Communications of the ACM
The blog archive provides access to past blog postings from Communications of the ACM and other sources by date.
May 2021
From Daniel Lemire's Blog
Science and Technology links (May 22nd 2021)
Most computer chips today in flagship phones and computers use a process based on a 5 nm or larger resolution. Finer resolutions usually translate into lower energy usage and lower heat production. Given that many of our systems…
From The Eponymous Pickle
500K Jobs in Cybersecurity
Seems a very large number. As I see it most of the jobs in this area today are broad and deep, and thus harder to fill. Depends on the definition. Perhaps they should be defined down to be less technical and more behavioral…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Developing Digital Twins
Interesting, often this means not only the twin but also the context of its use. Metadata and all. Like to see a full example.
Advanced Technique for Developing Digital Twins Makes Tech Universally Applicable
UT News, May 20,Researchers…From BLOG@CACM
Competitions, Not Confrontation
The ACM as an organizer of international cooperation.
From The Eponymous Pickle
Shape-Shifting Processor for Security
Now here is a kind of remarkable thing. Would it work post-quantum computing? Could it be used to ensure all kinds of threats are addressed? What re coding would be required to make sure of that? Nice idea. Like the approach…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Adjusting Fare Algorithms
This came up in discussion this week .. the algorithms are classic approaches. But the algorithms are adaptive, so I would expect them to be continually adjusted. And if they are maintaining them, as I always suggest ....
COVID…From The Eponymous Pickle
Google Builds a Reader
Strangely and still only experimentally, Google has decided to unearth their RSS Reader. I was an early test user of Google Reader, and remember thinking how useful this was to make sense of an expanding Web, especially ifFeedly…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Germany to Support Quantum Computing with €2 Billion
Germany to Support Quantum Computing with €2 Billion
U.S. News & World Report, Michael Nienaber, May 11, 2021
Germany's economy and science ministries announced an approximately €2-billion ($2.4-billion) allocation to develop the…From The Eponymous Pickle
Computing History: Looms and
Just a bit of history. Mostly pictures, at the link, but great if you were unaware of the background.
BLOG@CACM
Charles Babbage and the Loom By Herbert Bruderer
Charles Babbage's analytical engine (see Fig. 1), which alreadyPunched…From BLOG@CACM
Science-Changing Code
The case of NumPy.
From The Eponymous Pickle
Collaborating Robotic Teams
Continuing to look at this space, now that robotics is getting more advanced, the potential expands. We examined some very early warehouse management approaches. Mentioned previously:
Helping Robots Collaborate to Get the…From Daniel Lemire's Blog
Counting the number of matching characters in two ASCII strings
Suppose that you give me two ASCII strings having the same number of characters. I wish to compute efficiently the number of matching characters (same position, same character). E.g., the strings ‘012c’ and ‘021c’ have two matching…
From Schneier on Security
Double-Encrypting Ransomware
This seems to be a new tactic:
Emsisoft has identified two distinct tactics. In the first, hackers encrypt data with ransomware A and then re-encrypt that data with ransomware B. The other path involves what Emsisoft calls a…From insideHPC
OLCF Releases Storage Specs for Frontier Exascale
A newly enhanced I/O subsystem will support the nation’s first exascale supercomputer, the HPE Cray Frontier system, and the Oak Ridge Leadership Computing Facility (OLCF). The computational might of exascale computing, expected…
From insideHPC
Purdue University Seeing New Opportunities for Innovation with Cloud Technology Using Azure’s AMD EPYC™ Processor-based HBv3 Instances
In this sponsored article, Preston Smith, Director of Research Services and Support at Purdue University, discusses how Purdue University's community cluster program has supported scientists from every corner of the campus since…
From insideHPC
International Advanced Research Workshop on HPC Returns to Cetraro, Italy July 26-30
May 20, 2021 – The International Advanced Research Workshop on HPC – State of the Art, Emerging Disruptive Innovations and Future Scenarios – which had to be cancelled last year due to the Corona pandemic, will now return to …
From The Eponymous Pickle
What is a Public Interest Technologist?
