Communications of the ACM
The blog archive provides access to past blog postings from Communications of the ACM and other sources by date.
June 2020
From The Eponymous Pickle
Qualcomm Attracting Robotics Developers with New Chips
Seeing continued directions from Qualcomm.
Qualcomm aims to woo robotics developers with new chips, tools in Reuters
Building robots and drones is messy: Developers must pull together sensors to be the eyes and ears, chips for…
From Schneier on Security
Theft of CIA's "Vault Seven" Hacking Tools Due to Its Own Lousy Security
The Washington Post is reporting on an internal CIA report about its "Vault 7" security breach: The breach -- allegedly committed by a CIA employee -- was discovered a year after it happened, when the information was published…
From Universal Acceptance Steering Group
UASG Welcomes Six New UA Ambassadors
By Ajay Data, Chair of the UASG The Universal Acceptance Steering Group (UASG) is proud to welcome six new UA Ambassadors into the UASG Ambassador Program for FY21 (July 2020-June 2021). These individuals have a wide range of…
From Computer Science Teacher - Thoughts and Information From Alfred Thompson
Thoughts on an IDE for Teaching CS
Amy Ko posted a slide deck about CS education in higher education from a presentation she made to a group at Microsoft. There is a ton of stuff in there. I need to read it a couple more times actually. I’ll probably blog some…
From insideHPC
PRACE Awards Hundreds of Millions More Core Hours to Combat COVID-19
PRACE, the Partnership for Advanced Computing in Europe, has issued an additional 10 awards of supercomputing resources, with a total of 227.6 million core hours for the European Union’s effort to combat COVID-19. This follows…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Comments on the Return of Retail
in His Curious Voyager:
My colleague Walter Riker writes:
What will the return of retail look like in the coming months - years?
Recently, because of the Pandemic, there has been a great deal of talk about the ability for retail…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Making Images Sharper, More secure?
A remarkable approach is described, sharper images for human eyes, but too sharp for the task of recognition? Implications for security?
AI Makes Blurry Faces Look More Than 60 Times Sharper
Duke Today
By Robin A. Smith
Researchers…
From The Eponymous Pickle
An Intuitive Language for Quantum Computers
Is it better t have a coding method devoted to an innovation like quantum, or one that provides the greatest accessibility?
The First Intuitive Programming Language for Quantum Computers
ETH Zurich
Florian Meyer
June 15, 2020
Computer…
From Schneier on Security
Zoom Will Be End-to-End Encrypted for All Users
Zoom is doing the right thing: it's making end-to-end encryption available to all users, paid and unpaid. (This is a change; I wrote about the initial decision here.) ...we have identified a path forward that balances the legitimate…
From My Biased Coin
Algorithms with Predictions: Survey and Workshop
There's a whole new, interesting theory trend -- Algorithms with Predictions. The idea, spurred by advances in machine learning, is that you assume you have predictor that tells you something about your input. For example,…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Amazon Enforces Distancing with AI
Somewhat novel application which I assume uses location and image analysis to report and manage distance rules. More details at the link.
Amazon uses AI-powered displays to enforce social distancing in warehouses
By Ryan Daws…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Amazon Takes Auto Echo to UK, Canada and Parts of Europe
Thought I had detected less support to auto assistants by Amazon, but this indicates they are going again, to new regions and likely regulation. Extending in a sense the smart home to the car. Competing now with related…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Human Dynamics in Decision Making
Have thought that we need better understanding of our decision making, at least if we believe in useful biomimicry to build intelligent systems. Here an interesting, if very technical piece. Can we use some ideas here toNature…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Security of The Form and Parameters of Neural Nets.
Out of Cornell University an intriguing article that deals with how neural nets react to adversarial attacks in their energy consumption. As predicted by simulation. Akin to how you might test a system by giving it questions…
From Schneier on Security
Bank Card "Master Key" Stolen
South Africa's Postbank experienced a catastrophic security failure. The bank's master PIN key was stolen, forcing it to cancel and replace 12 million bank cards. The breach resulted from the printing of the bank's encrypted…
From Gödel's Lost Letter and P=NP
P<NP
Some thoughts on P versus NP Norbert Blum is a computer science theorist at the University of Bonn, Germany. He has made important contributions to theory over his career. Another claim to fame is he was a student of Kurt Mehlhorn…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Subscriptions and IFTTT
During the earliest days of looking at behavior in the smart home, we examined subscription methods. And talked to Spotify when they emerged. Now here an upcoming webinar on subscriptions as a tactic, and the use of IFTTT…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Will Voice Tech Shape Post Pandemic Office?
