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 The Computing Community Consortium Blog
First GraphLab Workshop on Large-scale Machine Learning
The following is a special contribution to this blog by Carlos Guestrin, who will be joining the faculty of the University of Washington computer science and engineering department this fall. Carlos led the organization of the…
From The Eponymous Pickle
CPG and Eye Tracking
Colleague Herb Sorensen comments on the use of eye tracking by CPG companies in RetailWire. True,this has become common, and more analytical work is needed. " ... What has become apparent is that visual control, and a whole…
From The Computing Community Consortium Blog
Four Researchers Honored With 2012 Dijkstra Prize
The Association for Computing Machinery’s (ACM) Special Interest Groups on Algorithms and Computation Theory (SIGACT) and Operating Systems (SIGOPS), together with the European Association for Theoretical Computer Science (EATCS)…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Coursera
Mark Perry points to updates from the Coursera free online college course syndication .... including the mention of one at least from always provocative Dan Ariely. Worth examining for content that matches your needs or interests…
From Computer Science Teacher - Thoughts and Information From Alfred Thompson
New Curriculum Resources for App Development on Windows 8
Most of what I post about is specifically for K-12 computer science education but I recently received the following about some curriculum designed for university level students. Still my experience tells me two things. One is…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Winnovate
I was sent a note about a new company formed by a former colleague of mine, Suna Polat, who worked with knowledge management projects at my former enterprise. Winnovate1. Check their site out. " ... to assist organizations…
From My Biased Coin
Yale Daily News, continued
I pointed to this article in the Yale Daily News about computer science when it came out in April. Giorgos just pointed me back to it again, and I'd have to say, it's worth looking at again for the comments, which I'm still…
From Computational Complexity
CCC 2012- Post 3 of probably 4
Post 3 of n on CCC 2012. I still don't know what n is. I summarize the third and fourth day of the conference. (The fourth day was only a half-day). Thursday June 27 Morning Session: Matrix Lie Algebra Isomorphism by Grochow…
From The Computing Community Consortium Blog
NSF Announces New SAVI at Intersection of IT, Disasters
At a meeting of the National Science Board (NSB) yesterday, National Science Foundation (NSF) Assistant Director for Computer and Information Science and Engineering (CISE) Farnam Jahanian announced a new Science Across Virtual…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Social Integration in Search
Social integration of search Is mentioned as being deepened by Bing and Google+. We examined this general idea for some time as it related to corporate knowledge management. There is a company that does exactly thisZakta.com…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Imperfect Data
In the early days of executive information systems we first dealt with the questions of whose data was right? All data is imperfect, but what are the consequences of that imperfection when fed to an analytic model? The …
From Schneier on Security
Camera-Transparent Plastic
I just wrote about the coming age of invisible surveillance. Here's another step along that process.
The material is black in color and cannot be seen through with the naked eye. However, if you point a black and white camera…From The Eponymous Pickle
Brands Talk to Users on Foresquare
In a new development, brands can communicate to their most frequent check-ins via Foursquare. Making the interaction bi directional in useful ways has been talked about for some time, but recent updates now allow it to happen…
From Wild WebMink
OSI Opens For Membership
You can finally join OSI. I’ve had a busy day at OSCON in Portland, OR today (apologies if I’ve been missing your messages and/or deadlines…) where interest around the conference has been high. Here are some details. The Open…
From The Eponymous Pickle
CPG Lags in Social Media
Not unexpected. CPG often lacks in their following of many technical innovations.
From The Computing Community Consortium Blog
Important Information for NSF SaTC CAREER Proposals
For those planning to submit CAREER proposals to NSF/CISE for the Secure and Trustworthy Cyberspace (SaTC) program — the CAREER deadline is Monday, July 23rd — NSF has issued the following guidance today: Important Information…
From Computer Science Teachers Association
Five Advocacy Actions You Can Do in Ten Minutes or Less
In our fast-paced, digitally connected world, we all seem to have less time but more work. Productivity experts will tell you that you have to focus on your number one priorities, create templates for the work you do over and…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Saving Retail with Focused Apps
A good case study of the use of APIs at Walgreens for photo prints. Simple ways of bringing digital into physical spaces.
From The Eponymous Pickle
TellnGo
Brought back to my attention:TELLNGO is an innovative Consumer & Shopper Marketing Service Agency. We specialize in enhancing Trial, Conversion, Purchases and Loyalty for some of the largest and best known consumer brands in…
From Daniel Lemire's Blog
Why we make up jobs out of thin air
“We prefer to invent new jobs rather than trying harder and inventing a new system that wouldn’t require everybody to have a job.” (Philippe Beaudoin) In the XXIst century within wealthy countries, people work hard primarily…
From Schneier on Security
Chinese Airline Rewards Crew for Resisting Hijackers
Normally, companies instruct their employees not to resist. But Hainan Airlines did the opposite:
Two safety officers and the chief purser got cash and property worth 4m yuan ($628,500; £406,200) each. The rest got assets worth…From The Eponymous Pickle
Radical Openness
Have been looking at the topic of open innovation lately. How about radical openness? A post by former colleague Donna Sturgess.
From Computational Complexity
CCC 2012: Post 2 of n
CC 2012. I still don't know what n is. I summarize the second day of the conference. Wednesday June 27 Morning Session: A Satisfiable Algorithm and Average Case Hardness for Formulas over Full binary Basis by Seto and Tamaki…
From Computer Science Teacher - Thoughts and Information From Alfred Thompson
2012 Microsoft Research Faculty Summit Day Two
Rick Rashid who created and runs Microsoft Research gave the opening keynote for day two. I found it interesting that when they started Microsoft Research they had a hard time recruiting top researchers. Twenty years ago Microsoft…
From The Eponymous Pickle
NCR Pursues Square
In GigaOM:Local manufacturer NCR, inventor of the the modern mechanical cash register, is in pursuit of Square,with what they are calling NCR Silver. Lots of groups in play now for mobile payment solution variants.We worked…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Associative Memories in Vivo
Some neural fingerprints of memory are decoded. A first tiny step towards experimentally verifiable results like neuromarketing, neural control and memory interfaces. Having them come from memory further increases the implications…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Business Analytics, Past and Future
I have been a long time practitioner of business analytics, the use of quantitative methods to improve business processes. Starting at the Defense Department, where we built military simulation models, and ending up at P&G. My…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Innovation Tournament
FromWharton: A March madness of innovation? I am not sure it works well for innovation, since crowd sourcing the measures to evaluate innovation results are not precisely what you want. Yet it is worth considering. Perhaps…
From The Computing Community Consortium Blog
DARPA Seeking “Radical Innovation” in Data Analytics
The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) has joined forces with George Mason University to launch the Innovation House Study, seeking to foster ”radical, novel” approaches to extract meaningful content from visual…
From BLOG@CACM
Online Higher Education
The higher education community is abuzz with debates regarding massive open online courses (MOOCs). This feels like a time of profound change, when the confluence of technologies, social expectations and economic pressures will…