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
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 Computer Science Teacher - Thoughts and Information From Alfred Thompson
Do We Teach Design for Everyone?
Summer is a time for me to think about how I want to teach better in the next school year. I’m always looking for ideas about this and recently came across this post about Designing Games for Everyone at Microsoft. Now I’ve been…
From The Computing Community Consortium Blog
Computing as a Force for Social Good
Computing has become a powerful tool for productivity and connectivity — it powers companies, it fuels scientific research, and it delivers entertainment and social engagement for billions. Could research-based innovations in…
From Schneier on Security
Fraudsters are Buying IPv4 Addresses
IPv4 addresses are valuable, so criminals are figuring out how to buy or steal them. Hence criminals' interest in ways to land themselves IP addresses, some of which were detailed this week by ARIN's senior director of global…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Bot Buttons in Slack
A very simple idea. Developers can add interactive buttons in Slack. Of really any level of intelligence they can 'develop', from very simple logic to far beyond. Have been a user of Slack for a while and can see how this…
From The Computing Community Consortium Blog
National Week of Making!
Contributions to this post were provided by Meredith M. Lee, Executive Director of the West Data Hub from UC Berkeley. President Obama released a proclamation announcing June 17 through June 23, 2016 as National Week of Making…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Inside the Mind of the Shopper, 2nd Edition
Much anticipated. 2nd edition. Pre order it. By a colleague who we used for shopping innovation. An ideal companion to our new world of advancing analytics in retail. This connects science to store behavior in ways that…
From Putting People First
A united energy economy: Experientia helps wrap up the CITYOPT Nice pilot project
Can behavioral change address local energy issues, raise people’s awareness energy consumption issues, and directly support non-profit organizations at the same time? With the Nice pilot of the CITYOPT project, we have seen strong…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Machine Learning for Design
In O'Reilly.Nicely put, requires registration for full report. I still prefer the term 'analytics' for this. But ML is sexier these days.Machine Learning for DesignersThis report introduces contemporary machine learningBy…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Robotic Housekeeping
Elon Musk looks at a yet harder problem, the robotic housekeeper. A problem of complex environments.
From Schneier on Security
Issues Regarding Lone-Wolf Terrorism Prevention
Amy Zegert has some good questions, comparing the Orlando Pulse massacre to the Fort Hood massacre from 2009....
From insideHPC
Intel Omni-Path Deployed at Northumbria in the UK
Today Northumbria University announced that its has become one of the first UK sites to deploy Intel Omni-Path Architecture (Intel OPA) for their centralized HPC infrastructure. Deployed by BIOS IT, this is the first stage of…
From insideHPC
Supercomputer Systems Monitoring and Management
The SGI Management Suite’s system health monitoring and management capability collects health status information on fundamental system’s functions such as memory, CPU and power. It identifies changes that require action, automatically…
From insideHPC
Video: Announcing Intel HPC Orchestrator
In this video from ISC 2016, Figan Ulgen from Intel describes the new Intel HPC Orchestrator. "Intel HPC Orchestrator simplifies the installation, management and ongoing maintenance of a high-performance computing system by reducing…
From insideHPC
Allinea DDT Debugger to be Used for 25 Petaflop Supercomputer at JCAHP in Japan
Today Allinea Software announced that the Joint Center for Advanced High Performance Computing (JCAHPC) in Japan will use the Allinea DDT debugger for its new supercomputer. Coming online in December 2016, the new supercomputer…
From insideHPC
Interview: Dr. Eng Lim Goh on the Latest Trends in High Performance Data Analytics
In this video from ISC 2016, Dr. Eng Lim Goh from SGI discusses the latest trends in high performance data analytics and machine learning. "Dr. Eng Lim Goh joined SGI in 1989, becoming a chief engineer in 1998 and then chief …
From insideHPC
ASRock Rack Adds Intel Xeon Phi Processor to Server Lineup
Today at ISC 2016, ASRock Rack has rolled out a new 2U server based on the brand new Intel Xeon Phi processor. "The 2U4N-F/X200 from ASrock Rack has four computing nodes in 2U form factor. Using 14nm technology, its Intel Xeon…
From insideHPC
Lustre Powers FrostByte HPC Storage from Penguin Computing
FrostByte is a complete solution that integrates Penguin Computing’s new Scyld FrostByte software with an optimized high-performance storage platform. FrostByte will support multiple open software storage technologies including…
From insideHPC
SGI Opens European Joint Research Centre at EPCC in Edinburgh
Today SGI announced a significant investment in extreme scale software research at The Edinburgh Parallel Computing Centre (EPCC) at the University of Edinburgh. The investments at this top tier research centre highlight the …
From The Eponymous Pickle
Rulex Analytics
Brought back to my attention, Rulex: More to follow.Fast Big Data ROI with DIY Data ScienceData Monetization means gaining measurable financial value from stored and available data. It could be using customer and transaction…
From XRDS
The Road to Hell is Paved with Good Intensions
A former colleague, a talented and accomplished user experience professional, recently wrote excitedly of her intension to attend an upcoming UX conference. It was a bit of a throwaway line, likely written in haste, but madeContinue…
From Computational Complexity
When does n divide a_n? The answer, though you already know it. The Point, though its not as strong as I wanted. Oh well.
In my last post When does n divide a_n? I gave a sequence: a(1)=0 a(2)=2 a(3)=3 for all n ≥ 4 a(n) = a(n-2) + a(n-3) and I noted that for 2 ≤ n ≤ 23 it looked like n divides a(n) iff n is prime and challenged my readers…
From The Computing Community Consortium Blog
2006’s Most Influential PLDI Paper Award Goes To…
CCC Council Member Ben Zorn and his co-author Emery Berger were recently honored with the Most Influential PLDI Paper Award by ACM SIGPLAN for their 2006 paper DieHard: probabilistic memory safety for unsafe languages. SIGPLAN…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Connected Air Fresheners in the Internet of Things
Here's A Whiff of the Future for the Internet of ThingsMarketing Lessons from P&G's Febreze Internet-Connected Air Freshener By David Berkowitz" .... When the Febreze Home internet-connected plug-in air freshener arrived in the…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Amazon's Robotics Investment
In Qz.com:" .... Amazon is just beginning to use robots in its warehouses and they’re already making a huge difference .... Amazon acquired Kiva for $775 million in 2012 but only started using the orange robots in its warehouses…
From Schneier on Security
Situational Awareness and Crime Prevention
Ronald V. Clarke argues for more situational awareness in crime prevention. Turns out if you make crime harder, it goes down. And this has profound policy implications. Whatever the benefits for Criminology, the real benefits…
From The Computing Community Consortium Blog
Great Innovative Idea- A Socio-Cultural & Technical Approach to Affective Biometrics
The following Great Innovative Idea is from Gloria Washington, an Assistant Professor of computer science at Howard University. In addition to being an Assistant Professor, Dr. Washington is the Director of the Affective Biometrics…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Waze Making us Think Like Ants in Traffic
Ants avoiding traffic. Reminds me of swarming algorithms for tracking or searching. Considered it in warehouses. Have used Waze from time to time but have never had it direct me 'algorithmically'. Doubt if many people do…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Reimagining Tech at Wal-Mart
Wal-Mart to combine tech, humanity to "reimagine retail" by Doug McMillon" ... Wal-Mart will "reimagine retail again" through efforts that support and engage store associates, serve shoppers and communities and enhance the retailer's…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Operationalizing Big Data
I think this is more than just about handling big, varied and volatile data from many sources. Have seen this poorly done. Its about having the analytics and data handling capabilities in place to 'operationalize' ,,, that…