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 Computer Science Teacher - Thoughts and Information From Alfred Thompson
Thinking About Databases
Some years ago I had students write a program that involved managing a checkbook and balancing it. I was so proud of it. Later a student told be she linked the programs that were “relevant.” I replied “like the checkbook program…
From Daniel Lemire's Blog
How well does peer review work?
Since the second world war, science has relied on what I call traditional peer review. In this form of peer review, researchers send their manuscript to journal. An editor then reviews the manuscript and if it is judged suitable…
From Computational Complexity
Theory Conferences Galore
Early registration for the FOCS conference in New Jersey is September 27th. There is some travel support available for students and postdocs, deadline is this Friday the 21st. STOC and Complexity will be co-located in Palo Alto…
From The Computing Community Consortium Blog
“Big Data Gets Its Own Photo Album”
From The New York Times‘s Bits Blog: Rick Smolan, the photographer and impresario of media projects, has tackled all sorts of big subjects over the years, from countries (“A Day in the Life of Australia” in 1981) to drinking…
From Schneier on Security
Analysis of PIN Data
An analysis of 3.4 million four-digit PINs. ("1234" is the most common: 10.7% of all PINs. The top 20 PINs are 26.8% of the total. "8068" is the least common PIN -- that'll probably change now that the fact is published.)
From Computer Science Teachers Association
Improving the International Focus on STEM
I've been doing a lot of research lately for different projects I have at my school. Every time I research something for my unit plans or projects, I keep stumbling into the same term over and over again. STEM. I am familiar …
From Daniel Lemire's Blog
How to be happier while annoying your wife
About a year ago, I read Made by Hand: Searching for Meaning in a Throwaway World by Mark Frauenfelder. It is a simple book with a simple message. How to be happy? Frauenfelder thought that moving to tropical island might be…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Advancing Analytics to Machine Learning
Things are changing in advanced analytics. Simple statistics is not enough anymore. An example from Orbitz. Read the whole article: "... I lead the traditional statistical modelers as well as the chief scientist and …
From The Eponymous Pickle
Online Neuro Courses
Via NeuroRelay: A number of free online courses from Coursera on topics Neurological from Coursera. Not too much on the Neuromarketing side, but worth taking a look at for background.
From Schneier on Security
Recent Developments in Password Cracking
A recent Ars Technica article made the point that password crackers are getting better, and therefore passwords are getting weaker. It's not just computing speed; we now have many databases of actual passwords we can use to …
From Computer Science Teacher - Thoughts and Information From Alfred Thompson
We Are Making Things Too Hard
I once had a conversation with Bill Gates. Yes, in person, face to face. And while I will not go into the whole meeting he said a couple of things that I continue to think about on a regular basis. One of them is that he suggested…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Market Shifts
In Forbes: Adam Hartung: Growth - Dealing with Market Shifts. Innovation Matters; It’s Why You Care More About Apple than Kraft ...
From The Eponymous Pickle
Selling the Cloud
Nicely done overview, with good graphics, about the cloud and its business implications. " ... The next stage of cloud computing will require companies to turn the momentum, innovation and investment into revenue growth and…
From The Computing Community Consortium Blog
New Horizons for Erwin Gianchandani
Erwin Gianchandani joined the Computing Community Consortium as our inaugural Director in April 2010. Much of the success that the CCC has achieved is directly due to Erwin’s efforts: he is – among a long list of extraordinary…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Price Optimization
Another example of the use of price optimization in retail. Many large retailers have tested the idea.
From The Computing Community Consortium Blog
One-on-One With New FTC Chief Technologist Steven Bellovin
Earlier this month, Columbia University computer science professor Steven Bellovin was named the Federal Trade Commission’s (FTC) chief technologist, taking over for Princeton’s Ed Felten following the conclusion of his successful…
From Schneier on Security
Friday Squid Blogging: Octonaut
As usual, you can also use this squid post to talk about the security stories in the news that I haven't covered.
From Gödel's Lost Letter and P=NP
Might Turing Have Won A Turing Award?
A bit of fun Ann Sobel is a software engineer who is active, besides her research and teaching, in the IEEE Society. She regularly runs a column in their Computer magazine on education. Today with her and IEEE’s kind permission…
From Apophenia
Three conversations for parents: navigating networked publics
This post was originally written for A Platform For Good.org, a new site dedicated to creating opportunities for young people and adults to engage with technology in a healthy way. Parenting is hard. Many parents find parenting…
From Wild WebMink
Iona Tour – Last Gig
We went to hear the last concert of the Iona tour Sunday night. It was a tremendous evening of music with gorgeous soundscapes enfolding intelligent, thoughtful yet emotionally dynamic lyrics performed perfectly. Iona are…
From The Computing Community Consortium Blog
“A Robot With a Reassuring Touch”
The New York Times’s John Markoff has penned another article on robotics today, this time featuring the efforts of Rodney Brooks and Rethink Robotics to engineer robots that work directly with humans in the workplace: If you…
From The Female Perspective of Computer Science
Making the Most of Conference Travel
When I'm lucky enough to go to a conference through school, I try to make the most of the time spent in a new place. This year, the Grace Hopper Celebration of Women in Computing is being held in Baltimore, which is drivingCreate…
From The Computing Community Consortium Blog
NIH Seeking Input on New mHealth Public-Private Partnership
The Office of Behavioral and Social Sciences Research (OBSSR) within the National Institutes of Health (NIH) has issued a Request for Information (RFI) announcing its intent to establish a new Mobile Health Public-Private Partnership…
From Computer Science Teacher - Thoughts and Information From Alfred Thompson
Decorate For Inspiration
Last week Mike Zamansky (blog at C'est la Z Twitter @Zamansky), who is the head computer science teacher at Stuyvesant High School in New York City, tweeted about asking his alumni to send in SWAG to decorate his classroom He…
From Putting People First
A report on the Medicine 2.0 conference in Boston
Report by Experientia researcher Anna Wojnarowska Harvard Medical School hosted this weekend the Medicine 2.0 conference in Boston. The fifth edition of the event invited academics, practitioners and clinicians for two days of…
From Putting People First
Experientia researcher speaking at Harvard’s Medicine 2.0 conference
Experientia researcher Anna Wojnarowska spoke this Sunday at the Medicine 2.0 conference in Boston on her research on the influence of the hospital environment, communication devices – laptops, mobile phones – and the technologies…
From Putting People First
Book: Make It So: Interaction Design Lessons from Science Fiction
Make It So – Interaction design lessons from science fiction By Nathan Shedroff & Christopher Noessel Rosenfeld Media September 2012 ISBNs: paperback (1-933820-98-5); digital editions (1-933820-76-4) Many designers enjoy the…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Extending Watson
IBM continues to seek to extend the potential of AI, now broadening the potential of Watson to the average user. Will this take a Siri like advisers to a new level soon?.
From The Eponymous Pickle
iRobot Acquires Evolution Robotics
In this development, iRobot seems to be playing for more in-home applications, but it still appears to be floor cleaning. Does this mean we are out of other in-home aid robotics? It is interesting this the acquired set of robots…
From Computer Science Teacher - Thoughts and Information From Alfred Thompson
NCWIT Award for Aspirations in Computing 2012
One of the ways that one can help young women with an interest in computing and related fields is to provide recognition for the world they have already been doing. One of the great programs in this regard is the NCWIT Award…