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
Snap! by Lectora
Announced today, a $99 package Snap! by Lectora, a rapid development elearning environment that is an add-in to Powerpoint. I was particularly impressed by the ability to easily record and sync spoken narratives, images and…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Elliott Masie Speaks
At the Trivantis Lectora 2011 Users conference today learning expert and futurist Elliott Masie spoke about the rapidly changing world of learning. First time I had heard him speak. Very well done, both future looking and practical…
From Putting People First
Exploring mobile-only internet use in urban South Africa
Jonathan Donner of Microsoft Research India, together with Shikoh Gitau and Gary Marsden of the University of Cape Town, have published their ethnographic insights in mobile-only internet use in urban South Africa. “Using an…
From Putting People First
Mobiles for Women. Part 1: The Good.
As mobile penetration increases across the developing world, the entry of mobile phones in the hands of women causes reactions. In many cases, mobile phone ownership empowers women in myriad ways: economic gains, increased access…
From The Computing Community Consortium Blog
The Role of Information Sciences and Engineering in Sustainabilty
As we’ve
From Putting People First
Macro design for nation building
In his paper “MacroDesign for Nation Building“, Uday Dandavate, founder and CEO of SonicRim Ltd., elaborates on the concept of MacroDesign, a public policy perspective in understanding the role of design and design thinking.…
From Putting People First
How Fidelity used design thinking to perfect its website
Frederick S. Leichter, chief customer experience officer at Fidelity Investments, reports in the Harvard Business Review on how design thinking practices have helped Fidelity gain important insight into meeting customer needs…
From Putting People First
Ethnography in UX
In his book The Human Factor, Kim Vicente presents the Human-Tech Ladder, which categorizes human and societal needs according to five factors: physical, psychological, team, organizational, and political. Many UX professionals…
From Schneier on Security
RFID Tags Protecting Hotel Towels
The stealing of hotel towels isn't a big problem in the scheme of world problems, but it can be expensive for hotels. Sure, we have moral prohibitions against stealing -- that'll prevent most people from stealing the towels.…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Visa Digital Wallet
Visa Advances a one click digital wallet.
From The Female Perspective of Computer Science
2011 Mini-Course: Post-Course Survey Results
Each year at the end of my mini-course, I give the girls a customized survey to try and find out what their attitudes are about computer science after experiencing it first hand. Naturally, I'm hoping that they see the subject…
From Computational Complexity
FCRC Early Registration May 16
One final reminder for the FCRC Conference. Early registration deadline is this Monday, May 16. There are a number of events at FCRC of interest to our readers: STOC, Complexity, Electronic Commerce, SPAA, PODC and Foundations…
From BLOG@CACM
Information Privacy: Changing Norms and Expectations
That picture of you at a family reunion, squinting into the sun, can rarely be delimited by a physical location once it is placed on the web. Instead, information flows freely and often globally. We need to rethink our notions…
From Computer Science Teacher - Thoughts and Information From Alfred Thompson
Computer Science As Competitive Sport
I was reading Tracey Armstrong's blog this morning. He was writing about the end of the Texas CS Competition season. Yep, in Texas there is a Computer Science competition season. Who knew! Here in New England where I live there…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Buck Stopping in Business
In the HBR: Where and when does the buck stop in business? Scope of responsibility.
From Schneier on Security
"Resilience of the Internet Interconnection Ecosystem"
This blog post by Richard Clayton is worth reading.
If you have more time, there's 238-page report and a 31-page executive summary.
From Wild WebMink
? Meddling In Foreign Affairs
The Special 301 Report is an annual publication by the US Trade Representative (USTR), fulfilling US legal requirements to identify countries whose copyright, patent, trademark and trade secrets laws and practices are of concern…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Searchable Body Map
In ReadWriteWeb: Today, Healthline released the first three-dimensional, interactive, online search tool for the entire human body, BodyMaps ...
From CERIAS Blog
Sony, Congress, The Media and Me
Prelude
As a researcher and educator, I regularly follow many newsletters, blogs and newsfeeds on a near daily basis. Some items I bookmark for my classes and research, but most I simply read, note, and discard. I read many dozen…From Computer Science Teachers Association
Sock Monkey Learns About Knitting and Algorithms
Here, Renee Ciezki is showing Sock Monkey how a knitting pattern is actually an algorithm. Renee is a member of the CSTA Leadership cohort. She teaches in Arizona.
From The Eponymous Pickle
A National Jukebox
The US Library of Congress has launched a 'national jukebox' from their huge collection of audio recordings. You can listen free, but not download. Nice idea, from ReadWriteWeb.
From Schneier on Security
Medieval Tally Stick Discovered in Germany
The well-preserved tally stick was used in the Middle Ages to count the debts owed by the holder in a time when most people were unable to read or write.
"Debts would have been carved into the stick in the form…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Wristband Measures Emotional Component
Affectiva is best known for its founding by Rosalind Picard of MIT. We worked with them to understand the emotional responses of people to products on a shelf. Their new innovation measures emotions through a wristband, via…
From Daniel Lemire's Blog
Improve your impact with abundance-based design
People design all the time: new cars, new software, new houses. All design is guided by constraints (cost, time, materials, space) and by objectives (elegance, quality). Constraints are limitations: you only have so much money…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Messy Analytics
The conclusion of a three part series on practical aspects of using analytical methods by Frank Buytendijk. I had missed the first two parts, but now plan to go back and read them. " ... First, when you do statistical analysis…
From Wild WebMink
links for 2011-05-10
Might Be Evil Firefox extension that allows you to keep your Google Docs private from Google if you want to. (tags: FireFox Google Docs Privacy) On Changing horses: Open Source Licenses, Foundations and The Software Freedom Conservancy…
From Computational Complexity
Those Happy Samoans
Below is a post I wrote in 2009 but for some reason never made it to this blog. But I had better post it now because, as I found out via Tony Wirth, Samoa is moving across the international date line, 24 hours into the future…
From Schneier on Security
The Era of "Steal Everything"
Good comment:
"We're moving into an era of 'steal everything'," said David Emm, a senior security researcher for Kaspersky Labs. He believes that cyber criminals are now no longer just targeting banks or retailers in the search…From Computer Science Teacher - Thoughts and Information From Alfred Thompson
Programming with C# and XNA 0.5: Jump Start
Pat Yongpradit, a talented young HS CS teacher I have written about before, has created a 5 week mini-course on game programming with XNA Game Studio. This course is particularly useful for educators who want to offer game programming…
From Wild WebMink
? Launching OpenICF
I have a firm belief that open source software communities become strong when people with many different reasons for being present are free to meet their needs in a community. If everyone sees the software the same way, it’s…