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
RoboHow: Robots Learning in the Cloud
In Engadget: Interesting idea, but would like to see the details of the languages that are used by the robots to transmit knowledge. We should be able to learn from that. If this works, perhaps then we should worry. …
From Wild WebMink
Heartbleed and Lessons Learned
Originally posted on Meshed Insights & Knowledge:We’ve had some time for the shock of the Heartbleed announcement to sink in and there’s a lot to consider. While the first impressions might be about the serious, exploitable bug…
From Gödel's Lost Letter and P=NP
Do Random Walks Help Avoid Fireworks?
Musings on gravity and quantum on the 4th of July Cropped from Crumbel source Amanda Gefter is the author of the book titled Trespassing on Einstein’s Lawn: A Father, a Daughter, the Meaning of Nothing, and the Beginning of Everything…
From Schneier on Security
Friday Squid Blogging: Squid T-Shirt
Cute design. 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
LA Takes Back a Billion Dollars of iPads
In Reason: Schools replace them with laptops, declare an unmitigated disaster. " .... The Los Angeles Unified School District's plan to give every child an iPad—at a cost of $1 billion to taxpayers—drew universal criticism…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Sensors, 3D Printing and the Cloud
A new industrial Age? Overstated, but it is obvious that all these technologies together will drive specialized component needs to a new place. " ... A new industrial age is being built on sensors, 3D printing and the cloud…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Big Data in Ad Tech
In GigaOM Research, (requires registration for full access). " ... Advertising technology (ad tech) involves a formidable set of requirements. Operationally, ad-tech tools must work at lightning speeds to offer and complete…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Analytics and Process
In Sloan Review: Analytics needs process. " .... Researchers suggest a new framework to regulate the “fairness” of analytics processes. What could this mean for your organization?There are certain insights online retailers…
From Schneier on Security
Web Activity Used in Court to Portray State of Mind
I don't care about the case, but look at this: "Among the details police have released is that Harris and his wife, Leanna, told them they conducted Internet searches on how hot a car needed to be to kill a child. Stoddard testified…
From Computer Science Teacher - Thoughts and Information From Alfred Thompson
How Many Languages Can You Find
A little Friday fun from Microsoft. How many programming languages can you find in this puzzle? The first one I found is COBOL FWIW.
From The Eponymous Pickle
Story Telling for Value
Paul Smith, colleague and author of the excellent book: Lead with a Story ... writes: " ... I’ve set up a weekly newsletter list you can sign up for that summarizes new podcasts, posts, and news for the week. If you’re interested…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Cisco and the Connected Road
Cisco Gains Traction In The Connected Road Race in Fast Company "... In the latest installment of their ongoing expansion into the Internet of Things, Cisco recently announced an agreement with Swiss security firm AGT International…
From Schneier on Security
NSA Targets Privacy Conscious for Surveillance
Jake Appelbaum et. al, are reporting on XKEYSCORE selection rules that target users -- and people who just visit the websites of -- Tor, Tails, and other sites. This isn't just metadata; this is "full take" content that's stored…
From Schneier on Security
Goldman Sachs Demanding E-Mail be Deleted
Goldman Sachs is going to court to demand that Google retroactively delete an e-mail it accidentally sent. The breach occurred on June 23 and included "highly confidential brokerage account information," Goldman said in a complaint…
From Computer Science Teacher - Thoughts and Information From Alfred Thompson
Computer Science History
Computer science tends to be a very forward looking field. We are constantly looking at the newest things including the future of computers, of programming languages and paradigms, the future of applications and of careers. This…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Harmonizing Physical and Virtual Stores
A PDF by SAP and Wharton: " .... Retailers are tapping an array of digital analytical tools to understand shoppers the way merchants, a couple of generations ago, knew customers by name and buying habits. Some retailers have…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Myths About Data Science
Excellent piece by Vincent Granville ... " .... Here are my reactions to the LinkedIn conversation about the "Statistical data scientists". In short, I believe that modern big data needs new ways of processing data, and that…
From Geeking with Greg
More quick links
More of what caught my attention lately: Crazy cool and the first time I've seen ultrasound used for device-to-device communication outside of research: "Chromecast will be able to pair without Wi-Fi, or even Bluetooth, via[1]…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Machine Learning Removes Boring Parts
We also mused about how to do this with long retail behavioral videos. CMU reports on an interesting method. It is dangerous though to just disregard 'uninteresting' things. Have seen that blatantly done in research situations…
From Writing
Don't Just Learn to Code, Learn How to Think Like a Computer Scientist
One of my blog posts got picked up by Lifehacker! Check out Don’t Just Learn to Code, Learn How to Think Like a Computer Scientist on lifehacker.com:
From Computational Complexity
Four Centuries of Logarithms
From The Female Perspective of Computer Science
GLS10 / Let’s Prototype: Women at the Intersection of Learning, Games, & Design
The tenth annual Games, Learning and Society Conference, held this past June in Madison, WI, featured a panel on women in gaming. Moderated by games-journalist-turned-grad-student Amanda Ochsner, the panel featured some heavy…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Eye Tracking in UX Design
Brought to my attention: Eye Tracking in User Experience Design by Jennifer Romano Bergstrom and Andrew Schall. They write: " .... Eye Tracking for User Experience Design explores the many applications of eye tracking to better…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Verizon and Big Data Analytics
At the recent Big Data and Analytics Summit I attended a talk and had a chat with Ashok Srivastava of Verizon, who leads a new research and development center in Palo Alto that sets the strategic direction for big data and analytics…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Algorithmic Reporters
In Quartz: The examples that I have seen of this have not necessarily been very good, but it is inevitable to see this kind of filtering and re-presentation of material. As rules are installed you do wonder to what degree they…
From The Eponymous Pickle
What Humans do Better
What do humans still do better than robots? In the HBR blogs. Something we examined closely with a number of University collaborators. It turns out many, many things. And despite all the hype, there is a long way to go in…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Android Wear
Continued move towards wearable computing: Google launches Android Wear for wearable devices. Motorola announces Android Wear-based Moto 360, which will ship later this year.
From Schneier on Security
Match Fixing in Soccer
Useful primer....
From Computer Science Teacher - Thoughts and Information From Alfred Thompson
Overcoming the Isolation of the Computer Science Teacher
This morning I had a conversation with the other computer science teacher at my school. I told him I wasn't sure what to use for an exercise for my students in Explorations in Computer Science class. This is a brand new course…
From Apophenia
What does the Facebook experiment teach us?
I’m intrigued by the reaction that has unfolded around the Facebook “emotion contagion” study. (If you aren’t familiar with this, read this primer.) As others have pointed out, the practice of A/B testing content is quite common…