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 insideHPC
Multiple Endpoints in the Latest Intel MPI Library Boosts Hybrid Performance
The performance of distributed memory MPI applications on the latest highly parallel multi-core processors often turns out to be lower than expected. Which is why hybrid applications using OpenMP multithreading on each node and…
From insideHPC
Learn about Migrating HPC Workloads at niva Cloud Meetups
Univa is hosting a series of Cloud Meetups September through October in nine cities. "Come and spend a few hours to learn about how to avoid the pitfalls of migrating HPC workloads to the cloud. We will showcase new technology…
From The Eponymous Pickle
A Look at the ses of RPA
A useful examination of RPA. Robotic Process Automation. What we did starting in the 80s, without calling it that. I see a number of new businesses looking at it. At very least it makes companies look at their business…
From insideHPC
NVIDIA Launches .K. Technology Center to Advance AI Research
EPCC, Hartree Centre, and the University of Reading are the first to join the NVIDIA AI Technology Center, which provides a collaborative community for world-class talent driving AI adoption and excellence across the UK. "We
…
From Schneier on Security
Hackers Expose Russian FSB Cyberattack Projects
More nation-state activity in cyberspace, this time from Russia: Per the different reports in Russian media, the files indicate that SyTech had worked since 2009 on a multitude of projects since 2009 for FSB unit 71330 and for…
From Computational Complexity
Answer to both Infinite Hats Problems from the last post
(This is a joint post with David Marcus. You'll see why later.)
In a prior I posed two infinite hat problems. Today I post the solutions. Actually this is a copy of my last post with the solutions added, so it is self contained…
From insideHPC
Video: berCloud Containers on Kubernetes
Burak Yenier from the UberCloud gave this talk at the High Performance Container Workshop at ISC 2019. "This workshop will outline the current state of Linux Containers, what challenges are hindering the adoption in HPC/BigData…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Exposed Cloud Databases
Been following occasionally TWIT Security Now podcasts. In part to start thinking about the risk of data. Came upon this quite alarming cloud security podcast. Clouds and IOT are great concepts, but not if they are completely…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Making the Web more Secure, Optimized
A very good goal. Considerable article on the approaches at the link. Something needs to be done regarding security, before the whole thing collapses. Also note that this may be very useful for 'smart contracts' that we
Making…
From insideHPC
DDN EXA 5: Innovation at Scale
James Coomer gave this talk at the DDN User Group meeting in Frankfurt. "EXA5 brings our customers a whole new level of experience based on the Lustre filesystem. With huge performance boosts, better scaling properties and a
…
From insideHPC
Supercomputing Complex Materials with QMCPACK
An effort within the Exascale Computing Project is developing a QMC methods software named QMCPACK to find, predict, and control materials and properties at the quantum level. The ultimate aim is to achieve an unprecedented and…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Retail as Theater
Being close to Jungle Jims near Cincinnati, and have taken many international tour groups there, so its a long time interest. Hard to pull off, but always makes me smile and delight, and that gets me back there many more times…
From The Eponymous Pickle
State of Competitive Intelligence
Get the full report at the link. For a long time was part of my work at the enterprise.
2019 State of Competitive Intelligence
The Latest Best Practices, Challenges, and Opportunities in the Market and Competitive Intelligence
In…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Advanced Packaging Solutions
One of our favorite topics in innovation space enhancement of both protection and consumer engagement.
Packaging solutions: Poised to take off? in McKinsey
Major trends are reshaping packaging solutions—and that could open new…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Responsible, Ethical AI?
Thought provoking. Responsibility should be linked back to the business outcomes that emerge. But you could argue that AI and analytics methods allow these to emerge more readily and in stronger context, so perhaps that aspect…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Rewarding Autonomous AIs
Thoughtful piece. Can a human just provide some sort of reward function? Or is creating that alone very hard? Especially if we include some measures of risk as well. The latter we found in practice at least if you are…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Brain Simulation with 3D games Hardware
Perhaps, but there is still considerable work to do in understanding how intelligence works in the brain. Exact replication still seems to be far away.
Computer Hardware for 3D Games Could Hold the Key to Replicating the Brain…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Patrick Winston, AI Pioneer, Dies at 76
We met Patrick Winston at MIT, and worked with many of his students and colleagues. Also used his book 'Artificial Intelligence', as a basic text during our early experiments with AI.
Professor Patrick Winston, former director…
From insideHPC
PASC19 Evolves into an International Conference on Computational Science
In this video from PASC19, Torsten Hoefler from ETH Zurich describes how PASC19 has grown into an international conference with over 60 percent of attendees from outside Switzerland. After that, he describes a new groundbreaking…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Enterprise AI Strategy
Useful overview of what it takes. Integrate it with real process, real goals, real results, not just small tests.
Anatomy of an enterprise-scale AI strategy
Looking to move beyond point solutions and proofs of concept? Here’s…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Augmented Reality Changes Real-World Behavior
I would expect, but will it change the specific useful goal behaviors in the real world?
Augmented reality can change your behavior in the real world
Even after you take the goggles off.
By Holly Brockwell, @holly
A new study from…
From insideHPC
Job of the Week: Research Computing Administrator
Would you like to manage and develop a state-of-the-art HPC facility to help enable cutting-edge biomedical research? We have an exciting opportunity for a Research Computing Administrator to join us at the Kennedy Institute
…
From Daniel Lemire's Blog
Science and Technology links (July 20th 2019)
Researchers solve the Rubik’s cube puzzle using machine learning (deep learning). There has been a rise in the popularity of “deep learning” following some major breakthroughs in tasks like image recognition. Yet, at least as…
From Schneier on Security
Friday Squid Blogging: Squid Mural
Large squid mural in the Bushwick neighborhood of Brooklyn. As usual, you can also use this squid post to talk about the security stories in the news that I haven't covered. Read my blog posting guidelines here....
From Schneier on Security
A Harlequin Romance Novel about Hackers
Really....
From The Eponymous Pickle
European Public Procurement Knowledge Graph
Quite interesting view of how this kind of knowledge can be represented and exercised in semantic representations. Driving key decisions in context. Also a good asset measurement? Note its open source.
Researchers Launch…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Kroger Data Platform for Brands
A means to get value from data.
Kroger's 84.51 Launches Customer Data Platform for Brands
Stratum could be additional alternative revenue stream for retailer
By Rebekah Marcarelli
As The Kroger Co. continues to seek alternative revenue…
From insideHPC
Podcast: How Exascale Computing Could Help Boost Energy Production
In this podcast, Tom Evans, technical lead for ECP's Energy Applications projects, shares about the motivations, progress, and aspirations on the path to the exascale. "Evans describes the unprecedented calculations expected
…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Missing in Action
Former colleague wrote this excellent book about his civil ancestor based on decades of research. Just finished. Very good read.
MISSING IN ACTION, 1863: Lieutenant Andrew Jackson Lacy and Tennessee's Confederate Cavalry Mark…
From insideHPC
Video: Reliving the First Moon Landing with NVIDIA RTX real-time Ray Tracing
In this video, Apollo 11 astronaut Buzz Aldrin looks back at the first moon landing with help from a reenactment powered by NVIDIA RTX GPUs with real-time ray tracing technology. "The result: a beautiful, near-cinematic depiction…