I happened on this description and supporting information in Bruce Schneier's blog on security. Liked the idea. A related discussion had come up when some colleagues talked about our roles as consultants, bloggers and historians…
From insideHPC
Teratec Forum June 22: Europe on Way to ‘Hybrid Qomputing’
This Teratec workshop will demonstrate that the next step in high performance computing is the introduction of quantum accelerators (quantum processing units, in short QPU) into the computing center in a modular fashion. Supercomputers…
From insideHPC
Supermicro Introduces Liquid Cooling Solutions for Demanding Systems
San Jose, May 20, 2021 — Super Micro Computer, Inc. (Nasdaq: SMCI), maker of enterprise computing, storage, networking and green computing technology solutions, is making available a range of liquid cooling solutions that reduce…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Machine Learning Determines Research Impact
Good use example made here, note training made on key metadata. Relatively straight forward.
Using ML to Predict High-Impact Research
MIT News, Becky Ham May 17, 2021
Researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT)…From insideHPC
Summit Supercomputer Helps Crack Code to Signature Superconductor ‘Kink’
May 19, 2021 — Scientists have long been trying to understand the behavior of superconductors, materials that have zero electrical resistance when they reach sufficiently low temperatures. Superconductors might be useful for …
From The Computing Community Consortium Blog
Blue Sky at AAMAS 2021
The Computing Community Consortium (CCC) recently sponsored a Blue Sky Ideas Conference Track at the 20th International Conference on Autonomous Agents and Multiagent Systems, May 3-7th, 2021, online. The emphasis of this special…
From Schneier on Security
Bizarro Banking Trojan
Bizarro is a new banking trojan that is stealing financial information and crypto wallets.
…the program can be delivered in a couple of ways — either via malicious links contained within spam emails, or through a trojanized…From Computational Complexity
Emerging from the Pandemic
The City of Chicago yesterday agreed with the latest CDC guidelines that those of us fully vaccinated no longer have to wear masks in most settings. Lollapalooza, the big Chicago music festival, will be held in full capacityIt's…
From The Eponymous Pickle
What Google is Emphasizing in AI
Good overview of areas Google is working and emphasizing from Google I/O. Instructive. Details at the link. Not heavily technical.
11 ways we're innovating with AI
Christine Robson, Director of Product, Google Research
AI is…From The Eponymous Pickle
Timeline for Quantum Computing
Monte Carlo methods are where speed is needed. And in theory Quantum Computing could get us there. Still some nagging issues exist.
The Timeline for Quantum Computing is Getting Shorter By NetworkWorld, May 19, 2021
Financial…From The Eponymous Pickle
AI Teaching Itself
Its al about setting goals, metagoals in the right context.
Why AI That Teaches Itself to Achieve a Goal Is the Next Big Thing
by 7wData April 24, 2021 by Kathryn Hume and Matthew E. Taylor
April 21, 2021 HBR
Summary. What’s…From insideHPC
Remembering Rich Brueckner
Today we observe a sad, one-year commemoration. It was a year ago that Rich Brueckner, the long-time editor-in-chief of insideHPC and one of the most popular and respected people in the HPC community, died. The news was met with…
From Universal Acceptance Steering Group
WordPress and Its Plugins Support Internationalized Domain Names, but Barriers Remain for Internationalized Email Addresses
By the UASG Measurement Working Group The Universal Acceptance Steering Group (UASG) completed a UA-readiness evaluation of the content management system (CMS) WordPress and 15 of its subscription, membership, and event management…
From The Eponymous Pickle
How Effective are top Edu Apps
Good feedback as to what works in the new contexts.
Top Educational Apps for Children Might Not Be as Beneficial as Promised
Penn State News, Katie Bohn, May 11, 2021
An analysis of the most frequently downloaded educational apps…