Communications of the ACM
The blog archive provides access to past blog postings from Communications of the ACM and other sources by date.
August 2012
From Computer Science Teacher - Thoughts and Information From Alfred Thompson
Interesting Links 6 August 2012
What a great week last week was. My big planned event was a meeting of the ACM/IEEE CS 2013 committee in Seattle WA. As it turns out that meant I was able to attend the closing gala for the Microsoft Partners in Learning US Forum…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Coupsmart
Just brought to my attention by Jeff Dyck: Coupsmart. Of interest they write:CoupSmart's Mission: Marketing Should Be SimpleAnd by simple, well, we mean simple. No jargon, no vague ROI estimations, no superficial metrics.That's…
From Schneier on Security
Breaking Microsoft's PPTP Protocol
Some things never change. Thirteen years ago, Mudge and I published a paper breaking Microsoft's PPTP protocol and the MS-CHAP authentication system. I haven't been paying attention, but I presume it's been fixed and improved…
From Wild WebMink
MinkCast: Explaining OmniOS
Despite Oracle pulling out, OpenSolaris lives on as Illumos, which is a loose-knit open source community with multiple downstream projects. One of those is the new OmniOS operating system built by consulting company OmniTI. OmniOS…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Lead with a Story
From The Eponymous Pickle
Big Data and Social Business
Via InformationWeek: As we see more social and mobile data being collected the potential of its use is growing rapidly. " ... One of the key properties of social media that has set it uniquely apart from other ways of communicating…
From The Computing Community Consortium Blog
Toward a R&D Roadmap for Privacy
The Information Technology & Innovation Foundation (ITIF) – a non-partisan, Washington, DC-based think tank that aims to formulate and promote public policies to advance technological innovation and productivity globally – has…
From Schneier on Security
State-by-State Report on Electronic Voting
The Verified Voting Foundation has released a comprehensive state-by-state report on electronic voting machines (report, executive summary, and news coverage). Let's hope it does some good.
From Wild WebMink
EU Procurement Failures
How do you do open procurement for ICT solutions? The answer, according to the European Commission, is to ensure that all procurement that requires tendering (and not all does) is specified in terms of the functions required…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Security Innovation Network
Colleague Julie Anixter does an interview with Robert Rodriguez about Security Innovation Networks. " ... to advance innovation and enable global collaboration between the public and private sectors to defeat cyber security…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Patient-Mounted Disposable Health Robotics
Another example of heath robotics, which I have started to study more closely. A number of examples that gather health data exist already, for minimizing labor costs. The addition of the 'disposable' aspect with at least the…
From The Female Perspective of Computer Science
Ottawa Ladies: Learn to Program With Processing in My Upcoming Workshop
I'm hosting a full-day workshop on programming using Processing in a couple of weeks. It's part of Girl Develop It Ottawa, which was founded to help non-technical women in our community learn new skills in programming in a comfortable…
From The Eponymous Pickle
My History of the Internet
Have been reading much lately about how the Internet emerged. Debating how it was funded. It happened I experienced much of it first as an early user at the Pentagon, using it to test remote systems, and later in a big enterprise…
From Gödel's Lost Letter and P=NP
Reading A Speech
How to read a speech, if you must George Peterson is the President of the Georgia Institute of Technology, but he likes to be called "Bud." He is our eleventh president, and oversees all aspects of our university with its 21,000…
From Putting People First
What marketing executives should know about user experience
“What marketing executives should know about user experience” is the title of a short and introductory piece, mainly aimed at marketing people, by Nick Myers, managing director of visual design & branding at Cooper (a design…
From Putting People First
Social media’s neoliberal world view (and how it affects us all)
Recently I have embarked on trying to understand better the underlying ideology and world view of the Silicon Valley tech scene, and how this is impacting our daily lives through the products and services they create. My mission…
From The Eponymous Pickle
What We are Learning about Online Education
A TED video by Daphne Koller of Coursera" ... enticing top universities to put their most intriguing courses online for free -- not just as a service, but as a way to research how people learn. Each keystroke, comprehension quiz…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Caerus Analytics
Brought to my attention. Caerus Analytics. " ... pushes the boundaries of social and data science to find meaning in complexity. We develop rigorous, innovative analytical tools and frameworks for the defense and intelligence…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Robot Hands
Helping the disabled, at home and office ... with fundamentally re-designed robot hand. In Engadget. Video.
From The Eponymous Pickle
Psychobiological Bases of Personality
Christophe Morin on this intriguing topic. With links to a number of papers on the subject, from Pavlov and beyond. Particularly key to see aspects other than arousability mentioned. . Interesting to see how things other than…
From Wild WebMink
Hiring For Core Values
Back at Sun, I believe much of the blame for the company’s failure between 2001 and 2004 – from which the later, otherwise successful open source and hardware appliance initiatives were unable to rescue it – came from allowing…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Massively Available Online Courses
What will the response be from classic educational venues? Considering a strategic response.
From The Eponymous Pickle
Hive Group London Medals Treemap
The Hive group provides a treemap data visualization map for medals at the London 2012 Olympics. Among a gallery of other visualization examples for complex data. A good time to become acquainted with this form of data display…
From Schneier on Security
Friday Squid Blogging: SQUIDS and Quantum Computing
It seems that quantum computers might use superconducting quantum interference devices (SQUIDs).
As usual, you can also use this squid post to talk about the security stories in the news that I haven't covered.
From The Eponymous Pickle
Brand Creatures
In HBR: I found this idea of creatures for a brand interesting because I had a project that tried to integrate Mr. Clean and the use of artificial intelligence. A creature, brand equity and an attempt to integrate personality…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Unilever Supply Chain Innovations
In SCIDigest: This approach is becoming increasingly common. " ... Supply Chain News: Unilever Says Its Supplier Partnership Program is Paying Big Dividends ... Half of Innovations in Progress Now Come from Suppliers; Moving…
From Wild WebMink
The Open Source Stimulus Plan
My column for InfoWorld this week considers the unseen value open source brings into the economy, and references this keynote from OSCON by Tim O’Reilly.
From Schneier on Security
Unsafe Safes
In a long article about insecurities in gun safes, there's this great paragraph:
Unfortunately, manufacturers and consumers are deceived and misled into a false sense of security by electronic credentials, codes, and biometrics…From Computer Science Teachers Association
Local Professional Development Rocks!
Last week I was honored to present and attend CSTA Rocks Ohio! in Columbus, Ohio. This workshop, sponsored by CSTA and Google, was attended by 35 other CS educators from around Ohio and provided professional development opportunities…
From Daniel Lemire's Blog
A post-industrial point of view
We can roughly sketch human history as follows: Initially, everything was expensive for human beings. Farming made food cheap. The industrial revolution made goods and services cheap. In the post-industrial age, we are making…