Communications of the ACM
The blog archive provides access to past blog postings from Communications of the ACM and other sources by date.
May 2012
From The Eponymous Pickle
Driverless Cars Licensed for Test in Nevada
Google continues its test of driverless automobiles. A view of the future, when this will become common? Or will the idea be thwarted by accidents? For this test a million dollar bond has to be posted and two people must…
From Wild WebMink
Bad News For The Meshed Society?
The Oracle/Google initial verdict is out in the US, and it’s bad news for the 21st century software industry. My take is on InfoWorld, but there’s still a fragment of hope – the judge could still rule that APIs are not in fact…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Big Data can Show Large ROI
Intriguing piece with some case studies about how big data can lead to ROI. By examining the real relationships in the data. This points to may potential opportunities.
From Computational Complexity
Paying to Publish
You proved a nice theorem, wrote up the paper and submitted it to a major computer science conference. Your paper was accepted! Congratulations. Now pay up. An author of every paper accepted at a CS conferences is expected to…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Virtual Peapod Store in Chicago Tunnel
The approach uses simple smartphone scanning. " ... A Chicago "L" station is about the last place you would think of to pick up a carton of milk. But online grocer Peapod has turned a busy CTA station at State and Lake streets…
From Computer Science Teachers Association
Open Book Exams and SMOP
It is perhaps fitting to write a blog about teaching programming while I sit here and monitor my students as they write the final exam. I did my other exam yesterday (same class, another lecture section) so the grading is very…
From The Eponymous Pickle
3D Vision Allows Group Drone Flying
From the Fraunhofer Institute: In continued development of advanced imaging and control, this development is added to the broader development of drone sensors. Multiple, simple even disposable drones, could be a novel solution…
From U.S. Public Policy Committee of the ACM
Hill Tech Happenings, Week of May 7
May 9 Hearing: The Senate Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee will hold a hearing on the consumer privacy reports issued by the Federal Trade Commission and the Obama Administration. 2:30 p.m., 253 Russell Building
From The Computing Community Consortium Blog
Surge in Postdocs Continues, According to Latest Survey Data
The recent surge in the number of new Ph.D.s in computer science and allied fields pursuing postdoctoral positions
From Schneier on Security
Naval Drones
With all the talk about airborne drones like the Predator, it's easy to forget that drones can be in the water as well. Meet the Common Unmanned Surface Vessel (CUSV):
The boat -- painted in Navy gray and with a striking resemblance…From Computer Science Teacher - Thoughts and Information From Alfred Thompson
Interesting Links 7 May 2012
I didn
From Wild WebMink
Making Hybrid PDFs
It’s easy with LibreOffice. Send people attachments you can be sure they can view, but
From The Eponymous Pickle
Mobile no Longer Optional for Visualization
Notes In Znet: I largely agree. Tablets have become the new normal for viz. I don't think I would acquire a visualization application that I could not display on, and interact with, on at least one common mobile device. I…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Mind Mapping Expertise
From the Biggerplate mind mapping library blog: " ... Liam meets mapping expert Philippe Boukobza: Last week I was extremely fortunate to have the opportunity to meet with mind mapping expert Philippe Boukobza who runs a number…
From Wild WebMink
Half Dome Sunset
Reblogged from The Global Mink: Despite the crowds who gather to share the experience, watching the sun set and the shadow of the Sierras pass across the face of Half Dome in Yosemite National Park is always a tranquil and enriching…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Front Line Workers Need to Innovate
I much agree. It is ultimately essential. But in real life experience the effort is often seen as wasting time. Real rewards for it are often slow in coming. We are still attached to the focused, one task, assembly line mentality…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Data Philosophy vs Science
In data management. More akin to social science versus physics. There is science involved, but it is of the statistical rather than the precise law kind. It can be useful either way.
From The Eponymous Pickle
Orange Ads Work Better on Facebook
Tailoring ad effectiveness. Makes sense to look at this analytically.Not Unlike Continual Improvement Processes in Factories, CPG Giant Taps Data to Constantly Refine Digital-Ad EffectivenessDigital is consuming more of Procter…
From Putting People First
The false question of attention economics
An older post, but I missed it. So here it is, more than two years after it was published by Stowe Boyd: “A few posts have emerged recently that recapitulate the well-worn arguments of attention scarcity and information overload…
From Putting People First
Customer experience: The natural ally for UX in business
In a blog post (which is itself a paraphrased transcript of his talk at the Polish IA Summit 2012), Peter Bogaards talks about the relationship between user experience and customer experience, and how user experience designers…
From Putting People First
User experience is strategy, not design
Peter Merholz, VP of experience design at Inflection (and founder of Adaptive Path), thinks there is no such thing as a UX design profession. User experience is a strategic framework, he says, a mindset for approaching product…
From Wild WebMink
Ubuntu for Android
In case you missed it in the article yesterday (I know plenty of people don’t click through!), here is the very simple video I made of Ubuntu for Android in action: It’s able to run unmodified LibreOffice because it’s running…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Mobile Clorox
Clorox meets moms in the aisles with smartphones. Emarketer article about how the CPG company is using mobile marketing. ' ... "We are always asking: Is this really demonstrating a true understanding of who the mom is and…
From Schneier on Security
Friday Squid Blogging: Squid Bicycle Parking Sculpture
As usual, you can also use this squid post to talk about the security stories in the news that I haven't covered.
From Schneier on Security
Tampon-Shaped USB Drive
This vendor is selling a tampon-shaped USB drive. Although it's less secure now that there are blog posts about it.
From Computer Science Teachers Association
Membership Survey Contest Winners
Congratulations to the winners of our 2012 membership survey:
- Daniel Loeb, from Sydney, Nova Scotia, Canada
- Joanna Baniaga, Mililani, Hawaii, USA
Our winners will each receive a $100 Amazon gift card. Daniel and Joanna…From The Female Perspective of Computer Science
Two Examples of Storytelling to Teach Computer Science
Here are two delightful examples of using storytelling to teach computer science. These are traditional stories to be read on their own. They differs from our storytelling experiment, where we are doing interactive group activities…
From Computational Complexity
Is it well known that we need to redefine well known?
A LONG time (so long ago I was a guest poster, not a co-blogger) I posted about how calling things that are on You-Tube rare is odd since ITS ON YOU-TUBE! ANYONE in the world can look at it! I now have a Contrasting thought:well…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Image Analysis Game
A crowd-sourced image analysis game. I worked on several image analysis systems that had crowd-sourced and gaming components, so the details here are interesting. " ... Analysis and related diagnosis of medical images, regardless…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Wal-Mart Shelf Winners
The winners of the Wal-Mart crowd sourced product selection contest have been announced. Bottled water, eyeglass repair and food storage were the category winners. By my view, the actual crowd-sourced innovation displayed…