Communications of the ACM
The blog archive provides access to past blog postings from Communications of the ACM and other sources by date.
August 2014
From The Eponymous Pickle
Reasons for Being Cheerful
Matt Ridley, the rational optimist, provides a number of reasons to be cheerful. Mark J Perry summarizes. Not what I have been seeing in the news.
From The Eponymous Pickle
Consider Being Obsolete
AdAge Video: I still believe this will take longer than we think. There will be transferal and re-apportionment of many jobs. " ... Are You Obsolete? Yeah, Probably (This Fascinating Video Explains Why) ... Our Video of the…
From Schneier on Security
Friday Squid Blogging: Te Papa Museum Gets a Second Colossal Squid
That's two more than I have. They're hoping it's a male. As usual, you can also use this squid post to talk about the security stories in the news that I haven't covered....
From U.S. Public Policy Committee of the ACM
White House Launches U.S. Digital Service and Digital Resources
On Monday the White House announced the launch of the U.S. Digital Service. According to the Administration, the Digital Service is a team of digital experts that will work with agencies to improve and simplify the digital experience…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Neurogaming Asks a Question
Ron Wright, correspondent, sends along an article: " .... Brain science and video gaming converge in neurogaming ... " . We have still been unable to capture the full joy and engagement and collaboration that is achieved with…
From Daniel Lemire's Blog
Should we train more people as programmers?
Lately, the top salaries for computer science graduates have been increasing. Companies like Google are willing to pay what it takes to get their hands on the best programmers (which is well over 200k$ a year). I expect these…
From The Eponymous Pickle
The Need to Reinforce IT
In the Future of CIO: I have often had thoughts of how we have come to rely on Information Technology. " .... Organizations rely more and more on technology; the IT department has more and more to overcome. Running at digital…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Amazon Payment System
In Adage: An intriguing approach. And of course since you are on the Amazon system, the system already 'knows' much about you. " ... Amazon's Square-Like Payment System Could Be Data Goldmine ... Retailer Could Grab Lots"…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Dimensions of Portfolio Analysis
Had not seen this particular way of looking at this. Worth a further look. " ... the various reasons why Portfolio Management is tough to implement with two different Flightmap clients. Where one of the talks focused on the…
From Schneier on Security
Reverse-Engineering NSA Malware
Interesting articles reverse-engineering DEITYBOUNCE and BULLDOZER....
From Computer Science Teacher - Thoughts and Information From Alfred Thompson
Learning By Doing Works for Adults Too
Over the last year or so I have had a number of meetings and conversations with school leaders about using social media. One of my first questions is always “who has a Facebook account?” Invariably I get answers like “I created…
From The Eponymous Pickle
RFID and Beacons
A recent query reminded me that the RFID journal now covers Beacon type systems. This is an interesting kind of application than might be expected for in-store beacons:Epicurious to use Swirl Beacons to Deliver Localized Servces…
From Computational Complexity
Favorite Theorems: Limited Independence
When can limited randomness act as well as true random bits?
Polylogarithmic independence fools AC0 circuits by Mark Braverman (JACM 2010)To explain this result consider choosing uniformly from among the following four strings…
From Computer Science Teachers Association
First Week Activity
Ever wish you had a set of activities for the first week of school to excite your students early on? There is a wonderful set of exercises that can be found at http://introcomputing.org/. These exercises were created by Nick…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Beacons in Retail
More on Beacons in retail. " ... Beacons are showing up everywhere. It's open season for retailers as more apps are developed to take advantage of beacon technology. Sales staff will be equipped with beacon-enabled apps to…
From The Computing Community Consortium Blog
NSF CISE Core Program Solicitations Posted
The National Science Foundation, Directorate for Computer & Information Science & Engineering (CISE) Core Program solicitations have been posted. There are no major changes to the solicitations, which can be found here: Information…
From The Computing Community Consortium Blog
Origami-Inspired Robots Spring to Life
Inspired by the traditional Japanese art form of origami, researchers from Harvard University and Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) have figured out how to take flat sheets of specialized paper and plastic and make …
From The Eponymous Pickle
E-Commerce and Physical Retail
In the HBR Blogs: Suggesting that e-commerce is not as divisive to physical as is assumed. May require some registration. The statistics are interesting." ... There’s no doubt that digital technology is transforming the retail…
From Schneier on Security
New Snowden Interview in Wired
There's a new article on Edward Snowden in Wired. It's written by longtime NSA watcher James Bamford, who interviewed Snowden is Moscow. There's lots of interesting stuff in the article, but I want to highlight two new revelations…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Stress Scanning Camera
In the South China Morning Post: Another example of emotion detection by imaging and analysis:" ... Chinese scientists develop mini-camera to scan crowds for potential suicide bombers ... Home-grown imaging technology has the…
From ACM News
What Is Reality?
And, what flavor of reality do you prefer: standard, augmented, virtual...
From Schneier on Security
Security as Interface Guarantees
This is a smart and interesting blog post: I prefer to think of security as a class of interface guarantee. In particular, security guarantees are a kind of correctness guarantee. At every interface of every kind user interface…
From Gödel's Lost Letter and P=NP
Our Three Body Problem
The three body problem, computer theory style Ellis Horowitz is one of the founders of the theory of algorithms. His thesis with George Collins in 1969 had the word “algorithm” in the title: “Algorithms for Symbolic Integration…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Connection Analytics from Teradata
Been some time since I have worked with Teradata, but I see they are supporting an Ovum white paper on connection analytics. Understand it as described, though had not heard the specific term. Looks to be of interest. …
From The Eponymous Pickle
Humor at Work
My former colleague Andrew Tarvin does a TED talk on Humor at work. Also on Facebook. He is now a Humor Engineer at Humor that Works. Nice idea for the enterprise, but has rarely been done well.
From The Eponymous Pickle
Glasses Get More Augmentation Software
Have always made a point that applications for wearable glasses, like Google Glass, are most valuably applied to augmented reality applications. Mentioned this in a meeting with Google. Now an announcement that an AR company…
From The Eponymous Pickle
3D Printing Moves into Production
Good view of examples of how realistic commercial 3D printing is being used in manufacturing and how it may realign supply chain systems. Still narrow domains of application, but worth paying attention to.
From Schneier on Security
Automatic Scanning for Highly Stressed Individuals
This borders on ridiculous: Chinese scientists are developing a mini-camera to scan crowds for highly stressed individuals, offering law-enforcement officers a potential tool to spot would-be suicide bombers. [...] "They all…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Hospitals Mining Your Credit Card Behavior
In Businessweek. This scenario has been much in the news. It is starting to happen:" ... Imagine getting a call from your doctor if you let your gym membership lapse, make a habit of buying candy bars at the checkout counter…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Hospitality Robotics Experiment at Starwood
Robots in Hotels. Perhaps not really as multi-functional as what we could call butlers. But you can see how they can be applied. Now how will this influence employment in the hospitality industry? I do have some experience…