Communications of the ACM
The blog archive provides access to past blog postings from Communications of the ACM and other sources by date.
August 2010
From The Eponymous Pickle
Art of Taxonomy
This issue has become important in several recent projects:The Art of Taxonomy: Creating Concept-Rich Servicesby Rockmore MarleneUnderstanding and organizing data is increasingly important as organizational repositories and websites…
From Computational Complexity
Is Scheduling a Solved Problem? (Guest Post)
(Guest Post by Ben Fulton.)
"At first glance, scheduling does not seem like a topic that requires much attention from computer scientists".
This was how I wanted to start my review of a book on scheduling, but Bill Gasarch…From Wild WebMink
links for 2010-08-23
Electronic Voting Researcher Arrested Over Anonymous Source "About four months ago, Ed Felten blogged about a research paper in which Hari Prasad, Rop Gonggrijp, and I detailed serious security flaws in India's electronic voting…
From BLOG@CACM
Why Is Great Design So Hard (Part Two)?
Previously, I asked the question of why great design is so hard to integrate in organizations. In this article, I take a look at how Apple does design, and what we can learn from it.
From Schneier on Security
Malware Contributory Cause of Air Crash
This is a first, I think:
The airline's central computer which registered technical problems on planes was infected by Trojans at the time of the fatal crash and this resulted in a failure to raise an alarm over multiple problems…From Computer Science Teacher - Thoughts and Information From Alfred Thompson
Interesting Links Post 23 August 2010
Happy Monday! Are you back to school yet? A lot of teachers are. If you are back I hope it is going well. If not yet, are you working out to get into
From BLOG@CACM
The First ACM Symposium on Cloud Computing (SoCC)
Earlier this summer the first ACM Symposium on Cloud Computing was held in Indianapolis, Indiana. With three stellar keynotes and an exceptional program, the inaugural symposium was a success. Next year's SoCC will be co-located…
From Wild WebMink
Open Source Trade Associations Lack Sanctions
Software patents are broken and the only possible justification for having them is self-defence (which is itself a risky accumulation of armaments that can easily fall into the wrong hands). It seems plenty of important members…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Swarm Intelligence
Mind Hacks deftly discusses an article in the Economist I missed on swarm intelligence. This method uses a biologically inspired intelligence metaphor to solve some kinds of otherwise very difficult problems. The group behavior…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Common Culture Locked Up by Copyright
In TechDirt. I have added the book to my lengthening reading list. The struggle between rewarding the author for constructing a work, and making that same work ... also derived from our common culture, available to all. As aNew…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Procrastination and Self Control
Dan Ariely author of Predictably Irrational and The Upside of Irrationality posts his yearly video on procrastination and self control and the tool to address it that he provides to his students as they arrive for the term. More…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Agile Business Intelligence
Debating agile business intelligence.
From My Biased Coin
How's that New Job Treating You? Edition
I told myself I'd quit blogging when summer ended. That's a bit over a week away, as classes start September 1. Also nicely, from the count on the right, I'm nearing 500 blog posts. Seems like a good stopping time.I'm nowshafted…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Mobile Face Biometrics
What looks like a considerable advance in face tracking on a smart phone. Including tracking specific features of a face. All done on a Nokia N900 phone. Includes technical paper links and a video demo. From the University…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Super Passwords
On creating super passwords. Work ongoing at Georgia Tech.
From The Eponymous Pickle
Groupon Goes National
Continued emergence of online couponing. This and increasing mobile interaction with stores and other locations is clearly our future. Get ready. Follow Frenda's site which covers retail nicely.Groupon Launches National Deal…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Steering by Sniffing
New, to my knowledge, In the CACM:Device Lets Disabled Steer Wheelchair, Communicate by SniffingWeizmann Institute of ScienceA unique device based on sniffing
From Wild WebMink
? Free Music Weekend
Over 40 free tracks! There has to be a new season coming as far as the music industry is concerned, because there’s a tide of free sample tracks both on Amazon US and Amazon UK this weekend. The UK selection is heavy with old…
From Computational Complexity
Comments
Bill and I are strong believers in freedom of speech and have long since had an open comment policy, allowing anonymous comments, no moderation (except old posts for spam) and never deleting comments (again except for spam).…
From Putting People First
Trapped in the Anglosphere
Martin Kettle thinks the UK has lost sight of next door Europe, trapped as Brits are in their Anglo-centric internet. “It is hard to recall a time when the national, not just the London, mind was less informed about or engaged…
From Putting People First
Finland
The 2010 Finnish National Innovation Strategy contains an important section on demand and user-driven innovation, with user-driven innovation being described as: “User-driven innovation makes use of information on customers,…
From Putting People First
Does technology pose a threat to our private life?
This week Google’s Eric Schmidt suggested we may need to invent new identities to escape embarrassing online pasts
From The Eponymous Pickle
Microindustries Checkout Director
MicroIndustries on their touch&Go Digital Signage. A classic problem. Including this new development: " ... Here at Micro Industries, we offer retailers one of the most advance queueing systems available. We designed our Touch…
From Putting People First
Younghee Jung on design research for Nokia
Younghee Jung, manager and design researcher at the Nokia Research Centre in Bangalore, India, has been profiled again on the Nokia Conversations blog through a long interview: One of [Younghee's] most recent projects was Nokia…
From Putting People First
Designing for the loss of control
The people at frogdesign have posted two long articles (the first one is really an essay) that we consider a recommended read: Openness or how do you design for the loss of control? Openness is the mega-trend for innovation in…
From Putting People First
Creating immersive experiences with diegetic interfaces
Imon Deshmukh of Cooper thinks that interfaces can be more closely integrated with the environment in which they operate. In an article on the Cooper blog, he shares some of what he heas learned from the universe of video games…
From Putting People First
Planting memories in people
In our urge to create great products online, we should focus on making experiences happen that plant memories in people
From Putting People First
Do you own your device, or it you?
On August 12, at noon, ZDNet Australia organised a live broadcast on the future of email. The discussion delved into the issues and challenges facing email in its current state, and looked at how social media is changing the…
From Putting People First
Gender differences in web usability
Frank Spillers thinks the User Experience community has not fully tapped the potential of gender-specific design aka Woman-centered Design. According to Spillers, gender as an audience sensitive criteria (differentiation) is…
From Putting People First
If technology is making us stupid, it
There has been growing concern that computers have failed to live up to the promise of improving learning for school kids. The New York Times, The Washington Post, and PBS have all done stories recently calling into question…