Communications of the ACM
The blog archive provides access to past blog postings from Communications of the ACM and other sources by date.
June 2010
From Putting People First
DIY U: Can digital solutions save universities?
From Putting People First
The UX of data visualisation
From Putting People First
Does the Internet make us smarter or dumber?
From Schneier on Security
Friday Squid Blogging: <i>Kid vs. Squid</i>
From Wild WebMink
? Google Fixes WebM
I’m delighted to say that Google has fixed the licence for WebM so that they don;’t need to submit it to OSI any more – they are now just using a BSD licence with a separate patent grant. Read more over on
From Schneier on Security
The Four Stages of Fear
In the throes of From The Eponymous Pickle
Tour Through a Visualization Zoo
From CACM: A Tour Through the Visualization Zoo, A survey of powerful visualization techniques, from the obvious to the obscure... The goal of visualization is to aid our understanding of data by leveraging the human visual system's…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Zakta Search
Once more I would like to suggest that you take a look at Zakta. Constructed by some very smart developers I know. Its been updated now a number of times. An alternative search engine that allows you to do all the usual things…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Medical Augmented Reality
Some great examples of medical augmented reality in ReadWriteWeb. Via obdervant colleague Stan Dyck. It brings up the interesting idea of using AR to highlight data and its implications are demonstrated. In the case of data visualization…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Scent of a Steak
A short piece about a company emitting the scent of a steak from a billboard. At the Innovation Centers we experimented extensively with targeted in-store scent delivery. The company involved is ScentAir, who we worked with.in…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Personalizing Discounts at Sams
An obvious but still rare play in the world of loyalty. Is this the way that loyalty programs will evolve? " ... Wal-Mart warehouse chain Sam's Club has introduced eValues, which offers discounts based on each consumer's shopping…
From Computational Complexity
STOC and EC and Complexity, Oh My
Tomorrow I'm off to Cambridge, MA for the 42nd Symposium on the Theory of Computing (STOC), the 25th Conference on Computational Complexity (CCC) and the 11th Conference on Electronic Commerce (EC). Looking like a big crowd.These…
From Daniel Lemire's Blog
Maximizing Your Impact as a Researcher (guest post)
The greatest challenge for a researcher is to choose projects that have a good chance of delivering impact. Alain Désilets from NRC—co-author of VoiceGrip, Webitext and the Cross Lingual Wiki Engine—shared his strategies with…
From My Biased Coin
Will Google Buy ITA?
As long-time readers of the blog know, I am a fan of ITA software, the company with the fare-finding technology and search engine that powers Orbitz and several other airline web sites. Indeed, for my recent trip to Bertinoro…
From Wild WebMink
links for 2010-06-04
EU plays catch-up with US digital economy There are some very worrying phrases in this legislative push, suggesting that the lobbying by big corporations to get rules that favour them is working. Most worrying is the complaint…
From CERIAS Blog
I am posting the following at the request of someone associated with this effort at NITRD:
On May 19 the White House announced a new effort to enlist public involvement in defining new areas to "change the game" for cybersecurity…From The Eponymous Pickle
Wal-Mart's Supply Chain
Good overview post on Wal-Mart's supply chain practices from Evan Schuman's StoreFrontBacktalk.
From The Eponymous Pickle
Google Face Recognition Methods
Some interesting new methodologies being debated by Google. Recognition of images is an area I have worked on for a number of years.
From My Biased Coin
What Work to Give Up?
I'm not yet sure how many hours a week being a Chair (oops, "Area Dean") will chew up, but I think it's safe to say it will be a non-trivial number. I'm generally a fairly busy person, and while I imagine I'll have to (somewhat…
From My Biased Coin
Bertinoro Day 3
Since I left, Andrew McGregor tool over and has posted a summary of day 3 on his polylogblog, which is also now added (at the top!) on the bloglist at the right.
From Computational Complexity
Conference Acceptance Rates
In the latest CACM, Jilin Chen and Joseph Konstan analyze data from the ACM DL and conclude that low-acceptance rate conference have papers with higher impact (more citations). This shouldn't be too surprising. If Joe believes…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Procter Partners with Tobii
P&G is involved in a widespread rollout of understanding non-conscious consumer behavior: " ... Procter & Gamble has partnered with Swedish eye tracking technology firm Tobii Technology to do package and shelf testing on a worldwide…
From Schneier on Security
World War II Sabotage Field Manual
The OSS Simple Sabotage Field Manual from 1944.
From Daniel Lemire's Blog
How Do We Choose Research Journals?
The publishing house Elsevier invited me to fill out a survey regarding their journals. As a reward, they gave me a glimpse at their statistics. The three most important considerations when choosing a research journals are (in…
From Putting People First
Video on how telecommunications are revolutionising east Africa
From Putting People First
Deeper thoughts on the informal economy
From Putting People First
The user centered design conundrum
From The Computing Community Consortium Blog
OSTP blogs about CCC!
“There is a variety of mechanisms through which the research community can participate in agenda-setting. One model I have found to be very valuable is exemplified by the Computing Community Consortium (CCC) … “CCC has played…
From The Female Perspective of Computer Science
CRV 2010, Teaching, and Good Presentations
Yesterday afternoon, I gave my first academic conference paper presentation. I have given talks at conferences before (including Grace Hopper), but they weren't on highly technical topics. My main goal for this talk was toI…
From ACM-W supporting, celebrating and advocating for Women in Computing
Elaine Weyuker wins ACM Presidential Award
Our own Elaine Weyuker has been named as a Presidential Award winner by ACM President Dame Wendy Hall. She is cited "For her tireless efforts in the development and growth of the ACM Women's Council. Under her guidance, she…