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 Computer Science Teacher - Thoughts and Information From Alfred Thompson
That Was (Not) Easy
Someone mentioned in a comment somewhere (I wish I could find a link) that sometimes they create a project for students that they haven’t built themselves first and find out that it is harder than they expected. I sure can relate…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Strategic Digital Principles
In McKinsey: Digitization is rewriting the rules of competition, with incumbents most at risk of being left behind. Here are six critical decisions CEOs must make. ...
From The Eponymous Pickle
How Will Big Data Grow Up?
In the HBR. Not unlike other heavily hyped technologies. Have ridden several. It's also finding itself attached to a new kind of user: An Internet of Things. The numbers are larger, the variety is growing, the potential velocity…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Tablets Become More Important than PCs Were
Some interesting statistics and graphs. Well, yes, for convenience. But if we were to normalize this with the stats of the emergence of the smartphone as well? Take away all the same things that can also be done with the smartphone…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Diabetics App with Image Analysis
In CACM: An innovative diabetics App. " ... A smartphone-based system developed by researchers at the University of Bern makes it easier for diabetics to plan their meals and control their blood glucose. .. " By taking photographs…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Turing Test Breakthrough, Could Mr Clean do Better?
The Turing Test is the classic test for AI. Can a machine consistently fool a person into thinking it is a person rather than a machine? Article claims that just this weekend a milestone has been passed. Not a technical source…
From The Computing Community Consortium Blog
Fulbright Israel Post-Doctoral Fellowship: a computer scientist’s story
The United States-Israel Educational Foundation, the Fulbright commission for Israel, offers fellowships to American post-doctoral researchers in support of work to be carried out at Israeli universities during the course of …
From Computational Complexity
Fair question? Trick question?
The following problem was on my final for Formal Lang theory (Reg, P, NP, Dec, c.e.) For this problem you may assume P\ne NP and NP\ne coNP. For each of the following sets say if it is (1) REG, (2) In P but NOT REG, (3) in NP…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Enterpise Mobile Apps
In BaselineMag: The tradeoff between using enterprise developed apps, nicreasingly provided in large companies and consumer available applications. Slide show presentation: " ... For example, nearly six out of 10 employees…
From Computer Science Teacher - Thoughts and Information From Alfred Thompson
Interesting Links 9 June 2014
Well my seniors are done. Graduation was yesterday. The Salutatorian had several interesting and funny things to say. Perhaps because it is a Catholic school some of it was in Latin too! A former student was by to see a cousin…
From Schneier on Security
Security and Human Behavior (SHB 2014)
I'm at SHB 2014: the Seventh Annual Interdisciplinary Workshop on Security and Human Behavior. This is a small invitational gathering of people studying various aspects of the human side of security. The fifty people in the room…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Reliably Teleporting Data
In the NYT: Considerably commented on. Still a simple example, but an indication that quantum physics can be the basis for action at a distance.Scientists in the Netherlands have moved a step closer to overriding one of Albert…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Companies with Top Global Supply Chains
By peer review in Gartner. Having been involved in the design aspects of these for many years, it's good to see the short section on the aspects of the exceptional supply chain, and how it links to the rest of an enterprise…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Programmatic Buying at P&G
Programmatic Ad Buying. A means of digitizing a key aspect of CPG enterprise operations. As I have mentioned before we did this kind of thing as early as the 1980s, to great success. Because then it was aided by analytical…
From Putting People First
Sharing City Seoul: a model for the world
The Seoul city government has officially embraced the sharing economy by designating Seoul a Sharing City and is working in partnership with NGOs and private companies to make sharing an integral part of Seoul’s economy. The…
From Putting People First
IKEA’s Life At Home report
Core77 has drawn my attention to IKEA’s newly launched Life At Home report, which explores the home lives of people all over the globe, with a focus on the morning routines, habits and wishes of those who live in Berlin, London…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Tour of Machine Learning Methods
Very nice overview. Suitable as a starting point for talking to management. This includes both a description of the algorithm, and the underlying method for using them for a decision. Which I think is a useful distinction.…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Tetris at 30, Simplicity and Engagement
The game phenomenon called Tetris is now only 30 years old. We were shown it as as an example of simplicity combined with engagement. An interview with the creator in Time.
From The Eponymous Pickle
Comparing Wolfram Alpha and Watson
A conversation recently led to discussion of the differences between IBM Watson and Wolfram Alpha. So what are the differences? Our own experiences with 'expert systems', made us think about exactly this. Every corporate…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Google Nearby
The idea of 'nearby' is a classic locational switch. Google rumored to integrate it into its abilities. Similar to iBeacon capabilties? Likely as the need to advertise based on contextual information.
From Schneier on Security
Friday Squid Blogging: Squid Cartoon
Rhymes with Orange. As usual, you can also use this squid post to talk about the security stories in the news that I haven't covered....
From Computational Complexity
Do you support CCC's declaration of Ind? If so...
The steering committee for the CCC recently announced its decision to be independent of IEEE. Here is their open letter to that effect. If you agree with this declaration of independence then you should read the petition here…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Robotic Hands that Can See
Had seen this proposed a long time ago. Now reported in New Scientist. Not so much hands free as hands augmented. And with multiple seeing hands we could readily create complex 3D models.
From The Female Perspective of Computer Science
Mini-Course 2014: Survey Results
After a one-year hiatus, I ran my all-girls mini-course on computer science and games again this past May. Along with a picture of my lovely class, I wanted to share this year's pre- and post- survey results. Note that while…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Big Data and Value for Retail
I have heard relatively few retail examples of big data value. Here is a take on that." ... According to research by Wipro, 78 percent of retailers are collecting and storing location-based information on their shoppers, and…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Data Science Research Center
Launched this week by Data Science Central. Of interest. Examining it now. " .... Data Science Central launched this week the Data Science Research Center, a public online resource for practitioners to read, download or publish…
From The Eponymous Pickle
ACM Fellow Leslie Lamport
Have followed the ACM for years. I try to read some of the the work of each Turing Award Recipient.Welcome to the Digital Edition of the June 2014 Communications of the ACM. ... For the Digital issue click here.ACM A.M. Turing…
From The Computing Community Consortium Blog
NSF, Intel Labs Partner on Cyber-Physical Systems Security and Privacy
The following is a special contribution to this blog by Keith Marzullo, division director for the National Science Foundation’s (NSF) Division of Computer and Network Systems (CNS). The National Science Foundation’s (NSF) Directorate…
From Gödel's Lost Letter and P=NP
Is This a Proof?
Seeking the limits of mathematical proofs Ivan Vinogradov was a famous mathematician who created a whole method, named after him, that allowed him to make major advances on many open number theoretic problems. These included…
From Gödel's Lost Letter and P=NP
Is This a Proof?
Seeking the limits of mathematical proofs Ivan Vinogradov was a famous mathematician who created a whole method, named after him, that allowed him to make major advances on many open number theoretic problems. These included…