Communications of the ACM
The blog archive provides access to past blog postings from Communications of the ACM and other sources by date.
June 2016
From The Eponymous Pickle
Placemeter for Predictive Analysis
I had mentioned this idea before, because it could detect both traffic and the type of traffic being experienced. We examined methods of this type. Now, how to use that kind of data for predictive analytics.
From Phys.org Technology News
US Navy keeps electromagnetic cannon in its sights
The US Navy is quietly pushing ahead with a radical new cannon that one day could transform how wars are fought, even though some Pentagon officials have voiced concerns over its cost and viability.
From The Eponymous Pickle
Seeking More Robotic Servants.
Its still hard to do many of the 'simple' tasks that are done in the home. But at least we can prototype a number of them with robot like machines. But when will the robot sweeper learn to fold clothes, do and put away theMore…
From insideHPC
Context Matters: Distributed Graph Algorithms and Runtime Systems
In this video from the PASC16 conference, Andrew Lumsdaine from Indiana University presents: Context Matters: Distributed Graph Algorithms and Runtime Systems. "The increasing complexity of the software/hardware stack of modern…
From insideHPC
SGI Pangea is Industry’s Top Commercial Supercomputer on TOP500 List
At ISC 2016 this week, SGI announced that Total’s SGI ICE X supercomputer, Pangea, was recognized as the industry’s top commercial supercomputer in the prestigious TOP500 list. "Our SGI ICE XA systems lead in delivering application…
From Schneier on Security
Friday Squid Blogging: Bioluminescence as Camouflage
Interesting: There is one feature of the squid that is not transparent and which could act as a signal to prey the eyes. However, the squid has a developed protection here as well. The large eyes of the squid are camouflaged…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Microsoft Flow
Was reminded of Microsoft Flow today (See also IFTTT)Microsoft FlowWork less, do moreCreate automated workflows between your favorite apps and services to get notifications, synchronize files, collect data, and more. Automate…
From The Eponymous Pickle
SAS Guide to Cognitive Computing
Nicely done and non technical via SAS. It is interesting that I do not hear the term 'cognitive computing' too often by vendors, except for IBM. Gotten into some mild arguments about what cognitive means here. I take it fairly…
From The Eponymous Pickle
IFTF Writes A Handbook for the Maker City
I note that the Institute for the Future: IFTF, a nonprofit company I worked with for years, wrote for as well, has a Maker City Project underway. They are publishing a handbook on the topic chapter by chapter. The aim is…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Future of Textbooks
My recent connections to developing curriculums and teaching have made me think about all aspects of teaching and supporting teaching. With all the technologies possible today ... What is the future of textbooks? Work out…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Virtual Assistant for Documents
Fileee is an intelligent, personal assistant that automatically organizes all of your paper and digital documents in one system. It’s the new filing cabinet of the future, including personal assistance that recognizes the structures…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Crowdsourcing as a Weapon
Hardly a secret weapon. And managing it and understanding how well is works is still an issue. But its always worth examining. What is particularly nice is that is is relatively easy to scale these days with new tools andFurther…
From Schneier on Security
Using Social Media to Discover Hidden Wealth
Stories of burglars using social media to figure out who's on vacation are old hat. Now financial investigators are using social media to find hidden wealth....
From The Eponymous Pickle
Classroom Centaurs for Education
Talk this week on educational technology:" .... Kurt VanLehn, Diane and Gary Tooker Chair for Effective Education in Science, Technology, Engineering and Math in the Ira A. Fulton Schools of Engineering at Arizona State University…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Discussion on Samsung's $5799 Digital Frig
Good discussion on Samsung's smart Frig. Apparently not a prototype and is for sale. The the cost is hefty Is the refrigerator the place for the home hub?
From The Eponymous Pickle
Wal-Mart Decides on Fun Stories
Akin to Story telling, Recall my mention of the local grocery chain Jungle Jim's. Personally I think they should do more in that space to tell fun stories to attract and engage customers. Maybe with screens or ultimately with…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Google Magenta AI Makes Music
Like the idea. When we will see a library of these efforts to consider? What are the bounds of its innovation, creativity? Google enters the Artificial Intelligence race with MagentaThe words Artificial Intelligence can bring…
From The Eponymous Pickle
An AI Primer. What do we think it is Today?
Good primer in a talk AI, Deep Learning, and Machine Learning: – in Andreessen Horowitz" .... Things are clearly progressing rapidly when it comes to machine intelligence. But how did we get here, after not one but multiple…
From The Computing Community Consortium Blog
The Importance of CS Education Research
Contributions to this post were provided by Andrew Ko, University of Washington. Andrew J. Ko is an Associate Professor at the University of Washington Information School and an Adjunct Associate Professor in Computer Science…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Not all Things Should be Connected
Agreed, recall in my Defense department experience, the only way to have complete security was to have an unconnected network. With emphasis on being truly unconnected. Which means also not able to be sensed by current orIn…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Semantic Ecosystems
Continuing a look at modern ontology capabilities, We did work with Stanford's KSL to build ontologies of corporate data.Semantic EcosystemsCreate a semantic ecosystem—evolve from disparate data to actionable knowledge.TopQuadrant…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Emoji Based Targeting
Not unexpected, but how well will it work compared to broader prediction?Twitter Introduces Emoji-Based TargetingIt's Exactly What You Think It Is By George Slefo
From insideHPC
Allinea Programming Tools Release for Intel Xeon Phi Processor
"Our latest product enhancements will solidify our customers’ investment in the next generation Intel Xeon Phi processor," said Mark O'Connor, VP Product Management at Allinea. "Knights Landing’ has the potential to unleash new…
From insideHPC
Penguin Computing adds Intel Xeon Phi Processors to Tundra Supercomputers
Penguin Computing, a provider of high performance, enterprise data center and cloud solutions, announced its transition from pre-production deployments last year of systems based on the Intel Xeon Phi processor to full production…
From Computational Complexity
STOC 2016
I attended the 2016 STOC Conference earlier this week in Cambridge, Massachusetts. No shortage of awesome results highlighted by László Babai's new quasipolynomial-time graph isomorphism algorithm. Babai didn't have a chance…
From Schneier on Security
Comparing Messaging Apps
Michah Lee has a nice comparison among Signal, WhatsApp, and Allo. In this article, I'm going to compare WhatsApp, Signal, and Allo from a privacy perspective. While all three apps use the same secure-messaging protocol, they…
From insideHPC
Latest Irish Supercomputer List Reflects Growing Capabilities
"The June 2016 Irish Supercomputer List represents a seismic shake-up in the Irish HPC landscape. After a 2015 that saw only three new machines, the list has experienced a turnover of over 50% with three new Top500-class machines…
From insideHPC
DDN Powers Medical Breakthroughs at Children’s Mercy Kansas City
With DDN’s high-performance GRIDScaler platform, Children’s Mercy can scale up or out to handle massive data ingest, processing, storage and collaboration. Not only does DDN deliver performance and scalability unmatched by traditional…
From insideHPC
Programming Many Tasks for Many Cores
"Tasks keep the CPUs busy. When a core is working, rather than waiting for work to be sent to it, the application progresses towards it conclusion. A caveat to all of this is to remember that tasking and threading models remain…
From insideHPC
Video: Rolling Out the New Intel Xeon Phi Processor at ISC 2016
In this video from ISC 2016, Barry Davis from Intel describes the company's brand new Intel Xeon Phi Processor and how it fits into the Intel Scalable System Framework. "Eliminate node bottlenecks, simplify your code modernization…