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 The Computing Community Consortium Blog
Recapping the 2012 MUCMD Symposium
The following is a special contribution to this blog by Suchi Saria, a 2011 Computing Innovation Fellow who recently joined the faculty of Johns Hopkins University in computer science as well as health policy and management.…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Boosting Research Productivity
With zResearch, via Zakta, who I have talked to a number of times. A way to curate research via search. Aiming to add social interaction and collaboration to the process. There seems to have been little attention payed to…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Martian Diaries
The Curiosity blog. A background and long interest in astrophysics has me watching this closely. See also the mission site.
From The Eponymous Pickle
Predictive is Smarter
Writes Christopher Conradi in Smarter Planet. Predictive maintenance is nothing new. We have done it in manufacturing for many years. What is new is the ability to do the prediction better. Sensors linked to databases of similar…
From The Computing Community Consortium Blog
“A Hardware Renaissance”
An interesting article in The New York Times this weekend about the resurgence of hardware prototyping in the Bay Area: In recent years, Silicon Valley seems to have forgotten about silicon. It’s been about dot-coms, Web advertising…
From Computational Complexity
Knuth Prize
Leonid Levin will receive the Knuth Prize, and give the corresponding lecture, at FOCS this year. The Knuth Prize is jointly given by ACM SIGACT and the IEEE TC-MFCS for outstanding contributions to theoretical computer science…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Digital Stethoscope
The iconic medical sensor the stethoscope is attached to a smartphone and connected to the cloud for a specific diagnosis task, finding children's pneumonia worldwide. " ... the goal of the team is to enable early diagnosis…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Consumers Ready for Mobile Payments?
Are consumers ready? When we first examined the problem it was clear they were not ready. Now things have changed, and within only a few years many will be using mobile for payment. As the article suggests there are s still…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Blog Experimentation
This blog has been around for a very long time. Once a mirror for a blog within a large enterprise. Now in the midst of experimenting with changes in its use and formats. I have used a number of other social networking capabilities…
From The Eponymous Pickle
And Further: Why the @ Sign?
The Smithsonian looks at other needs we did not know we had. Here the emergence of the @ sign. The simple drawing of a concept. Once a rarely used key on a typewriter, now the essence of modern electronic communication, via…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Simplifying Innovation
Good thoughts on simplification of innovation in Innovation excellence. Proposed by John Brooker, inspired by an incident with bicycle gears, a " ... three gear approach to help your people innovate. Essentially, it is based…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Invention of Deodorant
Out of the Smithsonian Magazine: On the invention of deodorant. The classic history of the marketing of solutions we did not completely understand that we had. Instructive example of changing a niche idea into broad application…
From BLOG@CACM
The Ph.D. Grind: Main Grinds and Side Grinds
In this first CACM blog post, I introduce myself and make the case for why side projects can benefit both Ph.D. students and their professors.
From The Eponymous Pickle
Posing Big Data Questions
We see many of them these these days. Information Week looks at the needs for resources to solve these problems. Data scientists and tools are useful to have on call, but lets get the business questions down first, and please…
From Gödel's Lost Letter and P=NP
Why Do Some Arguments Seem Wrong?
Or: how stupid am I? Siegbert Tarrasch was a very strong player and teacher of chess in the late 19th century and into the early 20th century. He coined the term chess blindness—the failure of a chess player to make a normally…
From Schneier on Security
Friday Squid Blogging: Squid Sacrifices Arms to Avoid Predators
The squid Octopoteuthis deletron will drop portions of an arm to escape from a predator.
As usual, you can also use this squid post to talk about the security stories in the news that I haven't covered.
From Schneier on Security
Internet Safety Talking Points for Schools
A surprisingly sensible list.
E. Why are you penalizing the 95% for the 5%? You don't do this in other areas of discipline at school. Even though you know some students will use their voices or bodies inappropriately in school…From The Eponymous Pickle
Online vs Bricks
Some interesting notes about the difference between online and in-store retail. These are mostly obvious conclusions, but would be useful to pass along to the online folks to ground them in the realities that still exist today…
From Daniel Lemire's Blog
To improve your intellectual productivity
We would all like to be smarter, to produce better software, better research papers or better art. It is not difficult to see that, by just about any metric, productivity amongst human beings follow a power law. For example,…
From BLOG@CACM
Using Advanced Placement Computer Science as a Measure of Broadening Participation
We have a goal to broaden participation in computing with more women and under-represented minorities. It's useful to compare participation and performance in compating education between states. There are dramatic differences…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Leader as Artist
In the HBR Blog: I am a believer in the quantification of of business, but this description of leader as artist is quite insightful. Think further of how the leadership can enhance the design, powered by enhanced sensing that…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Digital Boot Camp Online
Colleague Krista Neher's Digital boot camp is now available online. " ... The popular and top-rated Social Media Boot Camp is now available online! Learn social media and Internet marketing online, at your own pace with over…
From The Computing Community Consortium Blog
What Computer Science Can Teach Us About Robotics
In a recent New York Times’ article, the newspaper’s technology writer John Markoff describes how advances in robotics have created new opportunities for automation, citing several examples where improved capabilities and reduced…
From Schneier on Security
Fear and How it Scales
Nice post:
The screaming fear in your stomach before you give a speech to 12 kids in the fifth grade is precisely the same fear a presidential candidate feels before the final debate. The fight-or-flight reflex that speeds up…From Computer Science Teacher - Thoughts and Information From Alfred Thompson
NCWIT Award for Aspirations in Computing 2012
One of the ways that one can help young women with an interest in computing and related fields is to provide recognition for the world they have already been doing. One of the great programs in this regard is the NCWIT Award…
From The Noisy Channel
Data Werewolves
Thank you Scott Adams for the free advertising. Of course, LinkedIn is the place to find data werewolves. Want to find more data werewolves. Check out my team! Don’t worry, they only bite when they’re hungry.
From The Eponymous Pickle
Deals via Facial Recogition
In CWorld: A piece on Facedeals. " ... The system, dubbed Facedeals, uses cameras placed at the doors of participating stores and facial recognition software to identify users of the app and then offer them customized deals…
From Gödel's Lost Letter and P=NP
Do We Need Mysticism In Theory?
Are we too “normal” in our approach to open problems? Boris Spassky is the oldest living world chess champion. He held the title 1969 to 1972, until famously losing to Bobby Fischer in the Match of the Century. Watching the game…
From Wild WebMink
Why The Communications Data Bill Should Concern You
I wrote today on ComputerWorldUK about the draft Communications Data Bill. As I explained at OggCamp last weekend in Liverpool, it is yet another attempt by the Home Office to get the government of the day to legalise sweeping…
From Computer Science Teachers Association
CS is Featured in the Kahn Academy
Normally when preparing to write a post for the Advocate Blog, I collect my thoughts for several days prior to starting to write. I had collected some great ideas about the Gender Gap in STEM fields (as well as the dearth of…