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 The Eponymous Pickle
Virtual Humor Agents to Promote Learning
Always liked the idea of using humor to promote engagement. Used it a bit in our brand equity agents. Here is another, somewhat more sophisticated approach. See also work by Andrew Tarvin, colleague, who does interestinghttps…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Microsoft Shuts Down its Blockchain Service
Microsoft/Azure shuts down its Blockchain service after six years. Offers some alternate migration paths. Surprising after continued heat in this area.
Migrate Azure Blockchain Service
You can migrate ledger data from Azure…From Schneier on Security
Ransomware Is Getting Ugly
Modern ransomware has two dimensions: pay to get your data back, and pay not to have your data dumped on the Internet. The DC police are the victims of this ransomware, and the criminals have just posted personnel records — “including…
From insideHPC
Anchore Secures Containers for AI, Machine Learning and HPC on NVIDIA NGC
SANTA BARBARA, Calif., May 13, 2021 /PRNewswire/ — Today Anchore, a company focused on security and compliance for software containers, announced an expanded collaboration with NVIDIA for container scanning to ensure the security…
From insideHPC
Unlocking Cosmological Secrets at Durham University
Drawing on the power of a supercomputer from Dell Technologies and AMD, Durham University and DiRAC scientists are expanding our understanding of the universe and its origins. In scientific circles, everyone knows that more computing…
From insideHPC
EPA Awards ENERGY STAR Certification to Stream Data Centers’ Chicago I Facility
Dallas — May 13, 2021 — Stream Data Centers, a turnkey, powered shell and build-to-suit data center company, has announced the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has recognized the company’s Chicago I data center with…
From Schneier on Security
New US Executive Order on Cybersecurity
President Biden signed an executive order to improve government cybersecurity, setting new security standards for software sold to the federal government.
For the first time, the United States will require all software purchased…From insideHPC
Agnostiq Secures $2M Round for SaaS-Based Quantum Solutions
TORONTO, May 13, 2021 — Agnostiq, Inc., a quantum computing SaaS startup, has raised $2 million in seed funding to support the continued development of its software platform. The growth financing is led by Differential Ventures…
From Gödel's Lost Letter and P=NP
Matrix—The Meeting
That’s how it is with people. Nobody cares how it works as long as it works—Councillor Hamann Santosh Vempala and Nikhil Srivastava announced the first in hopefully a series of online meetings about matrix algorithms. Not about…
From Computer Science Teacher - Thoughts and Information From Alfred Thompson
Which Sort Do You Use?
My algorithms class is studying sorts this week. I felt like we needed a little hands on sorting to get an understanding of how some sorts related to the types of sorting people do. I had a number of decks of playing cards and…
From The Eponymous Pickle
FBI Competent to take on Darkside?
How many times have we seen the FBI and other US intelligence capabilities portrayed as deftly taking on our enemies. Now finally here is a really hard test for them to succeed in. Can they do it? We pay you for this, lets…
From Computational Complexity
Cryptocurrency, Blockchains and NFTs
I first wrote about bitcoin in this blog ten years ago after I gave a lecture in a cryptography class I taught at Northwestern. Two years later I had a follow-up post, noting the price moved from $3 to $1000 with a market cap…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Smart Shoe for the Blind
Perhaps unusual means of protection for the sight impaired.
'Intelligent' Shoe Helps Blind People Avoid Obstacles
The Daily Mail (U.K.), Jonathan Chadwick, May 5, 2021
Computer scientists at Austria's Graz University of Technology…From The Eponymous Pickle
Threat explanation: Supply Chain Attacks
I learned this relatively recently, good explanation.
