Communications of the ACM
The blog archive provides access to past blog postings from Communications of the ACM and other sources by date.
July 2019
From The Eponymous Pickle
Definition of a Smart Contract
Good, non technical view of the smart contract, more details at the link:
Definition of a Smart Contract
What's a smart contract (and how does it work)? By Lucas Mearian in Computerworld
Smart contracts are potentially one
…
From insideHPC
Supercomputing Heat Transfer between 2D Electronic Components
Researchers are using XSEDE supercomputing resources in the search for new materials for power-efficient electronics. "Using a combination of calculations on XSEDE-allocated resources and lab experiments, a UCLA-led group showed…
From The Computing Community Consortium Blog
Call for Papers – 2nd Annual International Workshop on Quantum Computing for Sustainable Computing
Drs. Travis Humble (Oak Ridge National Laboratory) and Himanshu Thapliyal (University of Kentucky) have released a call for papers in order to participate in the upcoming 2nd International Workshop on Quantum Computing for Sustainable…
From insideHPC
Why PASC19 is a great show for the International Science Community
In this video from PASC19 in Zurich, Mike Heroux from Sandia National Labs shares the reasons he attends the conference every year. As a multi-disciplinary show, PASC gives him the opportunity to keep up with the international…
From insideHPC
CRAG Adopts Pure Storage for Agricultural Genomics
The Centre for Research in Agricultural Genomics (CRAG) in Spain has announced plans to deploy Pure Storage solutions to improve its high performance computing environment. CRAG is dedicated to cutting-edge scientific research…
From insideHPC
Bill Kramer to Lead Pittsburgh Supercomputing Center
William Kramer has been selected as the next director of the Pittsburgh Supercomputing Center. "It’s our great fortune to recruit Bill, who is known and honored nationally for his leadership and innovations in the world of supercomputing…
From insideHPC
Fujitsu to Deploy Gadi Supercomputer at NCI in Australia
Today Fujitsu announced a contract to upgrade the Australia's fastest supercomputer at NCI. Called "Gadi," the new supercomputer will replace the NCI's current supercomputer, Raijin, which was also provided by Fujitsu back in…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Free Digital Transformations Webinar
Upcoming Webinar by colleague Tony Saldhana, expert on this topic, has just published a book on the topic. I will be attending and report on the talk, more information below:
" ... Don't Let Your Digital Transformation Project…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Apple to Buy Most of Intel's 5G Modem Business
An interesting move, an attempt to make Apple emerge in 5G? Compete with Qualcomm.
Apple’s spending $1 billion to buy most of Intel’s 5G modem business
Apple iPhone in Technology Review
The technology and people it’s acquiring will…
From The Eponymous Pickle
We See Shapes, DL Sees Textures
Interesting observation here, what are its ultimate implications for AI?
Where We See Shapes, AI Sees Textures in QuantaMagazine
To researchers’ surprise, deep learning vision algorithms often fail at classifying images because…
From Schneier on Security
Wanted: Cybersecurity Imagery
Eli Sugarman of the Hewlettt Foundation laments about the sorry state of cybersecurity imagery: The state of cybersecurity imagery is, in a word, abysmal. A simple Google Image search for the term proves the point: It's all white…
From Computational Complexity
Turing to be on the Bank of England 50 pound note, giving me an excuse to talk about Turing
BILL: Darling, guess who is soon going to be on the Bank of England 50 pound note?
DARLING: Alan Turing.
BILL: How did you deduce that? (She is right, see here.)
DARLING: Since you asked it, it couldn't be a member of the…
From insideHPC
Agenda Posted: MVAPICH User Group (MUG) Meeting in Ohio
The MVAPICH User Group Meeting (MUG 2019) has published its Speaker Agenda. The event will take place from August 19-21 in Columbus, Ohio. "MUG aims to bring together MVAPICH2 users, researchers, developers, and system administrators…
From insideHPC
Accelerate Your Apache Spark with Intel Optane DC Persistent Memory
Piotr Balcer and Cheng Xu from Intel gave this talk at the 2019 Spark+AI Summit. "Intel Optane DC persistent memory breaks the traditional memory/storage hierarchy and scales up the computing server with higher capacity persistent…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Supercomputers + Graphic Processing for Parameter Simulation
Another example of the use of simulation, and much faster computing to check proposed solutions. We used just such methods in the enterprise, though well before we had the computing power mentioned here. Its like traversing…
From The Eponymous Pickle
IBM Gives Cancer AI to Open Source
Like the potential of clearly beneficial approaches being shared this way. What outcomes have come out of this work to date?