If it is a true 'post' pandemic, inclined to think the change will not be that substantial. A mix of bad memories of those times, and enjoying actual human interaction. Will be interesting to watch.
How Voice Tech could Shape…
From insideHPC
Sandia Selects SoftIron File and Object Storage for Stria Cluster
Sandia National Laboratories Vanguard program has selected SoftIron, Ltd., to provide supplemental file and object storage for Sandia’s ARM-based Stria high performance computing cluster.
Stria supports the petascale Astra supercomputer…
From Schneier on Security
Eavesdropping on Sound Using Variations in Light Bulbs
New research is able to recover sound waves in a room by observing minute changes in the room's light bulbs. This technique works from a distance, even from a building across the street through a window. Details: In an experiment…
From The Computing Community Consortium Blog
SCIENCE Article on Driving Computer Performance After Moore’s Law
The following is a guest blog from CCC Member Tom Conte of Georgia Tech. A recent article in SCIENCE, authored by Charles Lierson, Neil Thompson, Joel Emer, Bradley Kuszmaul, Butler Lampson, Daniel Sanchez and Tao Schardl, entitled…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Podcast: Do we Need Data Scientists in a World of Automation?
New Podcast below, by SAS and DSC. Good topic. The question should be: How many and how should the be involved in an enterprise? Just like Computer Scientists, Economists, Statisticians ... and other technical fields.
Do…
From The Eponymous Pickle
IBM Bringing Watson AI to Advertising and Marketing
A natural space, was one of the first areas we experimented with leveraging intelligence for the advertising enterprise. Below is IBM's ad on the subject. Trust emphasized.
IBM Watson Advertising
We build trust between consumers…
From The Eponymous Pickle
USAF Using Supply Chain Network with Blockchain
Another indication that Blockchain is being further used to secure supply chain transactions. Here with US Govt DOD applications.
US Air Force Gives Blockchain Firm $1.5M to Build Supply Chain Network by Danny Nelson in Coindesk…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Oversensing in the Home
Had not heard the term before: 'Oversensing'. But sensors do create security implications.
How to Curtail Oversensing in the Home
By Connor Bolton, Kevin Fu, Josiah Hester, Jun Han
Communications of the ACM, June 2020, Vol. 63
Future…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Underwater WiFi
Was unaware of this possibility, of course devices will have to be redesigned to make it readily available. Only works for a 'few' meters, so the capability narrow and limited.
Angling for Underwater Wi-Fi
KAUST Discovery
June
Researchers…
From insideHPC
DDN Unveils New Branding, Expands Market Positioning into the Enterprise – ‘Intelligent Infrastructure’
The long march of HPC-class technologies into high end enterprise IT took another step forward today with the unveiling by HPC storage stalwart DataDirect Networks of new corporate branding and market positioning focused on
…
From insideHPC
HPE (Cray) SVP, HPC Luminary Steve Scott Leaving for Microsoft
In news disclosed via tweet, Microsoft Azure Principal Program Manager for HPC & Big Compute Evan Burness disclosed that Steve Scott, long-time industry luminary and senior manager at Cray, is leaving HPE for Microsoft to become…
From insideHPC
Anton 2 at PSC for Coronavirus Binding Simulation, COVID-19 Test Development
A team at the University of Arkansas is using the Pittsburgh Supercomputing Center’s Anton 2 system to simulate molecular systems for microseconds or longer to investigate how the Coronavirus that causes COVID-19 attaches to
…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Wal-Mart Teams with Shopify
Expanding online marketplace. Note recent grounding of the Jet online service.
Walmart partners with Shopify to expand e-commerce 'marketplace' in Techxplore
US retail giant Walmart has teamed up with Shopify to expand its online…