Communications of the ACM
The blog archive provides access to past blog postings from Communications of the ACM and other sources by date.
June 2021
From insideHPC
Los Alamos in R&D Pact with Quantum Computing Inc. for Exascale and Petascale Simulations
Quantum Computing Inc., a Leesburg, VA-based company focused on bridging classical and quantum computing, today announced a three-year cooperative research and development agreement with Los Alamos National Laboratory. QCI will…
From BLOG@CACM
The Evolution of Computing Power in Switzerland
Milestones in the history of computing from the Swiss National Supercomputing Center, Lugano.
From The Eponymous Pickle
Quantum Heat
Heat and quantum computing. Quantum Computing requires physical machines which will need heat management. And that such machines may be quite 'delicate' when they erase information. Shows we have much to do before we have…
From Schneier on Security
TikTok Can Now Collect Biometric Data
This is probably worth paying attention to:
A change to TikTok’s U.S. privacy policy on Wednesday introduced a new section that says the social video app “may collect biometric identifiers and biometric information” from its“faceprints…From The Computing Community Consortium Blog
Listen to the Catalyzing Computing Podcast, Episode 35 – Computer Architecture with Mark D. Hill (Part 1)
A new episode of the Computing Community Consortium‘s (CCC) official podcast, Catalyzing Computing, is now available. In this episode, Khari Douglas (CCC Senior Program Associate) interviews Dr. Mark D. Hill, the Gene M. Amdahl…
From The Noisy Channel
The Eternal Quest for Meaning
In 1668, John Wilkins published An Essay Towards a Real Character, and a Philosophical Language. In it, he proposed a universal language that would represent every concept with its own symbol.
Here is an excerpt from his treatise…From The Eponymous Pickle
McDonald's Drive Through Bot may Violate Law
Been following work by retailers to improve efficiency. This example seems a weak attempt at blocking new tech.
McDonald’s drive-thru AI bot may have broken privacy law By Ryan Daws | June 11, 2021 | TechForge Media in AI…From The Eponymous Pickle
UK Plans a Pandemic Radar
With plans for testing in a future pandemic.
via ACM NEWS
U.K. Has a Plan for a New 'Pandemic Radar' System By Wired
About four years ago, seven infants and toddlers and a 37-year-old woman were admitted to a hospital in Sibu…From The Eponymous Pickle
Top Supply Chain Tech Trends
Some good thoughts on tech trends in supply chain.
Gartner Reveals Top 8 Supply Chain Technology Trends in SDCExec
Gartner has identified the top eight supply chain technology themes for 2021, which were selected for their transformational…From The Eponymous Pickle
3D Printing Human Liver Tissue
Continue to make remarkable advances using 3D Prining.
Wake Forest teams win a NASA prize for 3D printing human liver tissue
Nobody was really expected to conquer the 'Vascular Tissue Challenge' when it launched....
In Engadget…From Putting People First
Anthro-Vision: a new way to see in business and life
If there’s one simple message for the general reader in her new book Anthro-Vision it is this: the promise and value of anthropology lies in making visible that which is close to hand but ignored. It offers a means to see the…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Salesforce and Marketing AI
Overview of Salesforce and Marketing AI
Using AI to Automate Marketing Processes Using Salesforce Tools
Salesforce relies heavily on AI technology to help companies dramatically expand their market share. By Diana Hope
Artificial…From Putting People First
Heidi Larson, vaccine anthropologist
Heidi Larson studies vaccine rumors—how they start, and why some flourish and others wither. Tackling misperceptions individually is like eliminating a single microbial strain: when one germ is gone, another will bloom. Instead…
From Putting People First
Humans are imperfect, inconsistent decision-makers
In their new book, Daniel Kahneman, Olivier Sibony and Cass Sunstein offer strategies for improvement | An Economist book review
From Putting People First
The human error of Artificial Intelligence
Rather than trying to fix the biases of AI systems and their human error, we need to find ways to coexist with it. Anthropology can help us a lot here.
From Putting People First
The end of privacy? Central banks plan to launch digital coins
The great irony is that the revolution that bitcoin set off could be the end of [financial] privacy with the launch of central bank-backed digital coins.
From The Eponymous Pickle
A World of Holograms and Avatars Next?
Would like to see Avatar Holograms again, in fact have seen in many forms over the years. Even formally tested it in the large enterprise. Its got some good specialized applications, but no, not for day to day work and communications…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Windows Update Coming Up: New and Improved?
I was handed a test copy of the first windows OS by Bill Gates, when we represented our enterprises' test of the idea. It was not fully installed at our company for over a year, ever since have worked with Windows at a number…
From The Eponymous Pickle
USAF Autonomous Drone Skyborg Completes First Flight
Will continue to see more of this effort.
US Air Force autonomous Drone Skyborg completes first flight, by Sarah Katz , Tech Xplore
Last month, the United States Air Force successfully test flew an unnamed aerial vehicle (UAV)…From The Eponymous Pickle
AI and Decisions
Good, colorful piece on the who idea of designing decisions. I like the point made especially that 'most decisions are not binary', noting that it is rarely just finding the best decision, at minimum such an endeavor should…
From The Eponymous Pickle
AWS Provides Advanced Location Services
Considerable detail here on the services involved. Makes sense, they are the practitioners now.
Amazon Location Service Generally Available With Routing and Satellite Imagery By Renato Losio in Infoq
AWS has recently announced…From The Eponymous Pickle
Towards Automation
More on business automation.
How Businesses Are Perfecting With Artificial Intelligence by 7wData
Have you heard automation is the new black? And what better automation of a process than using a computer software to performSure…From insideHPC
Tear Down These Walls: How CXL Could Reinvent the Data Center
The move to heterogenous computing will require shifting some ... interconnects to a more performant industry standard interface enabling new capabilities like memory tiers, pooled memory, and even the convergence of memory and…
From Daniel Lemire's Blog
Science and Technology links (June 12th 2021)
We completed the sequencing of the human genome. AstraZeneca’s drug Lynparza cut combined risk of recurrence of breast cancer or death by 42% among women in study. Glycine and N-acetylcysteine supplementation improves muscleContinue…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Exploring Under the Sea with Google Earth
Always appreciated how Google maps has opened Geo exploration and analysis at a remarkable level of detail, to anyone . And below is a reminder that you can do this under the seas as well. This will likely inspire a new generation…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Mining Digitization
Studied mining efforts for a potential application, and can see the direction, especially regards patterns of detection.
Where digitalization is a goldmine, for real by Steinar Brandslet, Norwegian University of Science and Technology…From Gödel's Lost Letter and P=NP
Tardos Is Off With Good Behavior
A call for nominations for her successor In her original orange Éva Tardos’s sentence as Editor-in-Chief (EiC) of the Journal of the ACM (JACM) is coming to an end. She has served almost six years. She will be paroled soon for…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Darktrace Attacks Back with AI Methods.
Recently sent to me DarkTrace. Apparently a means to attack back with AI methods.
AI-powered cyber-attacks: It’s not a fair game
AI and machine learning will soon be used by attackers to increase the speed, scale, and sophistication…From The Eponymous Pickle
Google Reconstructs the Human Cortex
Quite remarkable. Impressive build. Images at the link. A way to connect brain and computer. Browsing is a way to learn about structure, now take it out to function. See the Neuroglancer Browser Interface.
A Browsable Petascale…From The Eponymous Pickle
Criticism of Blockchains and Trust
Here's a 2019 paper/blog post by Bruce Schneier that I read then. Now revisiting the idea of trust and blockchain. Article is usefully critical of blockchain in general, but some good thoughts about elements of trust. Very…