Threat Explainer: Supply Chain Attacks, By Ben Nahorney, Cisco
Let’s say that you’re confident in your security posture. You have endpoint protection in place, firewalls…From insideHPC
AMD EPYC Processors to Power System for National Supercomputing Centre Singapore
SANTA CLARA, Calif. — AMD (NASDAQ: AMD) announced that AMD EPYC 7003 Series processors will be used to power a new supercomputer for the National Supercomputing Centre (NSCC) Singapore, the national high-performance computing…
From insideHPC
CINECA and D-Wave Expand Access to Quantum Computing in Italy
BOLOGNA, ITALY and BURNABY, BC, May 11, 2021 – CINECA, the Italian inter-university consortium and supercomputing center, and D-Wave Systems Inc., the quantum computing systems, software and services company, today announced …
From insideHPC
ThinkParQ Names Advanced Clustering Technologies Platinum Partner
Kaiserslautern Germany, May 11, 2021 – ThinkParQ, the company behind the parallel file system BeeGFS, announced today the advancement of its partner in the United States, Advanced Clustering Technologies to Platinum Level status…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Microsoft Releases Counterfit. A Tool for Security Testing AI Systems
Below an outline of purpose, worth a look.
AI Security risk Assessment using Counterfit
Will Pearce AI Red Team Lead, Azure Trustworthy ML, Ram Shankar Siva Kumar Data Cowboy, Azure Trustworthy ML
Today, we are releasing Counterfit…From The Eponymous Pickle
Podcast: The Power of Mental Models
Podcast Brought to my Attention. Does more data mean better decisions? Or is it how we use/frame the data? Framing decisions rather than using decisions. New counterfactuals. Constraints. But AI systems have no causal model…
From The Eponymous Pickle
A Modular Building Platform for the Most Ingenious of Robots
Hmm, musing the use of this.
A Modular Building Platform for the Most Ingenious of Robots
Max Planck Institute for Intelligent Systems (Germany), April 29, 2021
Scientists at Germany's Max Planck Institute for Intelligent Systems…From The Computing Community Consortium Blog
Microsoft Research PhD Fellowship
The Microsoft Research PhD Fellowship is a global program that identifies and empowers the next generation of exceptional computing research talent. “Microsoft recognizes the value of diversity in computing and aims to increase…
From insideHPC
What’s Needed for High-Fidelity, Low-Latency HPC Network Monitoring at 100Gbps
By Vince Hill, cPacket Networks Enterprise migration to 100Gbps network speeds continues to accelerate, with high-performance computing (HPC) data centers leading the charge. According to data from Crehan Research, 100 and 25…
From Schneier on Security
Book Sale: Beyond Fear
I have 80 copies of my 2000 book Beyond Fear available at the very cheap price of $5 plus shipping. Note that there is a 20% chance that your book will have a “BT Counterpane” sticker on the front cover.
Order your signed copy…From The Eponymous Pickle
Uncrackable Invisible Ink?
Stuck me, since some of my earliest looks at code were in this realm. Steganographic or hidden information. Not combine it with AI based methods?
An Uncrackable Combination of Invisible Ink, AI
American Chemical Society,Researchers…From The Eponymous Pickle
New, Faster IBM Chips
IBM pushes further on speed.
IBM Unveils Two-Nanometer Chip Technology for Faster Computing
Reuters, Stephen Nellis
IBM has unveiled what it is calling the world's first 2-nanometer chipmaking technology, which will be smaller and…From The Eponymous Pickle
Ghosts Using Data, Children too
Hmm, can tell you that in any business problem you have to have the correct data to derive something useful. To walk away with some sort of algorithm that later works. Either to create or validate a model. So if the data…
From The Eponymous Pickle
IBM CEO Speaks on Future of AI
Will depend too on the definition and applicability of AI in context.
IBM CEO: Every business is going to adopt AI
Arvind Krishna, CEO of IBM, compares Artificial Intelligence to electrification at the turn of the last century…From Schneier on Security
Upcoming Speaking Engagements
This is a current list of where and when I am scheduled to speak:
From insideHPC
Germany Launches €2B, 5-year Quantum Development Push
Germany plans to invest roughly €2 billion euros (US$2.4B) through 2025 on R&D for its first quantum computer and support technologies, the German economy and science ministries said today, according to a story published today…
From BLOG@CACM
Understanding NoSQL Database Types: Column
The elements of one of the most used and popular data designs around.