Communications of the ACM
The blog archive provides access to past blog postings from Communications of the ACM and other sources by date.
June 2014
From The Eponymous Pickle
Court Limits Software Patents, But Stops Short
Glad at least some progress was made here. My opinion is it should have gone further to enhance net creativity. It may well have some economic repercussions. In Mashable: " ... A unanimous Supreme Court narrowed the reach…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Sensors in Lamp Posts
Have followed the idea of placing sensors in existing infrastructure for some time. Starting in retail environments. Here Chicago steps into the approach. A source of yet more data.
From Gödel's Lost Letter and P=NP
Counting Edge Colorings Is Hard
Another dichotomy theorem Jin-Yi Cai is one of the world’s experts on hardness of counting problems, especially those related to methods based on complex—pun intended—gadgets. He and his students have built a great theory of…
From Gödel's Lost Letter and P=NP
Counting Edge Colorings Is Hard
Another dichotomy theorem Jin-Yi Cai is one of the world’s experts on hardness of counting problems, especially those related to methods based on complex—pun intended—gadgets. He and his students have built a great theory of…
From U.S. Public Policy Committee of the ACM
Hill Tech Happenings, Week of June 23
Monday, June 23, 2014 The House Committee on Homeland Security will hold a field hearing on “Mass Gathering Security: A Look at the Coordinated Approach to Super Bowl XLVIII in New Jersey and Other Large Scale Events.” 10 am,…
From Schneier on Security
Building Retro Reflectors
A group of researchers have reverse-engineered the NSA's retro reflectors, and has recreated them using software-defined radio (SDR): An SDR Ossmann designed and built, called HackRF, was a key part of his work in reconstructing…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Business Intelligence and Analytics
A Complementary Strategy. My view: I really see them as the same thing. You should always consider the simplest methods first. Starting with just understanding the data that supports and is created by your business decision…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Real Time App Features
Mindmeld writes about real time App features. I remain interested in their APIs which augment App capabilities.
From U.S. Public Policy Committee of the ACM
Free Webinar on Cybersecurity and Public Policy on June 25
Navigating Cybersecurity and Public Policy: Six Key Issues ACM Learning Center Webinar Wednesday, June 25, 2014 at 11 am ET Registration: Free. Advance registration is required. In this emerging era of truly pervasive computing…
From BLOG@CACM
Day Two at the ACM-ICPC World Finals
What a day at ICPC 2014! It all began with IBM Tech Trek this morning, followed by the 2014 ACM-ICPC World Finals Opening Ceremony and ending with the IBM Chill Zone.
From The Computing Community Consortium Blog
Recent ISAT/DARPA Workshop Targeted Approximate Computing
The following is a special contribution to this blog by by CCC Executive Council Member Mark Hill and workshop organizers Luis Ceze, Associate Professor in the Department of Computer Science and Engineering at the University …
From Computational Complexity
How many ways can you make change of n cents?
(For a related post see my post on Schur's theorem. The paper THIS post refers to is here.) (ADDED LATER: A commenter pointed to Graham-Knuth-Patashnik for a closed form for pennies, nickels, dimes, quarters, half-dollars…
From Computer Science Teacher - Thoughts and Information From Alfred Thompson
Interesting Links 23 June 2014
School’s out for the summer! Not that I haven’t been busy doing a lot of stuff I just haven’t had time for during the school year. And this week I am getting ready to go to the ISTE conference after missing the last several.I…
From Computer Science Teachers Association
What YOU Think of CSTA
Once a year we send out a survey link to members. We alternate between a survey that focuses on the landscape of Computer Science education (the National Computer Science High School Survey) and one that focuses on how CSTA is…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Future of Hadoop Tweetchat Overview
I see that IBM sponsored Tweetchat on 'Hadoop, Where it's been and Where it is Going' is nicely summarized in this blog. I listened in by invitation, contributed, and though I am no deep Hadoop expert, I provided some questions…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Analytics for Decision Makers Needed before Autopilots
Ultimately all analytics is about decision making. From the most simple yes/no, to the most complex management of risk portfolios. Decision making usually includes the decisions of humans, based on the assistance of computing…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Links Between Humans and Machines Blur
Hail Cyborg's: Still don't think this is true in any reasonable, practical sense. We are on the verge of making them useful assistants in a human knowledge sense. It will happen, and there is much to prepare for, but let's…
From The Eponymous Pickle
On Technology and Library Users
A view of Pew research on the users of (physical) libraries. And a quiz to show if you are a library lover. I still admit to being one. Interesting findings are buried in the statistics.
From The Eponymous Pickle
Google Nose
Transmitting aroma was a task we examined for years, most notably for coffee applications, but for a number of others as well. Can you accurately deconstruct, store, select and transmit a smell digitally? Once you can do that…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Programmatic Buying and Creativity
Does programmatic buying decrease creativity? This was brought up in a number of analytic realms very early on, because they tended to use only a single measure, like cost or profit to optimize with. But such methods can usually…
From BLOG@CACM
Get Ready For the 2014 ACM-ICPC World Finals
Over the next few days I'll be blogging live from Ekaterinburg, Russia, the site of the 38th Annual IBM-Sponsored ACM-ICPC World Finals. The contest itself takes place on Wednesday, June 25.
From Putting People First
Report: Mapping and developing Service Design Research in the UK
The aim of the Service Design Research UK (SDR UK) Network of the Network is to review and consolidate the current state of Service Design knowledge within the field of Design. Three workshops and three Advisory Board meetings…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Pinker on Writing in the 21st Century
Favorite writer Steven Pinker on Brain and Language writes in the Edge. And Video." ... What are the arts but products of the human mind which resonate with our aesthetic and emotional faculties? What are social issues, but ways…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Statistics and Big Data Science
A Statisticians View on Big Data and Data Science ... Good thoughts in a slide share via colleague. " by Diego Kuonen, CEO, PhD in Statistics, CStat PStat CSci at Statoo Consulting .... Abstract: There is no question that…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Gesture App to Produce Spoken Language
Turing sign language into spoken language in real time. In Mashable. Under development: " ... The app — called Google Gesture — is paired with a band worn on the forearm that analyzes muscle movements made when signing — a…
From Schneier on Security
Friday Squid Blogging: Ruth Reichl Cooks Squid
Quick and easy recipe. As usual, you can also use this squid post to talk about the security stories in the news that I haven't covered....
From My Biased Coin
See You in Prague
For those of you going to SPAA this coming week, I'll see you there. I'll be giving the last two talks at the conference, to what I expect (based on the timing) will be a nearly empty room. That just means there will be noAbstract…
From My Biased Coin
NSF Thanks for the Year
It's that time of year where, as a background process, I have to do my annual reviews for the NSF. It's generally not a very exciting task, and their online forms remain, I think, unpleasantly designed. (I think they fixed…
From Schneier on Security
Co3 Systems Is Hiring
At the beginning of the year, I announced that I'd joined Co3 Systems as its CTO. Co3 Systems makes coordination software -- what I hear called workflow management -- for incident response. Here's a 3:30-minute video overview…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Internet of Behaviors
Was pointed out to me. Admit I wince when think of all the 'Internet of X' alternatives we may have to expect. Still it is an interesting way, for now, to express other aspects of data generating things and their activities…