Communications of the ACM
The blog archive provides access to past blog postings from Communications of the ACM and other sources by date.
September 2011
From The Eponymous Pickle
Inflated Iluminated Wind Turbines
I would not have noticed this piece in Engadget if it were not about a Dean Kamen, famously the inventor of the Segway. And yes I know it is about a patent, not a buyable invention. Still it intrigues me, as a combination of…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Online Learning Resources
A good list of online learning resources from Mashable. The Web continues to be a good resource for learning. Here several things I have not heard of. These are broad rather than focused, but augment ordinary search.
From Putting People First
Low2No project wins Holcim acknowledgement prize
The Low2No design team of Sauerbruch-Hutton, ARUP and Epxperientia has won an acknowledgment prize in the Holcim award for sustainable construction for the design of a medium rise timber office building in low-to-no carbon emissions…
From Putting People First
Can Patagonia convince consumers to
What happens when one of America
From Putting People First
Book: In Studio
In Studio: Recipes for Systemic Change by Bryan Boyer, Justin W. Cook, Marco Steinberg Helsinki Design Lab (HDL) / Sitra 2011, 337 pages > Free download > Blog post This book explores the HDL Studio Model, a unique way of bringing…
From Putting People First
How tech is changing the museum experience
Museums are exploring digital and mobile technologies to enhance visitor experience. Initiatives go beyond technology within exhibits and installations, but also include more pervasive uses of tech to create interactive experiences…
From The Computing Community Consortium Blog
PCAST Reviews Health IT Progress
Rounding out a busy Friday in Washington, the President
From The Eponymous Pickle
Crowd Influencing Storytelling
Can crowds do this effectively? Or is it much better for markets to do it? Content selection perhaps, but will it destroy the creativity of storytelling?" ... Crowdsourcing fundamentally alters the process of content selection…
From Wild WebMink
links for 2011-09-17
Sony asks gamers to sign new terms or face PSN ban Sony demonstrates it still has no respect for its customers. This is the same company that installed an exploitable rootkit on its customers computers. Surely the ability to…
From Schneier on Security
Friday Squid Blogging: Squid Street Art
From The Eponymous Pickle
Jumping the Shark
I had not known the origin of the term 'jumping the shark', a perceived instantaneous loss of significance, which has been increasingly used of late. Discovered its origins in mindless network TV in this Wikipedia article…
From Computer Science Teacher - Thoughts and Information From Alfred Thompson
Four Dimensional Tic Tac Toe
Back in my college days we had a computer program that played three-dimensional tic tac toe. The game was played in a four space by four space four level cube. The object of the game was to get four of you pieces in a row. Ever…
From Schneier on Security
Identifying Speakers in Encrypted Voice Communication
I've already written how it is possible to detect words and phrases in encrypted VoIP calls. Turns out it's possible to detect speakers as well:
Abstract: Most of the voice over IP (VoIP) traffic is encrypted prior to its…From The Eponymous Pickle
New World of Vending
In USA Today: Good overview look at how vending is changing with the increasing use of alternative methods of payment beyond coins and bills. Broad phone-as-wallet implications. A good place to test the idea. Using the vending…
From The Female Perspective of Computer Science
The Hardest Thing I've Ever Done
On our vacation to Canada's maritime provinces, my husband and I embarked on a four day journey which has since become known as The Hardest Thing We've Ever Done
From The Eponymous Pickle
Blogs Bringing in Investors and Clients
There has been some writing about how blogging is dead. I disagree, I often read company or analyst blogs to better understand their methods and directions. It takes it beyond just the web site About page. In Incan article…
From The Computing Community Consortium Blog
White House Launches
(This post has been updated; please scroll down for the latest.) Moments ago at the White House,
From Wild WebMink
? Government In Action
Facebook and Cisco back IT skills drive for kids RIM has started up BlackBerry Hands-On Workshops, in which students will take apart BlackBerry smartphones to see how they work.” Free hoodie with every class?
From My Biased Coin
Travels and Teaching
I'll be at the Beyond Worst Case Analysis workshop next week, and Allerton the week after. For each, I'll have to miss a class. I also have some other travels that may involve missing classes this semester as well -- I'll be…
From Wild WebMink
links for 2011-09-16
Facebook and Cisco back IT skills drive for kids "RIM has started up BlackBerry Hands-On Workshops, in which students will take apart BlackBerry smartphones to see how they work." — Free hoodie with every class? Seriously, we…
From The Computing Community Consortium Blog
Feds Launch Technology Fellows Program; Deadline Sept. 25
The Chief Information Officers Council (CIOC), working closely with the Office of Personnel Management (OPM), has just launched the
From Computational Complexity
Happy Constitution Day
September 17th officially is known in the United States as "Constitution Day and Citizenship Day" but is celebrated today because the 17th this year falls on a weekend. I have nothing but love for the our Constitution. Not only…
From Schneier on Security
Domain-in-the-Middle Attacks
It's an easy attack. Register a domain that's like your target except for a typo. So it would be countrpane.com instead of counterpane.com, or mailcounterpane.com instead of mail.counterpane.com. Then, when someone mistypes…
From Computer Science Teacher - Thoughts and Information From Alfred Thompson
Your Chance to Learn Windows Phone Development for Free
Microsoft is offering a number of FREE Phone Camps around the US. These are fun and interesting workshops
From Michael Nielsen
Berlin, New York, Boston
I’ll be speaking about open science at events in Berlin, New York and Boston over the next week. Here’s my current schedule of public and semi-public events: Berlin, Friday 16 September, 5pm, event at the Freie Universit
From The Eponymous Pickle
TagWhat Launched
Tagwhat has been launched. Tagwhat Publishing at Places is here. We're excited to announce Tagwhat location-based publishing! Beginning today, you can easily place your videos, images, audio, and text stories anywhere on…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Social Manufacturing
When I saw this term I did not understand what it was about. Check out this post for more about the details, players in the space and what it is meant to do. It is better described as in the cloud and mobile sharing of process…
From U.S. Public Policy Committee of the ACM
Deconstruct the iPad with the Task Force on American Innovation
Those in the Washington, D.C. area next Wednesday, September 21, may want to attend a Congressional briefing hosted by the Task Force on American Innovation (ACM and USACM have participated in Task Force efforts in the past).…
From Schneier on Security
Sharing Security Information and the Prisoner's Dilemma
New paper: Dengpan Liu, Yonghua Ji, and Vijay Mookerjee (2011), "Knowledge Sharing and Investment Decisions in Information Security," Decision Support Systems, in press.
Abstract: We study the relationship between decisions…From The Eponymous Pickle
WellPoint Meet Watson
More on the use of Artificial Intelligence techniques for medical diagnosis. I happen to be visiting the offices of WellPoint this afternoon. Note the mention of evidence-based health care. That is good. I also want to hear…