Communications of the ACM
The blog archive provides access to past blog postings from Communications of the ACM and other sources by date.
July 2011
From Computer Science Teacher - Thoughts and Information From Alfred Thompson
Computer Programming at South Dakota Gear Up
South Dakota Gear UP is an outstanding program run at the South Dakota Schools of Mines and Technology in Rapid City. This year a programming mini course was added to the mix for the group of rising freshmen who make up the newest…
From Putting People First
Report: Behaviour Change and Energy Use
The Behavioural Insight Team of David Cameron’s Cabinet Office – widely known as the ‘nudge unit‘, has published the repor, Behaviour Change and Energy Use, setting out how we can use behavioural insights to help people save…
From Putting People First
Web 3.0 is all about social personalisation
Forget Web 2.0. During a panel on social media at the recent Wharton Global Alumni Forum, industry experts argued that we are now in a “third wave” of disruption in the tech sector. While the post-bubble era was about user-generated…
From Apophenia
How to Take an Email Sabbatical
It’s summer time and many folks are heading off to vacation and fretting about coming back to overloaded inboxes. Folks keep asking me about my email sabbaticals so I decided to write up a short how-to guide in case it’s of use…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Printer Produces Chocolate
Long time interest in remote manufacturing and the remote transmission of foods. Here is a simple example. What other foods might be assembled remotely via digital connections?
From The Eponymous Pickle
Alan Haberman of Barcode Fame Dies
Alan Haberman, Who usered in the Bar Code, Dies at 81
From My Biased Coin
Various Goings On
I've not been a Facebook user, but I was invited to join Google+, so I set up a picture and am waiting to see what it's all about. I'm afraid that for the most part I'm not so interested in a wall where people tell me what's…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Gamification Examples
Game mechanics in action. Good examples.
From U.S. Public Policy Committee of the ACM
Hill Tech Happenings, Week of July 4
July 7 Hearing: The House Oversight and Government Reform Committee will hold a hearing on cybersecurity threats and threat assessment.
From Wild WebMink
? Brazil Signs Up To Develop Office Suites
At FISL in Brazil last week, I had the opportunity to speak as the co-presenter in a session about the evolution of OpenOffice.org – I think there will eventually be video of it. As Richard Hillesley observes, the developer community…
From The Female Perspective of Computer Science
Proof You Don't Need to Stick to Just MS Office for Arts and Social Science Students
My arts and social science students expected a relatively easy class that mostly taught them the ins and outs of Microsoft Office software. They were probably pretty surprised when I told them I was going to teach them somepushed…
From Putting People First
Niti Bhan on emerging markets tech event in East Africa
Niti Bhan, the emerging markets strategy specialist, went to Kenya to participate in the Pivot 25 conference and wrote this guest contribution on her experience there. [Disclosure: Experientia has worked with Niti on an extensive…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Business Intelligence for Small Companies
Agree that today there are many options for using BI tools and applying them to the needs of enterprises large and small.
From The Computing Community Consortium Blog
CISE Releases Core Program Solicitations
Just a heads up that NSF’s CISE Directorate has issued solicitations for its core programs: Computing and Communication Foundations (CCF) — Algorithmic Foundations, Communications and Information Foundations, and Software and…
From The Eponymous Pickle
The Azore Garage
About helping the inside Entrepreneur. I thought of myself as this kind of operator for years and here is a startup devoted to them. " ... The azore garage was established in 2011 as a community to catalyze inside entrepreneurship…
From Schneier on Security
Man Flies with Someone Else's Ticket and No Legal ID
Last week, I got a bunch of press calls about Olajide Oluwaseun Noibi, who flew from New York to Los Angeles using an expired ticket in someone else's name and a university ID. They all wanted to know what this says about airport…
From Computer Science Teacher - Thoughts and Information From Alfred Thompson
A Post BASIC World?
What does is mean to be in a post BASIC world? This is the question that comes to mine when I read about an article titled How are students learning programming in a post-Basic world? I think that for most of the people in the…
From Putting People First
How computers can cure cultural diabetes
Peter Lunenfeld (wikipedia), professor in the Design | Media Arts department at UCLA, argues in a New Scientist op-ed piece for the importance of what he calls “meaningful uploading”, which is still difficult for most people…
From Putting People First
Alone together
MIT technology and society specialist Professor Sherry Turkle presents – during a June 1 talk at the RSA in London – the results of a fifteen year exploration of the colossal impact technology has had on our lives and communities…
From Putting People First
The iPad as support for people with disabilities
The Apple tablet is helping people with disabilities by reading e-mails, voicing directions, and zooming in on text. “Apple has added features that make the iPhone and iPad easily accessible, not only to visually impaired people…
From Computer Science Teachers Association
Making Changes in Response to Student Complaints
It is summer and time to reflect upon the past school year. Course evaluations are in, and provided some interesting insight into how my students perceived my class. The standard complaint is there. They don't like the language…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Inside AR 2011
Junaio reports from the Augmented Reality 2011 Conference. A useful update of what is going on in augmented reality. Includes a new linkage to the Google Places API, greatly extending AR resources, many new AR channels, couponing…
From The Eponymous Pickle
First Annual Neuromarketing Awards
The IPG Media Lab and Affectiva Announce Winners of First Annual Neuromarketing AwardsCANNES, France, June 24, 2011 /PRNewswire/ -- Mediabrands' IPG Media Lab and Affectiva today announced, at the Cannes Lions International Advertising…
From Wild WebMink
? TAPped Out
If you don’t like whingeing by frequent fliers, skip this post! I spent all day Tuesday travelling back from Brazil on TAP. Having taken four flights with them (LHR-LIS, LIS-GRU, VCP-LIS, LIS-LHR) I feel partially qualified to…
From Computer Science Teacher - Thoughts and Information From Alfred Thompson
Interesting Links 5 July 2011
Wow! What a week it has been. I came home from ISTE in time for the Fourth of July holiday. I
From The Eponymous Pickle
Coworking vs Working from a Coffee Shop
Working locations for startups and consulting, after the Wifi is established.
From The Computing Community Consortium Blog
Eric Lander and Larry Summers Talk Innovation, R&D
At the Brookings Institution last week, Larry Summers, former head of the National Economic Council, and Eric Lander, co-chair of the President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology (PCAST), discussed the role of government…
From Computational Complexity
The Quantum Tivo
Chuck Klosterman writes on watching sports on tape delay and Jeff Ely follows up. I take a quantum mechanics view: A sporting event saved on my Tivo is like Schr
From Schneier on Security
Research in Secure Chips
Unsuprisingly, the U.S. military is funding reseach in this.
From The Eponymous Pickle
Virtual Shopping
Imteresting case use of virtual displays to shop in the Korean subways More here.