Communications of the ACM
The blog archive provides access to past blog postings from Communications of the ACM and other sources by date.
July 2014
From The Eponymous Pickle
Visualizing Dynamic Networks
In IEEE Transactions, an example showing dynamic changes in networks:Dynamic Network Visualization with Extended Massive Sequence ViewsNetworks are present in many fields such as finance, sociology, and transportation. OftenThis…
From Schneier on Security
Conference on Deception
There was a conference on deception earlier this month. Sophie Van Der Zee has a summary of the sessions....
From Computer Science Teachers Association
What’s Changed and What’s Stayed the Same
As I drove home from the 2014 CSTA Annual Conference last week, I reflected on how things have changed in my 33 years of teaching computer science. CSTA is beginning its 11th year and it has been an invaluable resource for those…
From The Eponymous Pickle
On Collecting Just the Right Data
In the MIT News: Has come up in two recent client engagements. What current data and ancillary metadata will be needed to make current and future decisions? What is the cost of gathering and maintaining that data? What is…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Simple Encryption App
In Wired: A strong, easy to use encryption App, they say. I have played with the alternative PGP, and I agree it is not an easy to use alternative for the typical user.
From The Eponymous Pickle
Virtual Reality in Advertising
In Adage: Next new thing to impress and engage consumers? Compare it to augmented reality often discussed here, which today uses less hardware. And its connection to game interaction. " .... It's a bit like the leap marketers…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Airwheel for Personal Transport
We tested the Segway to some extent, even used it in retail aisles. Mostly safe. You could learn it to safety in an hour or so. Now there is the Airwheel . Looking at a demonstration this seems to be less stable and harder…
From Schneier on Security
Russia Paying for a Tor Break
Russia has put out a tender on its official government procurement website for anyone who can identify Tor users. The reward of $114,000 seems pretty cheap for this capability. And we now get to debate whether 1) Russia cannot…
From Computer Science Teacher - Thoughts and Information From Alfred Thompson
Interesting Links 28 July 2014
The highlight of last week was a two-hour workshop on TouchDevelop which I presented to teachers who are part of the New York City Department of Education Software Engineering Pilot program. That’s me presenting below.
There…From Putting People First
On the importance of forgetting
The ongoing debate about Europe’s so-called ‘right to be forgotten‘ ruling on search engines has shone a light onto a key pressure point between technology and society. Simply put the ability of digital technology to remember…
From Computational Complexity
The Change Problem and the Gap between Recreational and Serious Mathematics
In a prior post (here)I discussed the change problem: given a dollar, how many ways can you make change using pennies, nickels, dimes, and quarters (and generalize to n cents). Scouring the web I found either programs for it,…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Space Exploration with CMaps
Been a while since I mentioned concept maps, but I use them often. In a Linkedin conversation I saw mention of their use in an example to provide motivation for space exploration. Alberto J. Cañas, Associate Director at IHMC…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Getting Your Work Done on a Tablet
I have had an iPad for years. I helped survey its practical use for the enterprise. I use it every day, but mostly for scanning information and planning, and sometimes for gathering notes at client meetings. Cloud enabled…
From Putting People First
Applying insights from behavioral economics to policy design
Applying insights from behavioral economics to policy design Brigitte C. Madrian NBER Working paper July 2014 The premise of this article is that an understanding of psychology and other social science disciplines can inform…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Government Chatbots for Screening
An area where we worked extensively, communication bots. Also involved in clearance and interviewing processes. I know there is currently a huge backlog in clearance delivery. And there is a government Center of Credibility…
From Putting People First
Qualitative self-tracking and the Qualified Self
Mark Carrigan, sociologist, academic technologist and research assistant at the Centre for Social Ontology, is intellectually drawn to the Quantified Self because “it’s a fascinating example of the intensification of reflexivity…
From Putting People First
Social wearables, as seen by the NYT R&D Group
Noah Feehan of the New York Times Research & Development group explores the concept of social wearables: objects that explicitly leverage their visibility or invisibility to create social affordances. “Wearables that engage with…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Innovation Talent
Thoughts on what innovation talent looks like. It is an unusual talent. In particular to take it beyond speculation and on to useful implementation. In Innovation Excellence.
From The Eponymous Pickle
Analytics Disciplines Compared
Once again, a very nice piece by Vincent Granville I am just exploring. Which seeks to answer a common question: What is the difference between all these analytic and data focused disciplines? What should I try first, or at"…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Infrared Digital's Contextual Fusion
Heard a description of Infrared Digital's method called Fusion: " ..... FUSION provides an analytic architecture where you can create a single analysis that includes your internal media, media partners, and enterprise systems…
From The Eponymous Pickle
IBM Big Data Hub
IBM on their view of big data, useful resources and pointers. " ... A strategic approach to big data is built on a data-driven culture, scalability and value, among other essential elements of progress. ... " .
From The Eponymous Pickle
The Need for Objectivity
Former boss Bob Herbold on the elusive but necessary concept of of objectivity. He always provides some excellent business examples from the management perspective. In his blog.
From Putting People First
The touch-screen generation
Young children — even toddlers — are spending more and more time with digital technology. Hanna Rosin wonders what will it mean for their development? “As technology becomes ubiquitous in our lives, American parents are becoming…
From Schneier on Security
Friday Squid Blogging: Build a Squid
An interactive animation from the Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa. As usual, you can also use this squid post to talk about the security stories in the news that I haven't covered....
From The Eponymous Pickle
Vision Correcting Displays
In Mashable:" ... Those of us who need glasses to see a TV or laptop screen clearly could ditch the eyewear thanks to a display technology that corrects vision problems.The technology uses algorithms to alter an image based on…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Cognitive Computing Webinar and Resources
New World of Cognitive Computing. Yesterday attended a webinar on Cognitive Computing. Which was a fairly good introduction, non technical and suitable for an extended technical executive introduction. Recorded one hour presentation…
From Gödel's Lost Letter and P=NP
An Old Galactic Result
A cautionary tale Karl Sundman was a Finnish mathematician who solved a major open problem in 1906. His solution would have been regarded as paradigm-“shifty” had it been a century or so earlier. It employed power series to represent…
From The Eponymous Pickle
iPhone as Future Wallet
More indications that Apple will be pushing the idea of a convenient phone-wallet in future mobile. An idea that has been around for years. Talked to credit card companies about integrating promotion offers and shopping lists…
From Schneier on Security
Building a Legal Botnet in the Cloud
Two researchers have built a botnet using free anonymous accounts. They only collected 1,000 accounts, but there's no reason this can't scale to much larger numbers....
From The Eponymous Pickle
Kinds of Regressions
Vincent Granville maps alternate regression types and their applications. Nicely done. It's very useful to know alternative tools and what they are good for. After you know your business problem, the data needed and available…