Communications of the ACM
The blog archive provides access to past blog postings from Communications of the ACM and other sources by date.
May 2013
From Computer Science Teacher - Thoughts and Information From Alfred Thompson
Why Web Apps?
I have a bias in favor of applications that run locally and take full advantage of the hardware and OS of the base platform. These days it seems like everything is moving to the web in some form or other. Scratch 2.0 runs completely…
From The Eponymous Pickle
IBM, GM Cultivate Data Scientists
In Adage: Not unexpected that large companies would want to work with schools and vendors to increase the population of needed skills for dealing with the data deluge and its leverage with analytics.
From The Eponymous Pickle
Intelligent Machine Design
An upcoming Webinar on Machine Design on May 23. Requires registration. An area we looked into during our AI phase to better apply manufacturing methods in flexible and efficient ways. I will be busy that day, but I see you…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Who Likes Change?
In the HBR: No one, really, but how can they be involved in determining real change? Good overview piece, but I would add that a good simulation of the decision process, like the use of Business Process Modeling (BPM) can be…
From Schneier on Security
Bluetooth-Controlled Door Lock
Here is a new lock that you can control via Bluetooth and an iPhone app.
That's pretty cool, and I can imagine all sorts of reasons to get one of those. But I'm sure there are all sorts of unforeseen security vulnerabilities…From The Computing Community Consortium Blog
I-Corps Sites Program Proposals Due July 1
Transitioning Research into the Marketplace: NSF Funding Opportunity for Academic Institutions Engaged in Entrepreneurship The National Science Foundation has developed a suite of funding opportunities, the Innovation Corps Programs…
From The Computing Community Consortium Blog
National Science Foundation says No
Science’s Jeffrey Mervis is reporting that The National Science Foundation (NSF) is saying No to the Chair of the House of Representatives Science, Space, and Technology Committee, Lamar Smith’s request for the reviewer comment…
From Putting People First
SAP’s UX strategy
SAP customers are increasingly telling the company that user experience (UX) is the differentiator, not features and functions, starts the introduction to SAP’s new UX strategy. “With [its] large product portfolio, any SAP UX…
From BLOG@CACM
Computer Science: Catch Them Early
Informatics education for primary and secondary schools
From Gödel's Lost Letter and P=NP
Graduate Student Traps
Can we help avoid parallel repetition of mistakes? Irit Dinur has recently again shown a wonderful skill at re-conceptualizing an area that had seemingly been well worked out. A notable previous instance was her re-casting the…
From The Eponymous Pickle
New in Google Plus
Google's social network lets Google+ get smarter. In Technology Review. I have used it only sparingly for a few years, but I know many groups that are enthusiastic about it. Worth another look now that it has been improved…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Future Packaging
IDEO produces some interesting package designs of the future. " ... To a large extent, packaging mediates our experience with the world, probably more than any of us realize. This year’s charrette elicited a vast array of ideas…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Surprise in Innovation
Correspondent Michael Schrage in the HBR Blog. He talks reactive and proactive surprise. Ans how the difference can pay big dividends. With the example of DARPA, a group I worked with in the 70s. " ... Anticipating and…
From Computer Science Teachers Association
Random Hacks a Great Success for Students
Great experience! Provided teamwork for all of us! It made us work super hard! Really Fun!” exclaimed Isabel, age 11. Fun and hard work are just the words teachers yearn to hear from their students. Over the past year, I've…
From updated sporadically at best
According to Graph Search: 36 Hours in Portland, Oregon
Photo credits, clockwise from top left: The Portland Japanese Garden Facebook page; Powell's Books Facebook page; Ray's Ragtime Facebook page; LaurelThirst Public House Facebook page; Jesse Cornett via Facebook; Deke Dickerson…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Marketing, Advertising and Big Data
Big Data and Marketing: " ... Luminar, PubMatic and Lotame Solutions Inc. are living proof that marketing and advertising are two of the killer applications for big data technologies like Hadoop, according to officials at the…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Thinking Business Process Modeling
A long time interest. Here, ten points to think out before starting. " ... Most organizations understand how business process management (BPM) can generate long-term benefits, but the common thinking has been that implementing…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Marketers and Gaming
In Fast Company: What Marketers can learn from Gaming. An interesting take that should be developed further. " ... Now marketers are discovering the “power of play” to boost customer interaction. In April 2010, games developer…
From The Computing Community Consortium Blog
White House “We the Geeks” Hangout on Grand Challenges
Tomorrow, May 16, at 2:00 p.m. EDT, watch the first ‘We the Geeks” Hangout on WhiteHouse.gov and on the White House Google+ page. On May 16th, the White House is kicking off “We the Geeks,” a new series of Google+ Hangouts to…
From The Female Perspective of Computer Science
In Which I Am Tempted to Move to California
Blog posts have been sparse lately: I have been traveling. Last week I spent five days in Palo Alto, California. The visit was primarily for the Anita Borg Institute Advisory Board meeting, but I also had the opportunity to…
From updated sporadically at best
Facebook Graph Search as a Journalistic Tool
Facebook is becoming an ever-powerful stalking tool. The social network now associates users with not just profiles stating some facts about their status and interests, but also, among other things, with photographs, location…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Supply Shock
A concept I had not heard in quite a while. How does 'supply shock' spread through a system and influence costs and inventory and markets? Would like to see a simulation of this. Here using as an example the spread of North…
From U.S. Public Policy Committee of the ACM
USACM Comments on Proposed US-EU Trade Agreement
The ACM U.S. Public Policy Council submitted its public comment to the U.S. Trade Representative outlining three important intellectual property principles for the U.S. government to consider in the upcoming Transatlantic Trade…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Spicy Foods
An area we examined in the sensory realm. In particular as a branding experiment, the Tabasco brand mentioned took a very long time to extend its reach. Now has dozens of SKUs. The basic sauce can be seen in silent movies…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Feigenbaum Wins IEEE Pioneer Awrd
Edward Feigenbaum, known as the father of expert systems, Stanford Professor Emeritus, has been awarded the Computer Society Pioneer Award. We consulted with him on the use of expert systems for some of our earliest knowledge…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Baxter Robot for Researchers
Open source software for a standard robot: " ... Rethink Robotics, the Boston startup founded by Rodney Brooks, doesn't want to be just a robot maker. The company wants Baxter, its innovative industrial robot, to become a platform…
From The Computing Community Consortium Blog
Fulbright Israel Post-Doctoral Fellowships for American Researchers in All Disciplines
The United States-Israel Educational Foundation (USIEF), the Fulbright commission for Israel, offers 8 fellowships to American post-doctoral researchers in support of work to be carried out at Israeli universities during the…
From The Eponymous Pickle
StudioNeuro
Brought late to my attention StudioNeuro, brought to my attention by A K Pradeep of Neurofocus/Nielsen. A number of the advisors are known to me. Appears to be an integration of Neuromarketing technology with specific Nielsen…
From The Eponymous Pickle
SAP Lumira Cloud
A useful view of SAP Lumira Cloud, formerly SAP Visual Intelligence. I had taken a superficial look at this a few months ago. The change of the name from something at least generally descriptive, to something mysteriously…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Twitter Buys Big Data Analytics
An expected kind of move. The value of all social media will ultimately come from analyzing the behavior with their systems. I had not heard of the company, Lucky Sort. In CWorld.