Communications of the ACM
The blog archive provides access to past blog postings from Communications of the ACM and other sources by date.
August 2011
From The Eponymous Pickle
Careful Consumers, Smarter Marketing, Smarter Machines
In Wharton's long running set of online articles: New Retail Strategies: Offering a Better Fit for Today's Careful Consumers. Among a number of other things they talk about Coke's new machine: " ... Retailers looking for …
From Schneier on Security
Job Opening: TSA Public Affairs Specialist
This job can't be fun:
This Public Affairs Specialist position is located in the Office of Strategic Communications and Public Affairs (SCPA), Transportation Security Administration (TSA), Department of Homeland Security (DHS)…From The Eponymous Pickle
Changing the Consumer / Brand Relationship
This article essentially describes mobile applications that use 'game dynamic' style relationship building. Looking at potential applications in the aisle for mobile games now. Any ideas out there to share?
From The Eponymous Pickle
Older Brains Better for Strategy
In Futurepundit: An examination using strategy games. Is older better for strategy?
From Computational Complexity
Do we use Technology before its perfected? Should we?
During Hurricane Irene I lost power for about 18 hours. I was actually pleased how short this was. PEPCO (my power company) did not tell us when power would be restored at any point. Why? Possibly because of this story that happened…
From Wild WebMink
links for 2011-08-31
Software Freedom Day It's just two weeks away, get ready to join in! (tags: OpenSource FOSS Software Freedom) open80211s Meshed WiFi in every Linux device? Yes please! (tags: WiKi Mesh Linux) Eagles singer Don Henley: EFF, Google…
From Schneier on Security
The Effects of Social Media on Undercover Policing
Social networking sites make it very difficult, if not impossible, to have undercover police officers:
"The results found that 90 per cent of female officers were using social media compared with 81 per cent of males." The most…From Computer Science Teacher - Thoughts and Information From Alfred Thompson
Python Tools for Visual Studio V1.0 Released
A lot of people are looking into using Python in computer science education these days. Of course a lot of people are also using Visual Studio for Visual Basic or C# or even F# and it would be nice to use the same IDE for Python…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Informs Analytics Magazine
The latest issue of Informs Analytics Magazine. News and topical articles on analytical methodologies from the premier business analysis and marketing science professional society.
From The Eponymous Pickle
IFTF Releases their 2020 Future Map
I blogged for the Institute for the Future for several years. They consulted with our C-suite and we were often asked to follow up. The are always saying some interesting things. We followed their future map each time itPublic…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Jaron Lanier Flips on Wal-Mart, Apple and Google
We met computer scientist Jaron Lanier while doing work with the Institute for the Future. In the Edge he talks about the local global flip. Quite a long rant on the effect of corporations leveraging the network, collectivism…
From Schneier on Security
Facebook Privacy Guide
It's actually pretty good.
Also note that the site is redesigning its privacy. As we learned from Microsoft, nothing motivates a company to improve its security like competition.
From Schneier on Security
Details of the RSA Hack
We finally have some, even though the company isn't talking:
So just how well crafted was the e-mail that got RSA hacked? Not very, judging by what F-Secure found. The attackers spoofed the e-mail to make it appear to comeBeyond…From The Eponymous Pickle
A&P: A Former Unfair Retailer?
It has happened before: In the WSJ: How a Grocer Bagged Profits At its peak, the chain had nearly 16,000 stores. Critics charged it with competing unfairly by offering too-low prices. .... Economist Mark Perryalso discusses…
From The Computing Community Consortium Blog
NSF Seeking US Ignite White Papers
The NSF’s CISE Directorate has issued a call for white papers for the new US Ignite initiative: The National Science Foundation invites white papers from individuals and organizations (e.g., academic, non-profit, industry, associations…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Kosmix and WalMart Labs
Been following the acquisition of the Kosmix search solution by Wal-Mart for some time.Now ReadWriteWeb has an article with some speculation about what it is all about. Not a great deal of meat there, but useful thoughts. "…
From Wild WebMink
links for 2011-08-30
Nym Wars I'm not sure what offends me most about Google's idiotic approach here; the patronising parochialism that says they are the arbiters of what a "real" name is and how it's constructed, the heavy-handed use of Terms of…
From Computer Science Teacher - Thoughts and Information From Alfred Thompson
ACSL International Contest About to Begin
Interested in programming competitions for your students but travel is not in the budget? You may want to look into the ACSL contests. This announcement came via by the CSTA member listserv.
The American Computer Science League…From The Eponymous Pickle
Brandwashed Read and Reviewed
Just completed a review copy of : Brandwashed: Tricks Companies Use to Manipulate Our Minds and Persuade us to Buy by Martin Lindstrom. To be available September 20. Have enjoyed Lindstrom's earlier books such as Buyology:…
From Computer Science Teachers Association
Ethical Hacking
I attended the hackers convention in Las Vegas this month which was officially called DEFCON (DEFCON is military speak for Defense Condition) #19 (in its 19th year). Although the entire convention was interesting, the first-ever…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Enhancing In-Store With Mobile
Some good examples from Ad-Age. " ... More consumers are turning to tablets and smartphones to shop, but this back-to-school season major retailers are using mobile to drive traffic to stores, not necessarily to encourage online…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Good Decision Blog
A new blog by IBM on Decision Management, appears to be useful.
From The Eponymous Pickle
Junaio Announces New Browser: Augmented World
An interesting press release from Junaio. Note in particular the ability to use multiple capabilities, beyond the now becoming common QR codes. As mentioned below, the weakness of this approach is that it works only if there…
From Computational Complexity
Patrick Fischer (1935-2011)
From Daniel Lemire's Blog
Why can
One of the most common data structuring in Computer Science is the hash table. It is used to store key-value pairs. For example, it is a good data structure to implement a phone directory: given the name of the individual, find…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Top Salespeople Born or Made?
Mostly born based on personality tests, says an article in the Harvard Review. We showed this years ago with something as simplistic as Myers-Briggs tests.
From The Eponymous Pickle
Tablets in Manufacturing
In Computerworld: The iPad takes on manufacturing The iPad, darling of the consumer crowd, dares to get gritty as Pfizer and other companies try it out in industrial settings ... " A natural idea, small and easy to interact…
From The Computing Community Consortium Blog
A Summer Social Webshop
The following is a special contribution to this blog by
From Schneier on Security
Screenshots of Chinese Hacking Tool
It's hard to know how serious this really is:
The screenshots appear as B-roll footage in the documentary for six seconds
From Computer Science Teacher - Thoughts and Information From Alfred ThompsonInteresting Links 29 August 2011
Hurricane Irene was the big news on the east coast of the US and parts of the Caribbean last week. Oh and there was a surprising east coast earthquake last week as well. Quite some week. But I still managed to collect some links…