Communications of the ACM
The blog archive provides access to past blog postings from Communications of the ACM and other sources by date.
July 2013
From Schneier on Security
F2P Monetization Tricks
This is a really interesting article about something I never even thought about before: how games ("F2P" means "free to play") trick players into paying for stuff.
For example:
This is my favorite coercive monetization technique…From Computer Science Teacher - Thoughts and Information From Alfred Thompson
CS Educator Interview: Laura Blankenship
Laura Blankenship teaches at the all-girls Baldwin School.and is also one of my favorite CS education bloggers. In this interview she talks about some of the issues her students bring up about the role of women in computer science…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Loyalty and Gamification
We worked with several applications using game dynamics in our enterprise. So I have been been involved in the concept for years. I have given several talks on the subject. I had a conversation with Rajat Paharia, CEO and…
From The Computing Community Consortium Blog
Japan-US Network Opportunity: R&D for “Beyond Trillions of Objects”
The NSF has recently issued a new program solicitation- Networking Technology and Systems (NeTS: JUNO), Japan-US Network Opportunity: R&D for “Beyond Trillions of Objects.” According to the solicitation, the joint research and…
From Computational Complexity
Combinatorics use to not get any respect. But because of Erdos...
(This blog is based on things I heard at the Erdos 100th Bday Conference) I have spend the last week at the Erdos 100th bday conference. One point that was made many times: the acceptance of Combinatorics by the mathematics…
From Putting People First
Microsoft’s CityNext initiative ‘puts people first’ (uh oh)
So who else is putting people first? Microsoft‘s new smart cities initiative! “Cities play a vital role in our lives – both now and in the future. Microsoft’s CityNext initiative puts people first and builds on this new era of…
From Daniel Lemire's Blog
Big-O notation and real-world performance
Classical Newtonian mechanics is always mathematically consistent. However, Newtonian mechanics assumes that bodies move without friction and that we stay far from the speed of light. When your car is stuck in the mud or you…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Matchbox Computing
Very small computers Complete computing systems the size of credit cards. or smaller. Was looked at for possible sensor duty. But once you could communicate easily with remote sensors, were largely put aside. Still valuable…
From The Eponymous Pickle
GE Makes Short Films On Big Data
In AdAge: An unusual approach to make the case: " ... GE Makes Short Films In Tiny Town About Big Data ... Company Looks to Illustrate the Industrial Internet Through Scenarios Involving Blood-Sucking Vampires and Extraterrestrials…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Macy's RFID Rollout Plans
A long running project for improving inventory control at Macy's with RFID tagging. An update on their progress: " ... That inventory accuracy will indeed be critical, because Macy's currently is fulfilling orders from almost…
From Schneier on Security
More NSA Code Names
We don't know what they mean, but there are a bunch of NSA code names on LinkedIn profiles.
ANCHORY, AMHS, NUCLEON, TRAFFICTHIEF, ARCMAP, SIGNAV, COASTLINE, DISHFIRE, FASTSCOPE, OCTAVE/CONTRAOCTAVE, PINWALE, UTT, WEBCANDID,…From Putting People First
How is ‘experience’ valued in the sharing economy?
How do you buy or sell something so abstract as an “experience”? And what is it worth? That’s not an idle question for companies in the sharing economy. The experience of staying in an Airbnb apartment–with all its quirks, blemishes…
From Gödel's Lost Letter and P=NP
Rough Problems
Some problems on which we cannot even get in the zone Rough on Ruff source Lindy Ruff was recently named coach of the Dallas Stars in the National Hockey League. He was the coach of the Buffalo Sabres in the 1999 Stanley Cup…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Tagtal Touchscreen Copying Stylus
Happened on a capability on the IdeaConnection site. Tagtal is a stylus that lets you copy from one touch surface to another, " ... "digital dropper", is an innovative capacitive stylus which can be used to pick up, hold…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Smart Diapers
In the NYT: A Digital Diaper that tracks infants health. Reminds me of the 'smart toilet' idea pioneered in Japan. Had not heard this specifically talked about in R&D in the diaper space. " .... A New York start-up called…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Creative Mobile Ad Strategies
In Venturebeat:" ... Engaging mobile brand fans through social channels such as Instagram or by offering mobile games are some of the strategies brands are using to earn consumer attention in a space crowded with banner advertisements…
From Schneier on Security
The NSA's Project SHAMROCK
Nice history of Project SHAMROCK, the NSA's illegal domestic surveillance program from the 1970s. It targeted telegrams.
From The Eponymous Pickle
China's Generation 2 Consumer
In McKinsey: The rise of the generation 2 consumer in China. We actively built agent based simulation models of the Chinese consumer. These findings could be inserted in these models to understand consumption behaviors in…
From Daniel Lemire's Blog
Should computer scientists run experiments?
Jeffrey Ullman, a famous computer science professor, published an essay pushing back about the need to run experiments in computer science. Apparently, some conference reviewers gave him a hard time regarding a paper he submitted…
From The Eponymous Pickle
July/August 2013 Analytics Magazine
Always interesting Analytics magazine is worth following, here are the key articles, but there is much more there:Executive Edge: What Makes a Good Data Scientist?by Andrew Jennings At the heart of a successful deployment isAnalytics…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Hurdles to Analytics
Hurdles in pursuit of analytics. Mostly obvious, but good to review." .. Organizations are enticed with the potential benefits offered by data analytics, but many of them are stumbling when they attempt to deploy these solutions…
From The Eponymous Pickle
5th Screen and McCormick
I had mentioned a company we worked with in our innovation centers: 5th Screen. Had reason to look at some of the work they have done with McCormick spices in the innovation and retail spaces. Check out a description of their…
From Schneier on Security
Musing on Secret Languages
This is really interesting. It starts by talking about a "cant" dictionary of 16th-century thieves' argot, and ends up talking about secret languages in general.
Incomprehension breeds fear. A secret language can be a threat…From Computer Science Teacher - Thoughts and Information From Alfred Thompson
CS Educator Interview: Doug Bergman
Today’s interview is with Doug Bergman from Charleston SC. I first met Doug through the Microsoft Partners in Learning program. Listening to him has been influential in how I have changed some of my views about teaching computer…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Teaching IT Skills Online
Training online has been done for a long time, but now the emergence of MOOC (Massive, Open, Online Courses) has made it easier yet to deliver training with more social and interactive dynamics. And IT people are already online…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Organ Donor Compensation
MJ Perry examines the case of the US, where organ donor compensation is illegal, and Australia, where it is not. For the case of human kidneys. The difference produced by the efficiency of the market is remarkable.
From The Eponymous Pickle
New DropBox
A future view of the intentions of Dropbox. " ... Dropbox wants to be your always-on hard drive, whether you’re using an iPad, an Android phone, or a PC. And if it’s going to reach that lofty goal, it will need more than a.…
From The Female Perspective of Computer Science
Improving Computer Science and Programming Education for Women Improves It for Everyone
We know that computing fields are gender imbalanced. While 57% of all undergraduate degrees in the United States were earned by women in 2009, women made up only 18% of all computer and information sciences graduates [8].Why…
From Schneier on Security
The Effectiveness of Privacy Audits
This study concludes that there is a benefit to forcing companies to undergo privacy audits: "The results show that there are empirical regularities consistent with the privacy disclosures in the audited financial statements…
From The Eponymous Pickle
DARPA Robotics Challenge Results
In IEEE Spectrum: Very good piece on the challenge, its essential components and the results announced today. This is interesting too because it describes elemental tasks that are of interest to DARPA and also of industry…