Communications of the ACM
The blog archive provides access to past blog postings from Communications of the ACM and other sources by date.
June 2012
From Wild WebMink
Google Uses Famous Users As G+ Test Team
The Google Plus team turned on a new feature today while it was being announced at Google IO in San Francisco. Google+ Events is a new feature that integrates Google+, Calendar, image slideshows and Hangouts to create a flexible…
From Computer Science Teachers Association
Modeling Effective CS Professional Development
Last month, the National Science Foundation sponsored a workshop on creating high-impact professional development experiences for K-12 computer science teachers. After synthesizing research from a variety of models across STEM…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Individual Price Tags Disappearing
In the state of Massachussets, individual price tags may no longer be required on store items, if a new bill is passed. Replaced by individual digital scanners. The implication is that the scanners, whatever their ultimate…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Visual Root
Always interested in new ways to make complex data, processes, sensors and their interrelationships as clear as possible to the decision makers. And make the relationships as easy as possible to maintain. We used methods like…
From The Female Perspective of Computer Science
Meet the High School Girls Who Had to Take CS
There's an article from Betabeat making its rounds in the women in tech community: Eight Real Tales of Learning Computer Science as a High School Girl. I found it quite interesting because the girls interviewed hit on many of…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Mobile Retail
Mobile is changing retail at a remarkable speed. We saw the implications of this very early on, before the smartphone. A text based phone like the Blackberry could even then be used to organize your shopping lists. Now it…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Putting Predictive Analytics to Work
Good Computerworld article. Emphasizing that it does not require a big budget, but does require business understanding and sponsors to agree that this is a priority for them. Includes a good checklist that is well worth considering…
From Computational Complexity
Transitions
On July 1 I officially move jobs from Northwestern to Georgia Tech, a change not just in location but in role as I become a department chair. I'm proud by what we put together in my 4 1/2 years at Northwestern, a strong group…
From The Computing Community Consortium Blog
In the July
From Schneier on Security
<i>Top Secret America</i> on the Post-9/11 Cycle of Fear and Funding
I'm reading Top Secret America: The Rise of the New American Security State, by Dana Priest and William M. Arkin. Both work for The Washington Post. The book talks about the rise of the security-industrial complex in post 9…
From Schneier on Security
Russian Nuclear Launch Code Backup Procedure
If the safe doesn't open, use a sledgehammer:
The sledgehammer's existence first came to light in 1980, when a group of inspecting officers from the General Staff visiting Strategic Missile Forces headquarters asked GeneralNovikov…From Putting People First
UCI to lead national social computing research center, led by Paul Dourish
UC Irvine will anchor a new $12.5 million, Intel-funded research center that applies social science and humanities to the design and analysis of digital information.
From Schneier on Security
E-Mail Accounts More Valuable than Bank Accounts
This informal survey produced the following result: "45% of the users found their email accounts more valuable than their bank accounts."
The author believes this is evidence of some sophisticated security reasoning on the part…From The Eponymous Pickle
Interview with Target CMO
In Forbes: What is in Store for the Brand. Overview mention of a number of issues the big retailer is dealing with in marketing and merchandising, for example 'Showrooming' and the use of digital location technologies, like…
From Daniel Lemire's Blog
Which is fastest: read, fread, ifstream or mmap?
If you program in C/C++, you have many options to read files: The standard C library offers a low-level read function. It is as simple as it gets. The standard C library also offers a higher level fread function. Unlike the read…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Media Influence on Purchasing Decisions
A research brief on media influence. " ... According to The Media Comparisons Study, from TVB with Knowledge Networks, consumers credit TV ads as most influential in making a purchase decision. Television reaches more people…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Global Food Supply Chain Improvement and Protection
I just got a chance to interview N2N Global. A business intelligence and analytics provider for food supply chains. Aimed at Food Safety, Quality Assurance and supply and product traceability systems. Their CEO Ernesto Nardone…
From Putting People First
Book: Design and Anthropology
Design and Anthropology Edited by Wendy Gunn, University of Southern Denmark and Jared Donovan, Queensland University of Technology, Australia Ashgate, 2012 Hardcover and ebook Design and Anthropology challenges conventional…
From Putting People First
Secrets about human behavior as the basis of future massive enterprises
Nir Eyal, lecturer in marketing at the Stanford Graduate School of Business, believes secrets about human behavior, which provide insights into the way people act even though they can
From The Computing Community Consortium Blog
First Person: Pattie Maes on the Future of HCI
On the heels of Francis Collins’s Scientific American
From The Eponymous Pickle
Reinventing Reading
Citia, An App that aims to reinvent reading. An intriguing notion I am exploring. " ... Some of the world
From Schneier on Security
Stratfor on the Phoenix Serial Flashlight Bomber
From Putting People First
Dan Ariely on why we lie, cheat, go to prison and eat cake
Dan Ariely is a professor of behavioral economics and psychology at Duke University and the author of Predictably Irrational: The Hidden Forces that Shape Our Decisions, and The Upside of Irrationality: The Unexpected Benefits…
From Schneier on Security
Resilience
There was a conference on resilience (highlights here, and complete videos here) earlier this year. Here's an interview with professor Sander van der Leeuw on the topic. Although he never mentions security, it's all about security…
From U.S. Public Policy Committee of the ACM
Hill Tech Happenings, Week of June 25
June 27 Hearing: The Communications and Technology Subcommittee of the House Energy and Commerce Committee will hold a hearing on changes in video technology 10 a.m., 2123 Rayburn Building The Intellectual Property, Competition…
From The Female Perspective of Computer Science
The Manga Guide to Linear Algebra
Real math! Romance! Karate! That's what the back of this unusual math book promises to its readers. Odd as it may seem to teach math with a comic book, The Manga Guide to Linear Algebra does a pretty good job of teaching the…
From The Computing Community Consortium Blog
What if There Were No More Disasters?
The following is a special contribution to this blog from Robin Murphy, Raytheon Professor of Computer Science and Engineering and director of the Center for Robot-Assisted Search and Rescue at Texas A&M University. Back in April…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Companies that Reinvented Themselves
A slide show from Baseline. It is instructive to look at these examples, some very well known. I think many companies need to look at the possibility of reinventing themselves. I don't like slide show formats , would rather…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Google as a 2 Billion $ Advertiser
In Adage: The forward motion continues. Really the first time that analytics methods have been applied to the complete process of delivering ads. Not surprising it has worked very well.
From Schneier on Security
Op-ed Explaining why Terrorism Doesn't Work
Good essay by Max Abrams.