 11th 2020)
Greenland sharks reach their sexual maturity when they are 150 years old and they live hundreds of years. Some living sharks today were born in the 16th century. Only 5% of the general population rates themselves as below average…
From The Eponymous Pickle
On Metadata and Cooking
In almost every piece of work I have done in enterprises, there has been a need to deal with metadata. Metadata can mean a number of things .... like for example 'data about data'. for example the number of hits in a search…
From insideHPC
Supercomputing the spread of the coronavirus in busy indoor spaces
A joint project carried out by four Finnish research organisations has studied the transport and spread of coronavirus through the air. Preliminary results indicate that aerosol particles carrying the virus can remain in the
…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Sprayable User Interfaces
We saw this demonstrated, I believe at the MIT Media Lab,when we visited as a corporate sponsor, a long time ago. Apparent the work is still ongoing.
Sprayable User Interfaces
MIT News
Rachel Gordon
Researchers at the Massachusetts…