Communications of the ACM
The blog archive provides access to past blog postings from Communications of the ACM and other sources by date.
July 2021
From Daniel Lemire's Blog
Faster sorted array unions by reducing branches
When designing an index, a database or a search engine, you frequently need to compute the union of two sorted sets. When I am not using fancy low-level instructions, I have most commonly computed the union of two sorted sets…
From The Eponymous Pickle
GitHub Previews AI Tool that Makes Coding Suggestions
More steps towards automation of coding. With the potential to strengthen security and efficiency of code.
GitHub Previews AI Tool That Makes Coding Suggestions By Tech Crunch, July 13, 2021
GitHub partnered with OpenAI toGitHub…From The Eponymous Pickle
Towards Communal Computing
Good thoughts, having now been involved in many smart home setups and updates, the direction needs to be much broader. And these adaptations also need to learned over time. This article presents the model needs, but notCommunal…
From Schneier on Security
Upcoming Speaking Engagements
This is a current list of where and when I am scheduled to speak:
I’m speaking at Norbert Wiener in the 21st Century, a virtual conference hosted by The IEEE Society on Social Implications of Technology (SSIT), July 23-25, 2021…From The Eponymous Pickle
Hyperconnectivity
New term to me. As I understand it is here today. Further implications? Great efficiency or just less security?
Hyperconnectivity, Not Well Understood, Ties All Smart Devices By John P. Desmond, AI Trends Editor In AITrends…From The Eponymous Pickle
Pollination Robotics
An example I had not seen before.
Buzz Off, Bees. Pollination Robots Are Here.
By The Wall Street Journal, July 13, 2021
Farmers have long relied on insects, wind and even human workers to help pollinate their crops. Now, advances…From insideHPC
BMW Kicks Off Crowd-sourced Quantum Challenge with AWS; Sept. 24 Deadline
With hope of making quantum computing an automotive innovative engine, BMW today invited researchers, start-ups and companies from the quantum computing community to propose solutions for industrial challenges to the BMW Group…
From Gödel's Lost Letter and P=NP
Socially Reproduced Experiments
We must avoid becoming one Cropped from USA Today source José Altuve hit a game-winning home run in the bottom of the ninth against the Yankees on Sunday. He thereby reproduced the conditions and the outcome of baseball’s most…
From The Computing Community Consortium Blog
Call for Applicants- Networking Tour “Artificial Intelligence in Medicine”
Are you a Ph.D. candidate or postdoctoral researcher in the field of artificial intelligence and medicine looking for a new opportunity? Are you interested in connecting with leading research groups and research institutions…
From The Eponymous Pickle
AI and Design Thinking
Interesting point. I say all systems, analytics, processes, management have a 'design problem', they need to be applied properly to provide value. All statistical and analytical methods were not understood by decision makers…
From insideHPC
Quantum Computing Inc. and IPQ Partner on Clinical Trials and Diagnostics Strategies
Leesburg, Va., July 13, 2021 — Quantum Computing Inc. (QCI) (OTCQB: QUBT), a company working to bridge classical and quantum computing, today announced a partnership with IPQ Analytics, LLC (IPQ), a life sciences and healthcare…
From Schneier on Security
Colorado Passes Consumer Privacy Law
First California. Then Virginia. Now Colorado.
Here’s a good comparison of the three states’ laws.
From Schneier on Security
China Taking Control of Zero-Day Exploits
China is making sure that all newly discovered zero-day exploits are disclosed to the government.
Under the new rules, anyone in China who finds a vulnerability must tell the government, which will decide what repairs to make…From Schneier on Security
Iranian State-Sponsored Hacking Attempts
Interesting attack:
Masquerading as UK scholars with the University of London’s School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS), the threat actor TA453 has been covertly approaching individuals since at least January 2021 to solicit…From insideHPC
Modeling on SDSC’s Comet Supercomputer Reveals Findings on Pregnancy-related Hypertension
According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), preeclampsia, or pregnancy-related hypertension, occurs in roughly one in 25 pregnancies in the United States. The causes are unknown and childbirth is the only…
From insideHPC
Founder Institute, NASA Ames and MassRobotics Partner to Launch AI and Robotics Accelerator in Boston
July 13, 2021, Palo Alto, CA – The Founder Institute, the world’s largest pre-seed startup accelerator, announces partnerships with NASA Ames Research Center and MassRobotics for the upcoming Founder Institute AI & Robotics Accelerator…
From Computer Science Teacher - Thoughts and Information From Alfred Thompson
Learning My nth Programming Language
They say that the second programming language is the hardest to learn. That’s mostly because one learns how to program using their first language but each language has its own idiom. I was lucky in that before I completed my…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Training Game Playing Agents with ML
From the Google AI Blog. Below just the intro. Something we proposed wayback, but now have seem several interesting examples. Certainly you can consider any interaction with data as a 'game' with goals. So have the game be…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Emerging Threats of Autonomous War
Will be attempts at strong regulation, but inevitable at all sorts of operational levels. Offensive and Defensive.
U.S. Says Humans Will Always Be In Control of AI Weapons, but the Age of Autonomous War is Already Here
By Wired…From The Eponymous Pickle
Problems with Distributed Computing
Via O'Reilly. Reading these through, based on how they are stated, would state them more as cautions than always being wrong. It all depends upon the contextual needs involved and internal and external threats posed. Still…
From insideHPC
DOE HPC4EI Awards $3.7M for HPC Research at National Laboratories
July 12, 2021, Washington, D.C. – Today, the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) awarded $3.7 million for high performance computing (HPC) projects that address key challenges in U.S. manufacturing and materials development. As part…
From insideHPC
LLVM Holds the Keys to Exascale Supercomputing
The recent proliferation of new hardware technologies has galvanized the high-performance computing (HPC) community and created the ability to deliver the nation’s forthcoming exascale-capable supercomputers and data centers.…
From insideHPC
AMD Collaborates with EuroCC to Support HPC across EMEA
July 12, 2021 — The EU-funded EuroCC project, which has a goal to create a common high level understanding in the fields of HPC, HPDA and artificial intelligence (AI), recently met HPC experts from AMD to discuss how AMD technology…
From Schneier on Security
Friday Squid Blogging: The Evolution of Squid
Good video about the evolutionary history of squid.
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
Analysis of the FBI’s Anom Phone
Motherboard got its hands on one of those Anom phones that were really FBI honeypots.
The details are interesting.
From The Eponymous Pickle
A True Transformation of Logistics?
Another excellent piece by Irving Wladawsky on work on the future of logistics, with lots of pointers in the original at the link below. Retail Analytics for Logistics was my world for many years. Is the world of AI truly…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Microsoft Better Tighten Up
Good, they have gotten to some real issues far too late. Being the premier general computational systems provider, they need to fix threats better and faster, if they don't want to lose that distinction. I still like microsoft's…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Entanglement
More on entanglement its meaning and implications. How things at very great distances communicate, influence?
Untangling Quantum Entanglement
Two quantum particles can be intimately connected even when they are far apart, forming…From The Eponymous Pickle
Algorithm Could Help Enable Next-Generation Deep Brain Stimulation
New means to stimulate brains. As I read it, this may require quite a bit of regulation.
Algorithm Could Help Enable Next-Generation Deep Brain Stimulation Devices
By News from Brown University, June 8, 2021
Brown University bioengineers…From Computer Science Teacher - Thoughts and Information From Alfred Thompson
Avoiding Tour De Force Sample Code
Sample code is a wonderful way to teach and learn coding. The problem with a lot of sample code is that it is just too complicated and to fancy. I call it tour de force code because it seems like the authors are trying to show…