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 The Eponymous Pickle
Linkless Press Releases
I just reviewed two emails I received about some technology areas I cover. Neither contained a link to the press release content I could send on. I had to ask the company for the links. Brainless. Silicon Valley Watcher …
From The Eponymous Pickle
Embedded Business Rules and Analytics
A topic of continual interest to me. We saw some of this in the enterprise when quantitative analytical methods were linked to sets of 'expert systems' business rules. In fact in our broad experiments these were the only solutions…
From BLOG@CACM
Virtual Education: One More Step to Close the Gap
Is virtual education a feasible option to deliver rich educational contents to country side zones where no traditional schools are available?
From Putting People First
Strategy, ethnography and PowerPoint
From Putting People First
Bringing European values to the Internet of Things
From The Eponymous Pickle
Tacit Knowledge
During a period when many enterprises were thinking about how to build expert systems that might augment human beings, we learned about the concept of tacit knowledge. It was quickly discovered that while experts knew how to…
From Computational Complexity
Advice for an Engineer
A reader from Mexico asks I am a near-to-be graduate student from Computational Engineering. However, it wasn't what I expected from my career. I want to be a mathematician. Computational complexity seems incredibly interesting…
From Wild WebMink
links for 2010-06-02
Patent cloud looms over Google Web video plan "The VP8 patent situation is no different from the patent challenges that face any computing innovation, from search to social networking to user interfaces to browsers" — CNet adds…
From Schneier on Security
Intelligence Can Never Be Perfect
Go read this article -- "Setting impossible standards on intelligence" -- on laying blame for the intelligence "failure" that allowed the Underwear Bomber to board an airplane on Christmas Day.
Although the CIA, FBI, and Defense…From Computer Science Teacher - Thoughts and Information From Alfred Thompson
A Rose is a Rose
Let me think out loud hear a little and get some opinions. On what? On how far to go when naming things in programs. let me start at the beginning. The other day I decided to code up a game of
From Putting People First
Videos of IIT Design Research Conference
From The Eponymous Pickle
Online Video Storytelling Study
Participate in the SNCR Study on online video storytelling. ' ... The research study will focus on how organizations are using video to enhance their storytelling both inside and outside the company. Every organization has…
From My Biased Coin
Bertinoro, Day 2
Bertinoro is a really beautiful city. I just felt like saying that.Today's talks: Geppino Pucci talked about Bluetooth networks, modeled as a variation of random geometric networks (points randomly distributed in the plane,…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Emerging Market Business Models
Colleague Sammy Haroon does a good job writing about new business models for innovation in emerging markets. Making good use of a recent Economist report on the subject. Sammy has some excellent close-up experience in this area…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Bringing Augmented Reality to E-Commerce
From a press release by Metaio. The concept is something I have been look at in a number of forms for years. Combining physical spaces with realities that can then be augmented or modified to match shopper needs.We experimented…
From Schneier on Security
Voluntary Security Inspections
What could possibly be the point of this?
Cars heading to Austin-Bergstrom International Airport will see random, voluntary inspections Monday.The searches are part of an increase in security at the airport.
It's a joint …From BLOG@CACM
Online Information Brokers & the Challenges of Privacy in a Networked World
At Privacy Rights Clearinghouse, we receive phone calls and emails about online information brokers almost daily. The individuals who contact us are often those who have the most at stake–they are the victims of domestic violence…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Procter on Innovation
An interview with P&G's Melanie Healey on Invading 'Whitespace' via Innovation, in Brandweek. Nothing very new, but good view of their directions.
From Computational Complexity
Avner Magen (1968-2010)
Toronto Professor Avner Magen died in a climbing accident on Saturday. He's had a number of important results on a variety of algorithmic topics.Avner was one of our postdocs at NEC and we were co-authors on a SODA paper. HeThe…
From Wild WebMink
? Where Justice Applies, And Elsewhere
BP, the oil spill, and the urge to crucify
From The Eponymous Pickle
Upside of Irrationality
Dan Ariely's new book, The Upside of Irrationality is out. See more at his blog. On the list here.
From The Eponymous Pickle
Remembering Lee De Forest
A number of posts about the invention of the amplifier by Lee De Forest in 1906. A crucial step in the broad application of electronics. As the Gizmodo article indicates, he is rarely membered today. Gizmodo quotes from Nick…
From Schneier on Security
Terrorizing Ourselves
Who needs actual terrorists?
How
From Daniel Lemire's BlogComputer Science is Shallow
Zed A. Shaw—author of several books on Ruby and Python—came up with an interesting criticism of Computer Science. He makes some good points: Computer Science is a pointless discipline with no culture. (…) They rarely teach deep…
From The Noisy ChannelAre Links A Distraction?
Eric Andersen called my attention to a post by Nick Carr entitled “Experiments in delinkification“, in which Carr argues that links embedded in text are distracting, and that we’re better off treating them like the footnotes…
From Computer Science Teacher - Thoughts and Information From Alfred ThompsonNew England Innovation Month 2010
June has been designated as New England Innovation month. It was innovation (the company was Digital Equipment) that really caused me to move to New England 30 years ago. Today I think people tend to underestimate the innovation…
From My Biased CoinPersonal News : "New Job"
Since it's more or less been publicly announced at this point, I may as well announce it here: starting July 1, I'll be the new Area Dean for Computer Science at Harvard. Very roughly speaking, academics from schools that use…
From The Eponymous PickleWhat Google Tells You
In Fortune: If Google Told You to to Jump Off a Cliff, Would You?. A woman sues for literally taking walking advice. As several people have suggested, yes .. then I would sue. This is related to some of my previous comments…