Communications of the ACM
The blog archive provides access to past blog postings from Communications of the ACM and other sources by date.
May 2016
From Computer Science Teacher - Thoughts and Information From Alfred Thompson
Computer Science Making Numbers More Interesting
Last night I lay awake thinking about numbers and programming languages. Yes I know – weird. One of the first programming languages I was paid to write code in was called DIBOL – Digital’s Business Oriented Language. It was …
From Schneier on Security
Credential Stealing as an Attack Vector
Traditional computer security concerns itself with vulnerabilities. We employ antivirus software to detect malware that exploits vulnerabilities. We have automatic patching systems to fix vulnerabilities. We debate whether the…
From insideHPC
Supercomputing van der Waals Forces on Mira
Over at ALCF, Katie Jones writes that researchers are using the Mira supercomputer to validate a new “wave-like” model of the van der Waals force—a weak attraction that has strong ties to function and stability in materials and…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Google OnHub with IFTTT is Looking Like an Echo
When Google first introduced the OnHub, it looked like a too complex and expensive Wifi hub. Did not give it much thought. But when hooked to the IFTTT engine with 'recipes', announced today, it becomes a control box thatThis…
From The Eponymous Pickle
A Semantic Ecosystem
A big challenge. What is a semantic Ecosystem? By Topquadrant: A like the thoughts to a combination of data, metadata and services ... via an ontology.SEMANTIC ECOSYSTEM – WHAT’S THAT ABOUT?A semantic ecosystem is a modernAdd…
From insideHPC
Video: DSSD Scalable High Performance FLASH Systems
Jeff Bonwick from EMC DSSD presented this talk at the MSST conference. "Jeff Bonwick is co-founder and CTO of DSSD, where he co-invented both the system hardware architecture and the Flood software stack. His talk will focus …
From The Computing Community Consortium Blog
Artificial Intelligence for Social Good
The Computing Community Consortium (CCC) is proud to announce a White House Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP), Association for the Advancement of Artificial Intelligence (AAAI), and CCC co-sponsored public workshop…
From Schneier on Security
Julian Sanchez on the Feinstein-Burr Bill
Two excellent posts....
From insideHPC
Edison Supercomputer Helps Find Roots of MJO Modeling Mismatches
The MJO occurs on its own timetable—every 30 to 60 days—but its worldwide impact spurs scientists to unlock its secrets. The ultimate answer? Timely preparation for the precipitation havoc it brings—and insight into how it will…
From insideHPC
Time-lapse Video: Cray Install at UK Met Office
In this video, technicians install a new supercomputer at UK Met Office. The Met Office is the National Weather Service for the UK, providing internationally-renowned weather and climate science and services to support the public…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Getting Aboard the Food Truck Revolution
In Retailwire. Here this talks about the Food Truck Concept in retail in particular. A useful conversation. But taking it further, should CPG and other companies look at this as well? Building word of mouth driven channels…
From insideHPC
HPC and the HDC Datacenter
In this special guest feature from Scientific Computing World, Darren Watkins from Virtus Data Centres explains the importance of building a data centre from the ground up to support the requirements of HPC users - while maximizing…
From Phys.org Technology News
In Tech: Dish techs fix iPhones, Best Buy gets Oculus VR
When Dish technicians aren't busy installing satellite TV services in people's homes, they'll be making house calls to replace iPhone batteries and broken screens.
From insideHPC
An Open Letter to the HPC Community
Altair is making a big investment toward uniting the whole HPC community to accelerate the state of the art (and the state of actual production operations) for HPC scheduling. Altair is joining the OpenHPC project with PBS Pro…
From Daniel Lemire's Blog
Email: how to be polite and efficient
Email is an old platform, but it still represents the cornerstone of most of our work online. Surprisingly, many people seem to be using email poorly. Here are a few basic rules to keep us productive. Long emails are inefficient…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Now Accenture's MyWizard Works
From Accenture Newsroom:Accenture Launches Intelligent Automation Platform to Deliver Smarter, More Efficient Application Services that Improve Business OutcomesAccenture Launches Intelligent Automation Platform to Deliver Smarter…
From Phys.org Technology News
What readers think about computer-generated texts
Readers like to read texts generated by computers, especially when they are unaware that what they are reading was assembled on the basis of an algorithm. This, at any rate, is the conclusion suggested by the results of an experiment…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Smart Homes
Good overview of the state and direction of smart home technology " ... Smartphones, mesh networks and cloud computing are enabling the long-awaited smart home. Standards and open-source software could make them ubiquitous.…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Parallel Graph Analytics
Extensive piece on this in the CACM. This studies the structure of complex graphs, similar to graph analytics. Had never heard exactly this term used for similar visualization capabilities. See the Graph Analytics tag below…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Samsung Family Hub Refrigerator
Samsung continues to move ahead, with smart hubs in standard appliances. Very expensive appliances. Such white goods appliances have the problem of dealing with synchronizing with high tech systems, which have historically"…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Claude Shannon
Historical piece on one my favorite pioneers of the computing era. A problem we are still dealing with, the relationship between knowledge and data. Rarely have heard of Shannon in recent years. Worth knowing the story " ..…
From Schneier on Security
Fake Security Conferences
Turns out there are two different conferences with the title International Conference on Cyber Security (ICCS 2016), one real and one fake. Richard Clayton has the story....
From The Computing Community Consortium Blog
CCC Announces New Leadership
Today we are happy to announce the new CCC leadership. Elizabeth Mynatt and Mark Hill will assume their roles as Chair and Vice Chair respectively for two-year terms beginning July 1, while Greg Hager is stepping down after two…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Innovation Takes Focus
About the focusing of innovation. In Innovation Excellence. Well done with historical examples about mission and strategy.
From The Eponymous Pickle
Ontology Editing
Brought to my attention. We worked with Stanford Knowledge Systems Lab in the past. They have made some progress since thenProtogeA free, open-source ontology editor and framework for building intelligent systemsProtégé is supported…
From insideHPC
Women in HPC to Host Events at ISC 2016
The Women in HPC organization will host a Workshop and a BoF at ISC 2016 in Frankfurt. "Once again we will bring together women from across the international HPC community, providing opportunities to network, showcasing the work…
From insideHPC
Lustre 101: A Quick Overview
In this video from LUG 2016 in Portland, Steve Simms from Indiana University presents: Lustre 101 - A Quick Overview. Now in its 14th year, the Lustre User Group is the industry’s primary venue for discussion and seminars on …
From insideHPC
Announcing the COMPSs 1.4 Programming Environment from BSC
Today the Barcelona Supercomputing Center released version 1.4 of the COMPSs programming environment. COMPSs includes new features that improves runtime performance, a new tracing infrastructure, and support for dockers and Chameleon…
From insideHPC
Video: SGI Production Supercomputing
Mark Seamans from SGI presented this talk at the HPC User Forum in Tucson. "As the trusted leader in high performance computing, SGI helps companies find answers to the world’s biggest challenges. Our commitment to innovation…
From insideHPC
Dr Zoe Cournia to Receive 1st PRACE Ada Lovelace Award for HPC
Today PRACE announced that Dr Zoe Cournia is the recipient of the 1st PRACE Ada Lovelace Award for HPC. As a Computational Chemist, Investigator – Assistant Professor level at the Biomedical Research Foundation, Academy of Athens…