Communications of the ACM
The blog archive provides access to past blog postings from Communications of the ACM and other sources by date.
May 2014
From The Computing Community Consortium Blog
CCC Welcomes Helen Vasaly
Computing Research Association is pleased to announce the hire of Helen Vasaly as a Program Associate for the Computing Community Consortium. In her current role, Helen interacts with members of the research community and policy…
From BLOG@CACM
HBI: Human-Bubble Interaction
One of the best things about attending the recent ACM CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI 2014) is that you get to play with things.
From The Eponymous Pickle
Smart Look at Hadoop and Big Data
Good piece by Tina Groves. I have discovered that many technologists, especially in the small to medium sized businesses, do not understand the value Hadoop or Big Data. Or how the methods work together with predictive analytics…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Big Data and Social Physics Course
Of interest, can be audited free." ... Social physics is a big data science that models how networks of people behave and uses these network models to create actionable intelligence. It is a quantitative science that can accurately…
From U.S. Public Policy Committee of the ACM
Hill Tech Happenings, Week of May 12
May 14 Hearing: The Senate Rules and Administration Committee will hold a hearing on elections data. 9:30 a.m., 301 Russell Building May 15 Hearing: The Investigations Subcommittee of the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental…
From Computational Complexity
How should qualifying exams and courses work
In my last post about what Every Theory Grad Student Should know some more general questions were raised: Qualifying exams vs Course Requirements. Why do we have either? 1) To correct mistakes that admissions made. That is…
From BLOG@CACM
Run-Time Assertions: What Are You Waiting For?
Would Design by Contract have avoided Heartbleed?
From Schneier on Security
Internet Subversion
In addition to turning the Internet into a worldwide surveillance platform, the NSA has surreptitiously weakened the products, protocols, and standards we all use to protect ourselves. By doing so, it has destroyed the trust…
From Computer Science Teacher - Thoughts and Information From Alfred Thompson
Interesting Links 12 May 2014
Looking at my Facebook timeline it looks like schools in the southern US are starting to wrap up for the year already. My school has about another month or so. After that it is ISTE for me! Looking forward to seeing a lot off…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Shopping Image Recognition by Amazon: Flow
Have spent some time on the process of shopping using in-aisle using scanning methods. Finally got a chance to look at this method more closely using an IOS installed Amazon App: Flow. The approach, a little mysteriously, is…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Guy Kawasaki on the Art of Innovation
Guy Kawasaki on Innovation' ... “Innovation is the specific instrument of entrepreneurship … the act that endows resources with a new capacity to create wealth.” — Peter DruckerPeter Drucker was right: Innovation is what creates…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Press Explaining News with Technology: Vox
How much should the press explain the news rather than just present it? A colleague pointed out Vox to me. Positioned as a closer melding of technology and journalism. Is that a good thing? It is inevitable. What will…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Is the Data Analytics Field Consolidating?
First I heard of this. Not sure I agree. In GigaOM" ... The big data and analytics world is entering that consolidation phase right now. Buyers can’t eliminate risk, but they should watch market consolidation in order to mitigate…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Simple Data Visualization for Retail
Recall I mentioned this effort here before. Now a reminder from the HBR:' ... “Retailers are all using scanner data to track what happened at the point of sale,” says Sam Hui, an associate professor of marketing at NYU’s Stern…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Historical Look at Netscape
Our labs were early users of the Mosaic browser to communicate with University research. We watched the work of Jim Clark out of SGI with Marc Andreessen. We used browsers like theirs for our Intranet. So it is interesting…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Synthetic Biology Conference
In the NYT: A topic we linked with the Santa Fe Institute on. Also with MIT prof Neil Gershenfeld, who is quoted in the article. " Neil Gershenfeld, ... a physicist who is the director of the Center for Bits and Atoms,…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Correlation does not mean Causation
A group of amusing slides that make the case. Probably best as examples for the non scientist managers you work with. But you would be surprised how much effort has been hung on a good correlation number by scientists. Even…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Basic Tools for Data Viz
From Vincent Granville in Data Science Central: 30 Basic Tools for data visualization. Software and other resources. No reason anyone should not be able to deal with visualization needs. Nice summary of links.
From The Eponymous Pickle
Shopping by Scanning Images
In MarketWatch: We experimented with approaches that used watermarks embedded in packaging. Includes a short video demo to show it in operation." .... You can now shop on Amazon by taking photosApp’s new “Flow” feature allows…
From Wild WebMink
Steering Where You Look
Originally posted on Meshed Insights & Knowledge:When I learned to drive, my instructor told me “you steer where you look” — in other words, wherever you focus your attention becomes your destination, so keep your eyes on the…
From Putting People First
Anthropologists as scholarly hipsters
Can looking at the hipster tell us something about the anthropologist and the academy? Alex Posecznick (anthropologist at the University of Pennsylvania) explores the role of anthropologists in academia from a parallel hipster…
From U.S. Public Policy Committee of the ACM
UCLA Sanjam Garg Wins ACM Doctoral Dissertation Award
The ACM Doctoral Dissertation Award is presented annually to the author of the best doctoral dissertation in computer science and engineering. Sanjam Garg, who earned his Ph.D. in Computer Science from the University of California…
From U.S. Public Policy Committee of the ACM
State of the Net Wireless Keynote by Cellphone Pioneer Martin Cooper
The inventor of the wireless phone, Martin Cooper, called for a spectrum policy roadmap focused on promoting efficient use, competition, and innovation at this week’s State of the Net Wireless conference, sponsored by the Congressional…
From Schneier on Security
Friday Squid Blogging: The Evolutionary Purpose of Pain
A new study shows that Doryteuthis pealei in pain -- or whatever passes for pain in that species -- has heightened sensory sensitivity and heightened reactions. News articles. As usual, you can also use this squid post to talk…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Visualizing Data from High Performance Computing
Simulation creates a great deal of data, so it naturally links well with visualization Every industrial simulation we wrote for the enterprise was linked to a visualization to understand the subtleties of parameter changesIn…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Big Data and Food and Beverage Retail
A Podcast of interest. " .... Nearly every company wants to acquire more customers and keep them longer. Yet in some ways, that’s more challenging now than ever with so many options available to consumers. But there is also tremendous…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Profiling via Shopper Self Scans
In a Telagraph piece, the suggestion that data gathered from self scanning checkouts could be used to profile shoppers. Fairly thin article. Points to a Symbol Technologies Patent. That points to some specific statistical…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Google Acquires Rangespan
Addressing supply chain management. " .... Google has made another move to build out its e-commerce business, and specifically its retail portal Google Shopping. It has acquired Rangespan, a London-based provider of back office…
From Putting People First
Mayo Clinic study highlights potential of mobile technology to transfer patient rehabilitation
In a recent study out of the Mayo Clinic (reported on by iMedicalApps), patients undergoing cardiac rehabilitation post-MI were offered the opportunity to use an app that provides the ability to track their progress and delivers…
From Putting People First
[Book] Handbook of Anthropology in Business
Handbook of Anthropology in Business Editors: Rita M. Denny and Patricia L. Sunderland Left Coast Press 752 pp. / May, 2014 In recent years announcements of the birth of business anthropology have ricocheted around the globe.…