Communications of the ACM
The blog archive provides access to past blog postings from Communications of the ACM and other sources by date.
May 2011
From The Eponymous Pickle
Pads in Schools:Games as Learning
Should devices like the iPad replace books and other learning materials in schools? A recent experiment in the UK asks the question. I am still a proponent of simpler is better. While devices can be great augmentations of…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Endeca Business Intelligence
Newly discovered: Endeca. " ... For organizations seeking to improve daily decisions or purchase decisions for customers, Endeca is a search and business intelligence software company that helps people both find what they need…
From Wild WebMink
links for 2011-05-29
Can We Kill Off This Myth That The Internet Is A Wild West That Needs To Be Tamed? | Techdirt Excellent article. — "The internet does not exist as untouchable. Morality and the rule of law do apply to the actions people do there…
From CERIAS Blog
U.S. Memorial Day Thoughts on Cyber War
We've been hearing about "cyber war" for some time now. It has been held out as an existential threat by some people, been the topic of scores of books, and led to the establishment of military organizations in several countries…
From Computational Complexity
75 Years of Computer Science
As Lipton and Felten note, today is the 75th anniversary of Turing's On Computable Numbers, With an Application to The Entscheidungsproblem, the seminal paper of seminal papers in computer science. If you read any part of it…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Academics Move Closer to Wikipedia
I have been surprised that a large portion of academia was not sympathetic to the Wikipedia, perhaps seeing too much competition there. But once many people start gathering in one place for knowledge, you cannot help but participate…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Gamifying Your Startup
Rajat Paharia of Bunchball on ways to gamify your startup. This takes you beyond just slapping some badge measures on your site, which I agree will not work Some good thoughts on how games can support core experience and…
From Wild WebMink
links for 2011-05-28
John Perry Barlow Tells Copyright Maximalists That They've Got The Fundamentals Wrong Great stuff from JPB here. Shame of it all is despite hist stature in all the domains of interest at eG8 (songwriter, entrepreneur, internet…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Jesse Schell
The site of author,entrepreneur and game designer Jesse Schell. A number of useful threads there. I have just received his book: The Art of Game Design: A Book of Lenses, which so far is a good introduction to the topic.
From The Eponymous Pickle
Turing Award Winner Talks Technology
From the CACM: Turing Award winner Leslie Valiant discusses machine learning, parallel computing, and computational neuroscience. Machine learning is a favorite topic of mine, have experimented with many forms of it. Turning…
From Schneier on Security
Friday Squid Blogging: Hand-Cut Paper Silhouette
Surprisingly pretty.
From Wild WebMink
? eG8, Control Points and NameCoin
As the pressure on and from political leaders to “regulate” the internet mounts, the need for basic infrastructure to switch from hierarchical to distributed control is becoming more urgent. The week has seen a number of developments…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Thinking about Neuromarketing
Excellent thoughtful post about Neuromarketing and it's criticism and potential value.
From BLOG@CACM
Improving Computer Science Research Collaborations Between U.S. and China
On March 23-24 2011, the National Science Foundation held a workshop looking at how to build more effective collaborations between computer science researchers in the U.S. and in China. This blog entry looks at some of the opportunities…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Trends in Knowledge Work
Very good piece on what is happening in this space. I think that the continues overflow of information that is occuring makes just-in-time an essential element: " ... A company that could speed up critical knowledge worker…
From Daniel Lemire's Blog
Automation will make you obsolete, no matter who you are
I was part of the first generation of kids to receive computers as gifts. I was also part of the first generation of professionals to adopt computer-assisted tele-work: I can work from my bedroom just as efficiently as from my…
From Computer Science Teacher - Thoughts and Information From Alfred Thompson
Windows Phone 7 Games in Visual Basic
I’ve been working all week in C#. Now C# is a wonderful language if you are going to use semi-colons and curly braces. It fixes almost all of the issues I have with C++ and Java. But frankly I have missed the beauty of programming…
From Wild WebMink
? Future-proofing
NameCoin at The Dot-bit Project With internet-control-freak politics everywhere now – just look at eG8 and PROTECTIP for example – the need for distributed infrastructure beyond the control of any entity is getting stronger and…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Reverse Engineering Public Criticism
Good piece in the Harvard Blogs. In particular with a useful retail example: Wal-Mart. Which also includes criticism of how the company has handled things,. "... Good companies always strive to be better and a potentially…
From Schneier on Security
Apple's iOS 4 Hardware Encryption Cracked
All I know is what's in these two blog posts from Elcomsoft. Note that they didn't break AES-256; they figured out how to extract the keys from the hardware (iPhones, iPads). The company "will be releasing the product implementing…
From The Computing Community Consortium Blog
In light of the tornadoes that have devastated parts of the Midwest and South over the past several weeks,
From Putting People First
The future of the TV experience
The second global edition of BLINK, a quarterly media industry magazine published by media agency MediaCom, looks into the future of TV. The 48 page magazine contains insights from experts from around the globe on how TV is changing…
From Putting People First
Book: The Internet of Elsewhere
The Internet of Elsewhere: The Emergent Effects of a Wired World by Cyrus Farivar Rutgers University Press May 2011 Abstract Through the lens of culture, The Internet of Elsewhere looks at the role of the Internet as a catalyst…
From My Biased Coin
Practical Uses of Induction
See! Who says this stuff isn't useful....
From The Eponymous Pickle
Making 3D Models from Photos
From Technology Review: Making 3D Models from multiple 2D photos: video. Features free Autodesk software. Worth a look. Done previously only using a laser scanner.
From The Eponymous Pickle
Chore Wars: An Alternate Reality Game
I am doing some research in the area of 'gamification' and the use of games to improve serious work processes. That and some emerging project work has led me to start reading: Reality Is Broken: What Games Make Us Better and…
From The Computing Community Consortium Blog
The View of a Researcher:
As part of ScienceLives — an occasional NSF/LiveScience series that “puts scientists under the microscope to figure out what makes them tick” — CCC Council member
From Schneier on Security
U.S. Presidential Limo Defeated by Steep-Grade Parking Ramp
It's not something I know anything about -- actually, it's not something many people know about -- but I've posted some links about the security features of the U.S. presidential limousine. So it's amusing to watch the limosteep…
From Michael Nielsen
Survey notes on fermi algebras and the Jordan-Wigner transform now on GitHub
Continuing the theme of my last post, I’ve now put my old survey notes on fermi algebras and the Jordan-Wigner transform up on GitHub. The Jordan-Wigner transform is an amazing tool. It let’s you move back and forth between two…
From Putting People First
Usability testing with children: a lesson from Piaget
In this post, Sabina Idler, information designer at Usabilla (The Netherlands), introduces Piaget