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
On Marketing Automation
In E-Commerce Times: " ... There is a lot of hype around marketing automation, and it's for good reason. An effective marketing automation strategy and implementation can help drive more qualified leads, and therefore increase…
From The Computing Community Consortium Blog
NSF Seeking Proposals at the Interface of Computing, Economics
The National Science Foundation’s Directorates for Computer and Information Science and Engineering (CISE) and Social, Behavioral, and Economic Sciences (SBE)
From Wild WebMink
links for 2011-09-15
UK business and government dangerously out of tune with cyber threats, says Chatham House – 9/15/2011 – Computer Weekly Interesting how the government is keen to protect Cliff Richard's pension (by criminalising his fans) and…
From My Biased Coin
This Week, I Am Part of an Internet Meme
My frequent co-authors John Byers, Giorgos Zervas, and I posted an extended version of a current submission to the arxiv (as people do), which showed up last Friday or thereabouts. Daily Deals: Prediction, Social Diffusion,MIT…
From Schneier on Security
A Status Report: "Liars and Outliers"
It's been a long hard year, but the book is almost finished. It's certainly the most difficult book I've ever written, mostly because I've had to learn academic fields I don't have a lot of experience in. But the book is finally…
From Computer Science Teacher - Thoughts and Information From Alfred Thompson
Imagine Cup 2012
Solving the world
From The Eponymous Pickle
More Efficient Crowdsourcing Models
In the ACM:" ... In recent years, crowdsourcing has gained more adherents as governments, businesses, and others aim to tap into the collective wisdom of crowds. However, the technique has limitations and shortfalls, particularly…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Master Class on the Science of Human Nature
In The Edge: This looks very good. " ... Princeton psychologist Daniel Kahneman on the marvels and the flaws of intuitive thinking; Harvard mathematical biologist Martin Nowak on the evolution of cooperation; UC-Santa Barbara…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Crowd Sourcing Open Innovation with Lego
From Innovation Excellence: " ... Yes, you gotta love Lego! Not only is the company doing amazingly well during this
From Computer Science Teachers Association
I'll Have Some AppInventor with My Java, Please!
I jumped on the AppInventor bandwagon at a workshop at SIGCSE 2010 and believed that my students would really enjoy building apps for Android phones as much as I did. My experience is that students (of all ages) get excited when…
From Apophenia
Six Provocations for Big Data
The era of “Big Data” has begun. Computer scientists, physicists, economists, mathematicians, political scientists, bio-informaticists, sociologists, and many others are clamoring for access to the massive quantities of information…
From Schneier on Security
Risk Tolerance and Culture
This is an interesting study on cultural differences in risk tolerance.
The Cultures of Risk Tolerance Abstract: This study explores the links between culture and risk tolerance, based on surveys conducted in 23 countries.…From The Eponymous Pickle
Cosmetics of Youth
A piece in the local paper about a scientist at P&G that is working on Olay solutions." ... As a senior scientist at P&G's Miami Valley labs, her work won't even show up on the store shelves for five or 10 years, if at all. Her…
From The Female Perspective of Computer Science
Teaching at Girl Develop It Ottawa's Kickoff Event
Girl Develop It: "Want to learn how to code? Have a great idea? Don't be shy. Develop it." It's exactly what the Ottawa community needs: a way to engage professional women in learning technical skills, particularly programming…
From Computational Complexity
Conventions in Math- just to make the rules work or more?
a1/2 = sqrt(a)?true? To make the rule
ax+y=ax a ywork out.
(∀ x ∈ ∅)[P(x)]true? To make the rule
(∀ x ∈ A ∪ B)[P(x)] iff (∀ x ∈ A)[P(x)] AND (∀ x ∈ B)[P(x)]work out.
From Wild WebMink
links for 2011-09-14
The Great Copyright Conspiracy Laid Bare It will come as no surprise to anyone reading here regularly, but there may be some that still don't realise their political "representatives" have so little grasp of the dynamics of copyright…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Google Changes their Algorithm
Algorithmic improvements at Google. Its good to watch what Google is doing to know what you are getting. Are you getting more quality sites today? I find myself using more search alternatives today than I did a few years…
From Schneier on Security
TSA Administrator John Pistole on the Future of Airport Security
There's a lot here that's worth watching. He talks about expanding behavioral detection. He talks about less screening for "trusted travelers."
So, what do the next 10 years hold for transportation security? I believe it begins…From The Computing Community Consortium Blog
Computer Scientists Among PopTech
Last month, PopTech — a nonprofit network of innovation experts based in Camden, Maine — announced its Science and Public Leadership Fellows, a small number of high-potential, early- and mid-career scientists working in areas…
From My Biased Coin
SODA Accepts -- The Count
People in various have been noting the SODA accepts, but nobody has been talking about the numbers. I count 138 papers accepted. I can't find now how many submissions there were; I recall it was over 600 abstracts, but I think…
From The Eponymous Pickle
OneRiot Joins WalMart Labs
In a new development., in Techcrunch. Also see OneRiot's Blog. " ... Walmart has acquired OneRiot, a mobile and social ad targeting startup. Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed, and OneRiot will be joining Walmart…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Designing Products for an Internet of Things
In GigaOM. I have observed quite a bit of product design, and except for slapping a standard bar code on an item, and testing that code with a number of hand scanners and checkouts, it is not often done very carefully. This…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Predictive Perspectives Seminar
I attended the IBM/SPSS seminar today. Jason Verlen, Director of IBM/SPSS gave the keynote address that well positioned the use of predictive techniques in business based on the SPSS suite of tools. This links well with IBM's…
From The Eponymous Pickle
SAP and Specialized Analytics Appliances
An interesting development. A number of such applications are addressing real time applications that gather large amounts of information.SAP rolls out new in-memory applications for HANASAP has released two more specialized…
From Schneier on Security
Human Pattern-Matching Failures in Airport Screening
I've written about this before: the human brain just isn't suited to finding rare anomalies in a screening situation.
The Role of the Human Operator in Image-Based Airport Security Technologies Abstract: Heightened international…From Daniel Lemire's Blog
You Think That Users are Faceless Objects? You are Obsolete!
IT departments fail us because they are founded on the technocratic imperative. Users are faceless objects for which the system is designed (Iivari et al., 2009). Correspondingly, usability is a secondary feature at best. I challenge…
From The Computing Community Consortium Blog
NSF/CISE to Hold Sustainability Webinars
As we’ve previously reported in this space, the National Science Foundation (NSF)
From The Computing Community Consortium Blog
Standing-Room Only at a VLDB Challenges & Visions Session
Attendees of the 37th International Conference on Very Large Databases (VLDB 2011)
From Computer Science Teacher - Thoughts and Information From Alfred Thompson
What is an app?
In the Mobile Game Design and Mobile App Design categories of the NFTE World Series of Innovation students are asked to design an app or a game for a mobile device such as an Windows Phone. But what do an “app” mean in that context…
From Computer Science Teacher - Thoughts and Information From Alfred Thompson
What is an app?
In the Mobile Game Design and Mobile App Design categories of the NFTE World Series of Innovation students are asked to design an app or a game for a mobile device such as an Windows Phone. But what do an