IBM Gives Cancer-Killing Drug AI Project to the Open Source Community
ZDNet
Charlie Osborne
IBM has
…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Robotic Lenses
In New Scientist, complete article requires subscription:
A robotic lens can be controlled by simply looking around or blinking By Leah Crane
Blink twice to zoom in. A new soft lens can be controlled by your eye movements, pivoting…
From The Eponymous Pickle
On the Further Emergence of the Very Small
Good piece on the emergence fo the very small devices aimed at tasks for many purposes.
Micro machines: How the next big thing in robotics is actually quite small in Digitaltrends
A micro bristle bot beside a penny. Max Planck
Half…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Defining, Measuring Cleanliness
Worked early on in grocery.
How do consumers define cleanliness in grocery stores? by Tom Ryan in Retailwire
Cleanliness in grocery stores means much more than “clean up on aisle five.” According to a recent survey of Consumer…
From BLOG@CACM
Lessons from a First-Year Seminar
Teaching a first-year seminar to a mixed group musters the basics of computer science.
From The Eponymous Pickle
Sensor Based Skin for Prosthetic Touch
New advances in touch. We experimented with devices on the shelf to let consumers touch-engage with a product. So this might be a way to quantitatively test the experience?
A sensor-filled “skin” could give prosthetic hands…
From insideHPC
Job of the Week: HPC System Administrator at DE Shaw Research
D.E. Shaw Research is seeking and HPC System Administrator in our Job of the Week. "Exceptional sysadmins sought to manage systems, storage, and network infrastructure for a New York–based interdisciplinary research group. Ideal…
From insideHPC
Video: Lustre, RoCE, and MAN
Marek Magryś from Cyfronet gave this talk at the DDN User Group. "This talk will describe the architecture and implementation of high capacity Lustre file system for the need of a data intensive project. Storage is based on
…
From Daniel Lemire's Blog
Science and Technology links (July 27th 2019)
There are thick ice deposits on the Moon. Water in space is important as it can be used to create fuel and to sustain life. Most animals do not suffer heart attacks and strokes, the way human beings do. It appears that the difference…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Integrating Machine Learning and Graph Algorithms
Just attended the Neo4j webinar for Improving Machine Learning Predictions Using Graph Algorithms. Nicely informative. Click below to watch a recording of the webinar, view the slides, and learn more about the topic with
Watch…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Regulations Needed for Digital Ledgers
Regulations for Blockchain systems and contracts
Columbia DataScience (@DSI_Columbia)
How is blockchain technology affecting the securities market and what regulations are needed to govern digital ledgers? This Q&A with a Columbia…
From Computer Science Teacher - Thoughts and Information From Alfred Thompson
Big Complicated Programming Projects
Ria Galanos has a wonderful blog about her experiences moving from the classroom to a life as a professional software developer. It’s been a long time since I developed software for a living and her posts are bringing a lot of…
From Schneier on Security
Friday Squid Blogging: Humbolt Squid in Mexico is Getting Smaller
The Humbolt squid are getting smaller: Rawley and the other researchers found a flurry of factors that drove the jumbo squid's demise. The Gulf of California historically cycled between warm-water El Niño conditions and cool-water…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Smart Assistive Driving Tech Allows Control of Multiple Trucks
New look at how to make supply chains more efficient.
EMERGING TECH
Smart assistive driving tech allows one truck driver to control multiple trucks By Luke Dormehl in DigitalTrends @lukedormehl
Few people argue that self-driving…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Powering Drones for Days with Ultralight Photovoltaics
Something like this might fill the skies. The efficiency increase seems small, but perhaps is key to the task at hand.
Drones will fly for days with new photovoltaic engine by Linda Vu
UC Berkeley researchers just broke another…