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
Quantity Is Not Enough
There is often a focus on quantity in our society. Let’s get more apps! Lets get more students taking the AP course! Lets get more [you name it]? Unfortunately this focus on quantity sometimes means that quality takes a backHow…
From The Eponymous Pickle
IEEE Computing Now Expands
I am informed:New, expanded, IEEE Computer Society Computing Now website will be live on Friday, August 24, 2012The newly designed, Computing Now website (computingnow.computer.org) will feature new articles, and interviews by…
From The Computing Community Consortium Blog
At the Intersection of Big Data and Healthcare: What 7.2 Million Medical Records Can Tell Us
We’ve featured lots of stories about Big Data over the last several months, but here’s a fascinating new one that illustrates the value of Big Data analytics in addressing important national priorities. Researchers at SENSEable…
From Schneier on Security
Exaggerating Cybercrime
Finally, someone takes a look at the $1 trillion number government officials are quoting as the cost of cybercrime. While it's a good figure to scare people, it doesn't have much of a basis in reality.
From The Eponymous Pickle
Wizard Games
Wizard Studies presents How to gamify meetings and events. A paper on the process. A meeting professional's guide to gamification. How to influence behaviors and enhance engagement. They provide a number of technical and…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Neuromarketing World Forum
Found late. Quite a wealth of information from the Neuromarketing World Forum including people I have worked with: Stephen Sands and Gemma Calvert. A number of slide excerpts from presentations which indicate trends and technical…
From The Computing Community Consortium Blog
“Algorithmic Rapture”: Music Composed by a Computer
Also in this week’s Nature, a fascinating review of an album of evolved music, composed by the Darwinian computer program Iamus, that is “at the very least musically ‘plausible’”: If a computer can produce an artwork that moves…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Stop Negotiating
Some intriguing thoughts. Often impractical though. Knowing you want to negotiate sets the stage.
From Schneier on Security
Video Filter that Detects a Pulse
How long before someone claims he can use this technology to detect nervous people in airports?
From Gödel's Lost Letter and P=NP
Ten Years of Blog Complexity
We mean: Happy 10-Year Anniversary of the Complexity Blog src Lance Fortnow is famous for many things, but one is his blog Computational Complexity, which he created exactly ten years ago today. It endured a brief hiatus in early…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Metrics for Social
Some useful thoughts on new metrics for social. In particular how these measures treat alternative environments. " ... As consumers behave differently when using social platforms, it is not a question of whether we need new…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Doing Business in China
Fascinating piece in IEEE Computer on the issues around doing business in China. I have passed this off to colleagues there for a response. If of interest will repeat them here. A timely document. " ... The eighth in a series…
From The Eponymous Pickle
DARPA sees Analog
My introduction to digital computing came just as the last courses were taught using analog methods. The convenience of digital devices was so overwhelming that you could easily see analog methods disappearing completely. Yet…
From Wild WebMink
Clouds
These were the ones over the Dales – on the way into Wensleydale, in fact – rather than anything to do with computing.
From The Computing Community Consortium Blog
“Computational Social Science: Making the Links”
There’s a great article in this week’s Nature – out this afternoon — featuring computer scientists like Cornell’s Jon Kleinberg, Harvard’s David Lazar, and Columbia’s Duncan Watts, who are leveraging today’s digital data streams…
From The Eponymous Pickle
PayPal and Retail
PayPal, in collaboration with Discover, expands its presence in US retail. Press release. " ... Starting sometime next year, that arrangement will let PayPal customers use their charge cards at any of the 7 million retail…
From Computer Science Teacher - Thoughts and Information From Alfred Thompson
Online Coding Exercises For Programming Education
Well it is that time of year again – back to school. On the SIGCSE mailing list are a couple of reminders about online exercise tools for a variety of programming langauges.. A few old timers and at least one big new name. IKhan…
From Schneier on Security
Five "Neglects" in Risk Management
1. Probability neglect – people sometimes don’t consider the probability of the occurrence of an outcome, but focus on the consequences only.
2. Consequence neglect – just like probability neglect…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Suggestion Driven Improvements
Key drivers of successful suggestion driven improvement programs to increase quality. You connect to the right possibilities, then seriously develop them. An HBS paper.
From The Eponymous Pickle
Faster Product Development
A new look at faster and more successful product development. Generate and test. Ready, fire, aim. In part this depends on how expensive the 'fire' segment is. " ... The primary benefit of this approach is a shortened and…
From Computational Complexity
Ten Years of the Complexity Blog
On August 22, 2002 I wrote the following immortal words to start this blog
This is my complexity web log. I'll be giving random thoughts about computational complexity and about mathematics and computer science in general.Ten…
From The Computing Community Consortium Blog
DARPA to Hold Proposers’ Day Ahead of New Foundational Cyberwarfare Program
On Monday, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) announced a Sept. 27 Proposers’ Day for its Foundational Cyberwarfare program, a new initiative that will seek “to create revolutionary technologies for understanding…
From Schneier on Security
Poll: Americans Like the TSA
Gallup has the results:
Despite recent negative press, a majority of Americans, 54%, think the U.S. Transportation Security Administration is doing either an excellent or a good job of handling security screening at airports…From The Eponymous Pickle
New Social Sciences
In the Edge: I was brought up in the hard sciences, so was always skeptical of how the fuzzy social sciences could be quantified in a meaningful way. But as I was involved in more laboratory looks at shopper behavior, I started…
From Wild WebMink
Dentdale
We spent the last two days in Dentdale (in the Yorkshire Dales National Park) following my talk at OggCamp. Here’s a taste of what it was like:
From Schneier on Security
Is iPhone Security Really this Good?
Simson Garfinkel writes that the iPhone has such good security that the police can't use it for forensics anymore:
Technologies the company has adopted protect Apple customers' content so well that in many situations it's impossible…From Computer Science Teachers Association
Day of the "Tech" Girl
October 11, 2012 is the first ever International Day of the Girl Child. The United Nations set this date aside to recognize that empowerment of and investment in girls is critical for:
From Gödel's Lost Letter and P=NP
Cheating Or Mastering?
An (un)intended consequence of on-line learning? src Sebastian Thrun is a co-founder of Udacity, one of the several new companies that are involved in on-line learning. Sebastian started teaching on-line while at Stanford, and…
From The Eponymous Pickle
iPhone Rumors from RecordedFuture
Chris Holden, of RecordedFuture, the forward looking search engine that semantically interprets future mentions of information on public and private webs, sends along a search on iPhone 5 rumors. A good example of how the idea…
From The Computing Community Consortium Blog
“Health IT for You”
The Department of Health and Human Services’ (HHS) Office of National Coordinator for Health Information Technology (ONC) — which in fall 2009 launched the Strategic Health IT Advanced Research Projects (SHARP) Program, providing…