The blog archive provides access to past blog postings from Communications of the ACM and other sources by date.
The PBS show Nova scienceNow will have a feature on Luis von Ahn. The show will air for the first time tonight (9pm on WQED here in Pittsburgh). A preview of the show, along with links to audio Q&A with Luis can be accessed here…
Chief Technology Officer Vivek Kundra unveiled the IT Dashboard yesterday. The focus of this website is providing detail on all information technology investments by the various federal agencies. It's a graphics-intensive effort…
Interactive Screen 0.9: The Makers (10 to 15 August 2009) is the 14th installment of the Banff New Media Institute
Here are some items in the June issue of Communications of the ACM that have policy relevance. As always, much of the content in CACM is premium content, and free content one month may require a subscription or fee the next.…
In the Google Blog: A good overview of how they use eye-tracking for online analysis.
Relational database management systems (DBMSs) have been remarkably successful in capturing the DBMS marketplace. To a first approximation they are “the only game in town,” and the major vendors enjoy an overwhelming market share…
Two years ago this week, I wrote a controversial essay in an attempt to locate divisions that I was seeing play out between MySpace and Facebook. This week, at the Personal Democracy Forum, I revisited these ideas in a new talk…
Samuel Greengard writes in the latest issue of Communications of the ACM on how some experts believe that computer technology might be affecting people’s ability to think deeply. “We’re exposed to [greater amounts of] poor yet…
In Harvard Business Publishing. Short piece by David Armano with some excellent points.
A somewhat overblown segment on neuroscience biometric analysis on 60 Minutes last night. UK Neuroscientist Gemma Calvert, who we have worked with, was interviewed briefly. Work at Carnegie over viewed. Scientists interviewed…
Deliciously direct and deep paper looks at the assumptions behind our security thinking and confronts them head-on. Still relevant after 4 years, which…
Good AdAge piece: " ... considering the competitive landscape and the company's own recent history, P&G Chief Technical Officer Bruce Brown made a fairly bold prediction on Fox Business News last week: That 2010 would be P&G's…
In the early days of the web the whole idea of linking to copyrighted content was questioned. All public content is by definition now copyrighted. That whole issue eventually went away. Now in a post by Judge Richard Posner…
From Mind Hacks, of paricular interest for anyone like myself, who is looking at new biometric methods for understanding the consumer in their multiple decision making contexts: A remarkable study has just been published in…
Tonight (June 27) was the annual ACM Awards Banquet. This event is where various awards and recognitions are made, although most are announced well in advance. Among other things, this is when the Turing Award is officially given…
I just received an email from Max Ventilla, CEO of social search startup Aardvark, to let me know that Aardvark is now open to anyone who wants to sign up. Well, anyone with a Facebook account–but I can’t imagine that there are…
Mark Montgomery writes: ' ... Every once in a while someone's small idea leads to something huge. This could be one of those depending on how it plays out, providing the missing piece of the puzzle for individuals having thekyield…
Dan Vesset and Brian McDonough of IDC provide an overview of the state of of Business intelligence tools: 'In 2008, the business intelligence (BI) tools market reached $7.8 billion in software license and maintenance revenue.…
I’ve been pretty busy for the past couple of months, in part because of my involvement as the PI for the CCC’s Computing Innovation Fellows Project. The response to this new program has been tremendous, with 526 applications…
Less than six weeks ago we launched the Computing Innovation Fellows Project.
On the coupon strategies of retail until the day we go all mobile. As newspapers die and fraud continues. ' ... Many retailers had hoped that paper coupons will die a slower death, hanging on until mobile coupons were ready…
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How much of the technology in Star Trek could become real some day? This was the question posed to a group of faculty members here at Carnegie Mellon Computer Science recently. Why? Because CMU Drama alumnus, Zach Quinto, starred…
Dan Ariely's blog describes a study where participants were more influenced by confidence versus expertise. Very true, though very often confidence comes from expertise. A shaky causal analysis? Worth a look.