Communications of the ACM
The blog archive provides access to past blog postings from Communications of the ACM and other sources by date.
September 2009
From Wild WebMink
Mind Your Own Business (Model)
I'm not sure why, but the "there is no open source business model" discussion has woken up again, with Matthew Aslett and Stephen Walli in particular chipping in views. Last time this debate arose was when 451 published a report…
From U.S. Public Policy Committee of the ACM
USACM Looks Back at FY 2009
The ACM?s Policy Office staff and USACM?s leadership have compiled USACM?s annual report for the past fiscal year - 2009 (which ended June 30). This year?s report contains descriptions of USACM's work on advancing computer science…
From Wild WebMink
? As Simple As Possible, And No More
From Schneier on Security
Eliminating Externalities in Financial Security
This is a good thing:
An Illinois district court has allowed a couple to sue their bank on the novel grounds that it may have failed to sufficiently secure their account, after an unidentified hacker obtained a $26,500 loan[…From The Noisy Channel
Transparent Text Symposium: Day 2
From CERIAS Blog
The Secunia Personal Software Inspector
So you have all the patches from Microsoft applied automatically, Firefox updates itself as well as its extensions... But do you still have vulnerable, outdated software? Last weekend I decided to try the Secunia Personal Software…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Qwaq Becomes Teleplace
I recently brought up Qwaq, which we looked at for remote visual, avatar-enabled collaboration. They announced today that they have become Teleplace. Good name change, can only help to make them better known. Incongruous company…
From Computational Complexity
The Netflix Prize and the Sequel
Nearly three years ago I posted on the just announced Netflix prize. First to a 10% increase in the quality of the movie recommendations would receive a million dollars, coincidently the same amount one would get for settling…
From BLOG@CACM
An Einstein-Rosen Bridge
Science acts as a bridge between societies that trasncends culture, and it may be our best hope for finding a common thread in a globalized future.
From Putting People First
Tomorrow I will be speaking at an informal, but high energy Paris conference, called (somewhat predictably) Paris 2.0. The conference takes a total of four days, and is attended by a young, edgy French crowd. I am unfortunately…
From Putting People First
Enhancing user interaction with first person user interface
Luke Wroblewski, an internationally recognized Web thought leader and Senior Director of Product Ideation & Design at Yahoo! Inc., provides a comprehensive overview of augmentation as a user interface, complete with real-world…
From Putting People First
Interfaces Magazine interviews Donald Norman
The latest issue of Interfaces Magazine, a quarterly magazine published by Interaction, the specialist HCI group of the British Computer Society (BCS), contains a lengthy interview with Donald Norman: “Long live the body, the…
From Schneier on Security
Hacking Two-Factor Authentication
Back in 2005, I wrote about the failure of two-factor authentication to mitigate banking fraud:
Here are two new active attacks we're starting to see: Man-in-the-Middle attack. An attacker puts up a fake bank website and entices…From The Eponymous Pickle
IFTF on Future Knowledge Ecosystems
I worked with Institute for the Future for years, and blogged for them as well. A new interesting report from them: Future Knowledge Ecosystems: The Next Twenty Years of Technology-Led Economic Development . These are always…
From Schneier on Security
Quantum Computer Factors the Number 15
This is an important development:
Shor's algorithm was first demonstrated in a computing system based on nuclear magnetic resonance -- manipulating molecules in a solution with strong magnetic fields. It was later demonstrated…From My Biased Coin
Not Teaching / Double Teaching
Last semester, for various reasons, I ended up "double-teaching", offering both my undergraduate algorithms class and my graduate network algorithms class. The disadvantage of double-teaching is that it take a lot of time and…
From BLOG@CACM
Why Doesn't the U.S. Fund Computing Education Research?
How do we bootstrap research in computing education? Existing education research programs only fund the best research, with the best measurement instruments and theories. What do you do when those don't exist yet?
From The Eponymous Pickle
Atlas - Modeling Shopper Behavior : Paper
I recently posted about a shopper modeling system from TNS - Sorensen called Atlas, at that link you will find more information about the method and how it is evolving. Now here is the background paper to the method: Atlas:…
From The Noisy Channel
Transparent Text Symposium: Day 1
From The Noisy Channel
Follow-Up Podcast for UIE Seminar on Faceted Search (Free!)
From The Eponymous Pickle
Measuring Social ROI
Measuring social network ROI, fairly obvious, but with some useful examples.
From Schneier on Security
Inferring Friendship from Location Data
For nine months, Eagle's team recorded data from the phones of 94 students and staff at MIT. By using blue-tooth technology and phone masts, they could monitor the movements of the participants, as well as their…
From Computer Science Teachers Association
Talk Like a Pirate Day
Arrr! I hope everyone had a swashbuckling day this past September 19. As you no doubt knew, September 19 is International Talk Like a Pirate Day - an unofficial holiday in which people from around the world are encouraged to…
From Computational Complexity
Why You Shouldn't Not Go to FOCS
You can now register on-line for FOCS which includes the 50th celebration. Early registration deadline is October 1. Hotel rate good until October 9th or while supplies last. Be sure to register at the correct FOCS site http:…
From The Eponymous Pickle
The Face of Data
Akin to Chernoff faces, but univariate. You can generate a smiley face in Excel that displays a range of emotions. Fun and perhaps useful if you can stand a smiley face. -
From The Noisy Channel
Live Tweeting from Transparent Text Symposium
From The Eponymous Pickle
Procter Store Back Idea
Ad Age details Procter's idea of 'store back', which they consider essential to improvement of sales competing with private label as we emerge from a recession. It also suggests that this approach will lead to more innovation…
From The Eponymous Pickle
SAS JMP Tool Founder
Nice piece about SAS JMP tool developer John Sall, who I met years ago. Used JMP in the enterprise, but no longer have access. Was quite well done, it introduced exporatory analytics to many in our organization. More here.…
From U.S. Public Policy Committee of the ACM
Hill Tech Happenings, Week of September 21
September 21
Presentation: The DC Chapter of the Association for Computing Machinery and the New America Foundation host a discussion with Prof. Jonathan Lazar on human-computer interaction research and public policy. 7:30 p…From U.S. Public Policy Committee of the ACM
Hill Tech Happenings, Week of September 21
September 21
Presentation: The DC Chapter of the Association for Computing Machinery and the New America Foundation host a discussion with Prof. Jonathan Lazar on human-computer interaction research and public policy. 7:30 p…