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 Phys.org Technology News
Why we need to do more for the victims of online fraud and scams
As we come to the end of National Consumer Fraud Awareness Week, I can't help but reflect on my own work researching this difficult and often fraught area.
From Schneier on Security
Identifying People from Their Metadata
Jonathan Mayer, Patrick Mutchler, and John C. Mitchell, "Evaluating the privacy properties of telephone metadata": Abstract: Since 2013, a stream of disclosures has prompted reconsideration of surveillance law and policy. One…
From Phys.org Technology News
Opinion: Four arguments for ethical online shaming (and four problems with them)
In democracies, it's pretty difficult to bring about any agreement on anything. So when there is general consensus that something is a problem, I think it's a good idea for us to sit up and pay attention. And few things have…
From Putting People First
The empty brain
Your brain does not process information, retrieve knowledge or store memories. In short: your brain is not a computer, writes acclaimed psychologist Robert Epstein in a long essay on Aeon. “We don’t store words or the rules that…
From Putting People First
Transition design as postindustrial interaction design
The School of Design at Carnegie Mellon University has started talking about ‘Transition Design.’ In his long reflection about this new kind of design practice, Cameron Tonkinwise, CMU’s Director of Design and Doctoral Studies…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Project Tango Announcement
Mentioned previously here for retail applications.Streaming and recorded at the link.Introducing Project Tango Area LearningMay 18, 4:00 PM - 5:00 PM / Stage 1 | Hercules (PST) Motion tracking on a mobile device has already…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Google Home to Compete with Amazon Echo
Announced today, the Google Home. Previously code named the Chirp. Similar in form to the original Echo, but with more design choices. Google is know to have some of the best voice AI systems around. See also the Viv, by the…
From The Eponymous Pickle
On the Science of Touch
A little strangely, from the New Yorker. A favorite topic, since we were always interested in how to create new kinds of touch in retail experiences. Plus there was always interest in covering all the senses, and touch was…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Using Analytics to Build Extraordinary Apps
Today at Google IO:Use analytics to build extraordinary apps (Streaming)May 18, 3:00 PM - 4:00 PM / Stage 2 | Hydra (PDT)The average smartphone user taps and swipes their way through 1GB of data each month. But how can you…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Watson Analytics Updated
Have not seen yet, worth a look. In EWeek: At its Vision 2016 conference, IBM announced a newly redesigned interface and new features for its Watson Analytics solution.IBM has upgraded its Watson Analytics cognitive computing…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Apprenticeships in the US
In K@W: Making a comeback? Yes, I think so, for example a good place would be in data science and programming, which are at least 50% practiced - skill based to do well. And do in a standardized way. Elsewhere are well. These…
From insideHPC
Quantum Computing Seminar Coming to ISC 2016 in Frankfurt
D-Wave Systems will host a three-hour seminar on Quantum Computing at ISC 2016. Designed to teach HPC users more about quantum computing and how it might be applied to their most complex computing problems, the no-cost event …
From insideHPC
Ryft: Bringing High Performance Analytics to Every Enterprise
Pat McGarry from Ryft presented this talk at the HPC User Forum in Tucson. "Years in the making, the Ryft ONE combines two proven innovations in hardware and software to optimize compute, storage and I/O performance: the Ryft…
From The Noisy Channel
Thinking about a Career in AI?
A few years ago, hardly anyone in the computer science profession would admit to working on “artificial intelligence”. Not unless they had…
From The Computing Community Consortium Blog
National Academies Final Report on Future Directions for NSF Advanced Computing Infrastructure
National Science Foundation (NSF) Assistant Director for the Directorate of Computer & Information Science & Engineering (CISE) James Kurose and Irene Qualters, Division Director for Advanced Cyberinfrastructure, have issued…
From Phys.org Technology News
Innovations are needed if Big Data is to boost jobs, says new research
Phenomenal quantities of valuable data are now being collected and created by UK businesses but much of its commercial potential remains untapped.
From Schneier on Security
Primitive Food Crops and Security
Economists argue that the security needs of various crops are the cause of civilization size: The argument depends on the differences between how grains and tubers are grown. Crops like wheat are harvested once or twice a year…
From insideHPC
PRACEdays16 Wraps Up in Prague
PRACEdays16 was held May 10-12 in Prague, Czech Republic. More than 220 participants joined the plenary and parallel sessions for keynote presentations and discussions about and between science, industry and HPC. "PRACEdays16…
From BLOG@CACM
Culture and Tech Unite at ICPC
Opening Ceremony and IBM TechTrek @ ACM ICPC 2016.
From insideHPC
Univa Manages Enterprise Container Workloads on Kubernetes Distros
Today Univa announced Navops Command, a ground breaking software suite that implements sophisticated workload placement and advanced policy management for enterprises to take full advantage of containers on any Kubernetes distribution…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Virtual Reality Changing Lives
A non technical piece by the BBC about how involved experts believe virtual reality is changing our world. " ... Virtual Reality (VR) has been with us for many decades - at least as an idea - but the technology has now comeAnd…
From XRDS
CHI 2016: Diverse, Global, Good
What can a 1000 scientists achieve when they invest one hour doing voluntary work? This year, and at the heart of Silicon Valley, the CHI conference raised the bar for what is expected from a scientific conference. CHI (pronounced…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Komiko Focuses on Sales Relationships
Former colleagues of mine brought this to my attention, embedded analytics.Focus on relationships, not management.Why are you spending your weekends updating a CRM system,when all of the data is already in your communicationKomiko…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Barriers to Growth
In the HBR: Intriguing views by executives. " ... It’s a common story in business today. Eighty-five percent of executives say that the greatest barriers to achieving their growth objectives lie inside their own four walls…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Will We be Able to Talk to Machines?
Stephen Wolfram on talking to machines and AI. All about talking to and at machines. The classic case of Eliza, the first conversational system is brought up. What will be the ultimate power of conversational machines.
From The Eponymous Pickle
Target Selling Connected Health
Interesting piece in Retailwire, with discussion. Consider if these could ultimately create a digital hub, connected to health practitioners at the store, live those we are starting to see at Pharmacies." ... Now Target is making…
From The Computing Community Consortium Blog
Great Innovative Idea- Automated In-Patient Monitoring in the ICU with Application to Septic Shock Prediction
The following Great Innovative Idea is from Katie Henry, a current PhD student in computer science at Johns Hopkins University. In addition to the department, Henry is also part of the Malone Center for Engineering in Healthcare…
From insideHPC
Video: Lustre Update from Seagate Technologies
Peter Bojanic presented this talk at LUG 2016 in Portland. "At LUG 2016, Seagate announced it will incorporate Intel Enterprise Edition for Lustre (IEEL), a big data software platform, into its market-leading ClusterStor storage…
From insideHPC
Internet2 Celebrates 20 Years by Recognizing Contributions to Research
Internet2 celebrated their 20th anniversary this week at the 2016 Internet2 Global Summit in Chicago. As the operator of the nation’s largest and fastest, coast-to-coast research and education infrastructure, Internet2 recognized…
From insideHPC
Nvidia in the Driver’s Seat for Deep Learning
In this special guest feature, Robert Roe from Scientific Computing World describes why Nvidia is in the driver's seat for Deep Learning. "Nvidia CEO Jen-Hsun Huang's theme for the opening keynote was based on "a new computing…