Communications of the ACM
The blog archive provides access to past blog postings from Communications of the ACM and other sources by date.
July 2012
From Gödel's Lost Letter and P=NP
July Fourth Sale Of Ideas
All ideas on sale—most 50% off Asa Candler invented the coupon in 1895. Candler, a pharmacist by trade, later purchased the Coca-Cola company from the original inventor Dr. John Pemberton, also a pharmacist. Candler created the…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Transmedia Storytelling and New Marketing
An interview with Andrea Phillips. Fascinating thoughts, especially about gamification and the continuation of expressive story in marketing. " .... Our current multi-channel, multi-screen, "always on" world is giving rise to…
From Computer Science Teachers Association
Google Offers Power Searching Course
While many of us, and our students, are frequent users of search engines, how many of us could really call ourselves "power users", that is, users who can do more than a general search that produces a huge number of hits, most…
From Daniel Lemire's Blog
Bytes or octets?
Quick: what is the definition of a byte (as in two kilobytes)? If you said it is a unit of 8 bits, you failed. Correct answer (according to IEEE 1541): A byte is a set of adjacent bits operated on as a group; The octet is a set…
From Computational Complexity
Why is it called the Turing Award?
The ACM Turing Award represents the highest honor in the computing research community, the closest we have to a Nobel prize in computer science. In this centenary celebration of Alan Turing, it seems obvious that the award should…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Driving Conversations
A set of videos on driving conversations using Google Analytics. Nicely done. " ... This new video series features our Analytics Advocate Justin Cutroni. He provides insights into how to use goals, AdWords, and Multi-Channel…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Adding a Day to the Work Week
Ever since being able to log into systems from home, the trend of extending the work week has progressed. Now some actual data on how data mobility as taken it further. A full day for 80% of the work force.
From Schneier on Security
Commercial Espionage Virus
It's designed to steal blueprints and send them to China.
Note that although this is circumstantial evidence that the virus is from China, it is possible that the Chinese e-mail accounts that are collecting the blueprints are…From Computer Science Teacher - Thoughts and Information From Alfred Thompson
Microsoft Research Faculty Summit Live Stream 2012
I received this news from the ACM recently. The Microsoft Research Faculty Summit will be available live for the public this year. I
From Wild WebMink
ACTA Needs You
Just posted on ComputerWorldUK – why you need to call or write to your MEP now, ahead of Wednesday’s vote on ACTA, and how to do it. By the way, is anyone else concerned that it takes an international call to contact your political…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Amazon Goes 3D
Amazon buys UpNext. To make a play at 3D mapping. " ... UpNext, which had apparently been pursued by other major tech companies, has launched apps for the iPad, iPhone and Android devices. It covers 50 cities nationwide,…
From The Eponymous Pickle
DARPA and XDATA
Currently taking a closer look at DARPA XDATA: " ... To enable large scale data processing in a wide range of potential settings, XDATA plans to release open source software toolkits to enable collaboration among the applied…
From Computer Science Teacher - Thoughts and Information From Alfred Thompson
Where is the computer science at ISTE?
My prime focus at Microsoft is K-12 computer science education. While I am very interested in various areas of using technology in education I basically get paid to promote Microsoft programs and products in computer science.…
From Schneier on Security
On Fear
A poet reflects on the nature of fear.
From The Eponymous Pickle
IBM Tests Augmented Reality Shopping App
In Adage: Have not seen IBM involved on the shelves of retail for a while. This is an interesting test of theirs in the testing the experience of in-store interaction. We worked with their early work in kiosk's and checkout…
From Schneier on Security
WEIS 2012
Last week I was at the Workshop on Economics and Information Security in Berlin. Excellent conference, as always. Ross Anderson liveblogged the event; see the comments for summaries of the talks.
On the second day, Ross and…From Computer Science Teacher - Thoughts and Information From Alfred Thompson
Interesting Links 2 July 2012
I was pretty quiet last week. Some family stuff going on kept me away from work and (largely) off the Internet. Still over the last few days I have been catching up with things and I have captured a few good links. Several of…
From Gödel's Lost Letter and P=NP
Connect the Stars
How papers are like constellations Bob Vaughan is a mathematician at Penn State University. He is also a Fellow of the Royal Society—not ours, Ben Franklin helped make it tough for us to have one about 236 years ago this Wednesday…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Wearable Technology in the Background
In the NYT: An article suggesting that systems like Google Project Glass, once they are implemented well, will be a major shift that puts tech into the background. The article surveys such long ago innovations like thoseGutenberg…
From Computer Science Teachers Association
Who teaches CS?
In a previous blog post (3/10/2012), Thinking Big About Computer Science Education, Baker Franke addressed two tightly-coupled problems: where does computer science (CS) fit in American education and who will teach it? This …
From The Eponymous Pickle
Stat Tracking Shoes
Nike comes out with Stat tracking shoes. I had a talk with a person recently involved in the use of sensors and data gathering and analysis in athletics, and I was amazed by the progress that had been made there. This is another…
From Putting People First
Common Cause: the case for working with values and frames
In 2009, the chief executives and a few staff from a handful of UK non-governmental organisations (including WWF and RSPB) came together to discuss the inadequacy of current responses to challenges like climate change, global…