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 insideHPC
Supercomputing Genetic Medicine in Africa
The National Center for Supercomputing Applications at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign is helping change the way genetic medicine is researched and practiced in Africa. Members of the Blue Waters team recently …
From insideHPC
New Developer Platform to Accelerate Adoption of Knights Landing
With the release of a Developer Access Program for the Intel Xeon Phi Processor codenamed Knights Landing, Intel and its partner Colfax are widening early levels of access, support and training for the widely anticipated next…
From insideHPC
Host an HPC Workflow Workshop at your Site in August
The NCSA Blue Waters project is offering a Workflows Workshop virtual course in August. To share this class with as many students as possible, they are seeking universities willing to be a local site and offer the course to their…
From Gödel's Lost Letter and P=NP
Polynomial Prestidigitation
Suddenly a sharp bound on progression-free subsets is revealed Ernie Croot, Vsevolod Lev, and Péter Pach (CLP) found a new application of polynomials last month. They proved that every set of size at least has three distinct…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Linkedin Open Sources Machine Learning Library
Can't say I have been following Linkedin in the machine learning space, but a correspondent says they are doing some very interesting things there. So now that they are acquired, watching more closely. In eWeek: " .…
From U.S. Public Policy Committee of the ACM
Global Tech Policy Update – June 2016
ACM PUBLIC POLICY HIGHLIGHTS Internet of Things – The ACM U.S. Public Policy Council submitted comments on the Internet of Things to the National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA). The comments describe…
From XRDS
How 1 Million App Calls can Tell you a Bit About Malware – Part 1
Recently, I collaborated with a number of researchers from the Software Systems Laboratory of Columbia University, on a study regarding POSIX (Portable Operating System Interface) abstractions. In a nutshell, we measured howContinue…
From Apophenia
Be Careful What You Code For
Most people who don’t code don’t appreciate how hard it is to do right.Plenty of developers are perfectly functional, but to watch a master weave code into silken beauty is utterly inspiring. Unfortunately, most of the code that…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Facebook Measuring Store Visits and Ad Views
Much more at the link. Very interesting new measure. What will it be able to accurately predict? Privacy issues? Further linking to loyalty information. Could the location accuracy be taken to the aisle? In Adage:…
From The Computing Community Consortium Blog
The Science of Data-Driven Storytelling Workshop
Contributions to this post were provided by Meredith M. Lee, Executive Director of the West Data Hub from UC Berkeley. On Thursday June 16th, the West Big Data Innovation Hub and DataScience, Inc. will co-host a workshop titled…
From Schneier on Security
Russians Hacking DNC Computers
The Washington Post is reporting that Russian hackers penetrated the network of the Democratic National Committee and stole opposition research on Donald Trump. The evidence is from CrowdStrike: The firm identified two separate…
From insideHPC
WorldQuant Ventures Invests in Cycle Computing
Today Cycle Computing announced that angel investment firm WorldQuant Ventures has invested in Cycle Computing. This is the company's first outside investment. "We are excited to announce our investment in Cycle Computing,” said…
From The Eponymous Pickle
AI Generating Realistic Sounds
We looked at the ability to create soundscapes in environments. And then inserting sounds to create changes in context. This is different, but signiticant for the same goals.Artificial Intelligence Produces Realistic Sounds…
From BLOG@CACM
Five Principles For Programming Languages For Learners
Five considerations when choosing a programming language for schools
From The Eponymous Pickle
Microsoft Buying Linkedin
An interesting play, for a mere 26 Billion dollars. I was involved with looking at Linkedin as an enterprise package for sharing internal connections and expertise. Can we expect to see this pushed by Microsoft, hopefully cleanly…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Coding with Swift Playgrounds
Saw this demonstrated at the Apple development conference yesterday. Nicely done. An App for the iPad. I can see some kids getting excited by the step by step aspect of learning this kind. of coding. Incrementally rewarding…
From insideHPC
The GPUltima for Graphics-Intensive VDI Environments
For Universities and Colleges that have a traditional infrastructure, adding new programs and applications is a huge endeavor. The IT staff needs to determine if all of the hardware meets the installation requirements and how…
From insideHPC
Bright Computing to Showcase System Management Software at ISC 2016
Bright Computing’s recently appointed Silicon Valley-based management team, including CEO Bill Wagner and SVP Worldwide Sales Dan Kuczkowski, will be at the Bright booth, as well as Bright’s leading technical experts, giving …
From insideHPC
NAG Rolls Out Software Modernization Service
Today the Numerical Algorithms Group (NAG) has announced the NAG Software Modernization Service. The new service solves the porting and performance challenges faced by customers wishing to use the capabilities of modern computing…
From Phys.org Technology News
Why you should get ready to say goodbye to the humble lightbulb
Lightbulbs are disappearing. The traditional incandescent bulbs that revolutionised daily life in the 20th century have largely already gone and the energy efficient fluorescent bulbs that replaced them are now also on their…
From insideHPC
DDN Launches ES14K Storage Appliance with Intel Lustre for the Enterprise
"With more than a decade of experience in designing, installing and supporting Lustre-based storage, DDN is the most experienced Lustre provider and has worked closely with us over many years to design optimized Lustre-based …
From insideHPC
CoolIT Systems to Showcase Next Generation Liquid Cooling at ISC 2016
Today CoolIT Systems announced that the company will showcase its energy efficient liquid cooling technologies for HPC at ISC 2016 in Frankfurt. "Our comprehensive offering of energy efficient liquid cooling solutions at ISC16…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Can Procter & Gamble Find its Way?
In Fortune. Fascinating piece on my former career manager Procter & Gamble. Which includes changes on their innovation process and management influence. Largely agree with the points made." .... On the ninth and 10th floors…
From The Noisy Channel
MSFT Acquires LNKD: Raw Thoughts
Like everyone else in Silicon Valley, I woke up this morning to the news that Microsoft is acquiring LinkedIn, my former employer, for $26B…
From The Computing Community Consortium Blog
The Payoff of Investing in CS Research: Some Numbers Everyone in CS Should Know
The following is a guest blog by Greg Hager, Computing Community Consortium (CCC) Chair and Professor in the Department of Computer Science at Johns Hopkins University. I recently had the opportunity to participate in a panel…
From insideHPC
Materials Lab at LBNL Releases Battery and Molecule Data to Public
The Materials Project has enabled some of the most exciting research in my group,” said Morgan, who also serves on the Materials Project’s advisory board. “By providing easy access to a huge database, as well as tools to process…
From insideHPC
PSC Celebrates 30 Years of Supercomputing
The Pittsburgh Supercomputing Center (PSC) celebrated its 30th anniversary last week. "The beginning of PSC’s fourth decade will see the center with two new supercomputers—the NSF-funded Bridges system, already operational and…
From insideHPC
Video: Why We Need More Women in HPC
In this video, Dr. Toni Collis from the Women in HPC community presents: The Importance of Grace and Why We Need More Women in HPC. "The underrepresentation of women is a challenge that the entire supercomputing industry faces…
From The Computing Community Consortium Blog
NSF Watch Talk- Welcome to the Panopticon(s)
The next WATCH talk, called Welcome to the Panopticon(s) is Thursday, June 16th, 2016 from Noon-1pm EDT. The presenter will be Nicholas Weaver. He received a B.A. in Astrophysics and Computer Science in 1995, and a Ph.D. in Computer…
From insideHPC
InsideHPC Guide To Flexible HPC
While all users of HPC technology want the fastest performance available, price and power consumption always seem to come into play, whether in the initial planning or at a later time. Standard performance measures exist that…