Communications of the ACM
The blog archive provides access to past blog postings from Communications of the ACM and other sources by date.
September 2012
From Schneier on Security
Eye Twitch Patterns as a Biometric
Yet another biometric: eye twitch patterns:
...a person's saccades, their tiny, but rapid, involuntary eye movements, can be measured using a video camera. The pattern of saccades is as unique as an iris or fingerprint scan …From The Noisy Channel
LinkedIn at RecSys 2012
LinkedIn is an industry leader in the area of recommender systems – a place where big data meets clever algorithms and content meets social. If you’re one of the 175M+ people using LinkedIn, you’ve probably noticed some of our…
From The Female Perspective of Computer Science
The First Time I Don't Want to Go Back to School
Today is the first day back to school for a lot of people. It's been the same for me for many years, given that I have yet to leave school behind for good. But this time, I don't really want to go back quite yet.I was only able…
From Putting People First
Ericsson on evolving TV and video-consumption habits
Ericsson is publishing interesting research these days (and therefore gets featured on this blog). Its latest TV and video ConsumerLab report found that mobile devices are an important part of the TV experience, with 67 percent…
From Putting People First
Africa embracing m-commerce
In a new report from its ConsumerLab, Ericsson maps out the potential of transformation within m-commerce across the region of sub-Saharan Africa. Based on in-depth, extensive interviews with mobile phone users in Ghana, South…
From The Computing Community Consortium Blog
Nearing the Turing Test
Freelance writer Dan Falk penned an interesting story for The Telegraph last month, reflecting on his experience as a judge in the Turing Test Marathon this summer: Will this summer be remembered as a turning point in the story…
From Computer Science Teacher - Thoughts and Information From Alfred Thompson
Imagine Cup 2013 Opens with Larger Prizes
Last week Microsoft announced the opening of the 2013 Imagine Cup. This year there are thee competition and three challenges for students to enter. The prizes are larger as well with a top prize for each of the three competition…
From Putting People First
MindLab, Denmark’s cross-ministerial innovation unit
MindLab is a Danish cross-ministerial innovation unit which involves citizens and businesses in creating new solutions for society. It is also a physical space – a neutral zone for inspiring creativity, innovation and collaboration…
From Putting People First
Gestural interaction with data
The Ericsson UX Lab has been prototyping and testing gestural interaction solutions with data: “This spring we worked on how to visualise and interact with data. One issue that we focused a bit more on is that of interacting…
From Putting People First
Qualitative research, UX strategy and wicked problems
These are the topics of the latest update on UX Matters: Strengths and Weaknesses of Quantitative and Qualitative Research By Demetrius Madrigal and Bryan McClain Both qualitative and quantitative methods of user research play…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Business in Business intelligence
By now anyone who works for a business should know this, but it bears repeating: In Information Managment: "... Business intelligence projects have historically produced remarkable results for countless companies. Properly…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Wal-Mart Tests Smartphone Self Checkout
Not very much detail here, but it's not unexpected that we will soon see the idea of the shopper using their own device appearing more often. But will these Apps provide the same breadth of shopper choice as well?
From Daniel Lemire's Blog
Organizations would not pass the Turing test
In Computer Science, we often informally judge intelligence by using the Turing test. The Turing test is quite simple: if you can convince an observer that you are a human beings, then you are probably at least as smart as a…
From Daniel Lemire's Blog
Your programming language does not know about elementary mathematics
In Mathematics, we typically require equality to form equivalence classes. That is, it should be reflexive: A should be equal to A. Moreover, it should be symmetric: if A is equal to B, then B should be equal to A. Finally, it…
From The Eponymous Pickle
IKEA Embraces Augmented Reality
A nice example of the use of augmented reality for a catalog. A very good place to try the idea first. Much more at the link. I plan to try this at the nearby IKEA. Via Metaio. " ... Speaking of free download- both iOS…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Skepticism About Smart
Jerry Michalski posts in Rexpedition about his skepticism regarding the smarter world of things. I like to hear the other side. I am not as skeptical, but based on my own experiences, know enough to be cautious and distinctly…
From Putting People First
Curious Rituals – Gestural interaction in the digital everyday
Curious Rituals is a research project conducted at Art Center College of Design (Pasadena) in July-August 2012 by Nicolas Nova (The Near Future Laboratory / HEAD-Genève), and Katherine Miyake, Nancy Kwon and Walton Chiu from…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Experiential Retail
AT&T makes a move into experience retail, looking like the Apple store. In Chicago: " ... The gleaming 10,000-square-foot space -- complete with an Apps Bar staffed by "app-tenders" and plenty of communal space to grab a seat…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Analyzing your Facebook
It has been some time since I looked at Wolfram Alpha. Its a system that lets you integrate multiple forms of data and semantic interaction to solve problems, built on the Mathematica engine. Now a number of writers talk about…
From Computer Science Teacher - Thoughts and Information From Alfred Thompson
Interesting Links 3 September 2012
Happy Labor Day! Today is commonly thought of as the last day of summer in the US. Few if any schools in the US will start (with students) later than tomorrow. I hope you all – students and teachers – have a great school year…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Recognizing Real World Objects in Videos
In Slashdot: Discussion of a Google patent for this. It is a fundamental exercise for applications like autonomous robotics to be able to understand their world, feed that description to an artificial intelligence engine, and…
From The Eponymous Pickle
More on Wal-Mart Search
In CIO Today: Deeper understanding of semantics in content proves to be a valuable lever. " ... Dubbed Polaris, Walmart's search tech seems to be working well. Walmart.com is already reporting a 10 percent to 15 percent boost…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Smarter Commerce Summit
Doing an invited appearance at the Smarter Commerce Summit this coming week in Orlando, September 5-7. Blogging and tweeting the experience. If there is anything anyone would like to have me explore, or if you would like to…
From My Biased Coin
Uncertainty
There's an interesting new article on the Gov 1310 case* on the Crimson yesterday, titled Students Accused in Cheating Scandal Frustrated by Uncertain Process. Well, of course the students are frustrated, but I think it's somewhat…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Agile Analytics
Was recently pointed to Birst Analytics. Agile as presented is a good idea. Looking forward to taking a closer look. See their blog for a taste of what they are up to.
From The Eponymous Pickle
Robot Learns to Recognize Itself
New developments in robotics, especially those that can understand and react to their own context, is always of interest.
From Putting People First
Focus on service design – in UK and in Italy
Earlier this year, the UK Design Council and the Arts & Humanities Research Council conducted a wide ranging review of the place of design research in UK universities, and its connection with businesses and policymakers. The…
From Computer Science Teacher - Thoughts and Information From Alfred Thompson
Don’t Panic
The other day I was looking through the analytics for this blog to see what sort of searches people were doing that let them here. Mostly I was seeing things I expected to see but one stuck out. Someone had searched for the string…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Product Portfolio Management at Hallmark
From CGT: A simple example of portfolio management strategies." ... There are many reasons why your company can't afford to miss product launch windows. So, how do successful companies hit launch windows consistently? It all…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Public vs Private Clouds
In GigaOm: A good comparison between the choice of Public vs Private Cloud in corporate IT. Which companies should use which? " ... Cloud computing is supposed to save us money, and most would argue that it can. Cloud computing…