Communications of the ACM
The blog archive provides access to past blog postings from Communications of the ACM and other sources by date.
September 2013
From Gödel's Lost Letter and P=NP
Littlewood’s Law
Why it may take a ‘miracle’ to catch some cheaters source, where he’s right after Charles Dickens John Littlewood really existed. He appeared as second author on so many papers with Godfrey Hardy that some believed him to be…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Nestle Uses Photo App
In Mobile Marketer: A cute use of photo-taking in a smartphone to build brands. A simple but a potentially useful idea. Will it usefully engage? Who will download it without real value? Have the motivations been mapped. …
From The Eponymous Pickle
Hands Free Car Manual on Google Glass
Metaio's press release on their prototype augmented reality car manual, mentioned here before. I note that this was precisely the area we explored, using 3D location to be able to do machine maintenance, by overlaying diagrams…
From The Computing Community Consortium Blog
NSF Announces Two New Expeditions in Computing Awards
The National Science Foundation’s (NSF) Directorate for Computer and Information Science and Engineering (CISE) today announced two new Expeditions in Computing awards, providing each selected project team $10 million in funding…
From Computer Science Teacher - Thoughts and Information From Alfred Thompson
Thinking About the 2014 Imagine Cup
One of the things I was responsible for while I was working at Microsoft was promoting the Imagine Cup competitions. I did that pretty well. I like the competition and think that is is generally a good thing. Now I am back in…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Your E-ZPasses are Not Just Read At Tollbooths
In Forbes: Are privacy conditions implied to just occur at locations where we expect a device to read our location? This is probably disclosed somewhere deep in the signed agreement with E-ZPass tollbooth charging system.…
From Daniel Lemire's Blog
What do computer scientists know about performance?
Scientists make predictions and are judged on these predictions. If you study global warming, then your job is to predict the climate for the next few decades. But what do computer scientists predict with respect to performance…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Why Private Brands Fail
In MypBrands: Why private brands fail. " ... Most brands fail. In fact, some estimate that 70-80% of new brands launched each year flounder and eventually flop. But do Private Brands fail? Do they follow the same sobering failure…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Value of Your Big Data and Packaging it
What is the value of your big data? Have talked to two startups recently that are addressing that. The promise of big data is to be able to leverage your own data with analytics, but also package and sell it for the use of others…
From Schneier on Security
The Limitations of Intelligence
We recently learned that US intelligence agencies had at least three days' warning that Syrian President Bashar al-Assad was preparing to launch a chemical attack on his own people, but wasn't able to stop it. At least that's…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Prosperity Institute
The Prosperity Institute, out of the Rottman School at the University of Toronto. Via Roger Martin. I like the interesting geographic focus. " ... The Lloyd & Delphine Martin Prosperity Institute is the world’s leading think…
From U.S. Public Policy Committee of the ACM
Cybersecurity Framework Now At Discussion Draft Stage
While cybersecurity legislation slowly inches forward in Congress, the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) is moving faster in implementing its responsibilities under the recent Executive Order on cybersecurity…
From Computational Complexity
Did YOU think the NSA could factor fast?
Before the recent revelations about the NSA (see Lances Post and Scott's post )I would tell my class, when teaching P and NP, We have very good reasons to think that Factoring is NOT NP-complete. As for P--- much murkier. People…
From The Eponymous Pickle
VisiRule: Sharable Know How
I am repeating part of a post from last year below, based on my reexamination of expert systems style applications:" ... expert systems to understand and improve complex business processes. I have mentioned a package calledtheir…
From Schneier on Security
Surreptitiously Tampering with Computer Chips
This is really interesting research: "Stealthy Dopant-Level Hardware Trojans." Basically, you can tamper with a logic gate to be either stuck-on or stuck-off by changing the doping of one transistor. This sort of sabotage will…
From Schneier on Security
Tom Tomorrow from 1994
This was published during the battle about the Clipper Chip, and is remarkably prescient.
From The Eponymous Pickle
Tiny Robotic Recon Drones in Industry
The grist of many a science fiction story, tiny flying robotics that can capture information. Studied these for information capture tasks in remote plant and warehouse locations. While that was fantasy just a few years ago,Reuters…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Apple Indoor GPS System
A general description, and praise for their indoor location system plan. I was heavily involved in these kinds of approaches for retail use and tested several in our labs. Though have not yet closely looked at this plan" .…
From The Eponymous Pickle
When Core Values are Strategic
Received via the P&G Alumni Network, to be read, their description below.When Core Values Are Strategic: How the Basic Values of Procter & Gamble Transformed Leadership at Fortune 500 Companies Hardcover by Rick Tocquigny" ..…
From Daniel Lemire's Blog
To solve hard problems, you need to use bricolage
People who think that they can design efficient solutions in the abstract, effectively believe in Oracles. That is, they somehow believe that from their desk, and using only their mind, they can anticipate all the implementation…
From U.S. Public Policy Committee of the ACM
Hill Tech Happenings, Week of September 16
September 18 Markup: The Cybersecurity, Infrastructure Protection and Security Technologies Subcommittee of the House Homeland Security Committee will review two bills related to cybersecurity. September 19 Hearing: The Senate…
From Putting People First
Experientia and Intel present at EPIC 2013 in London
EPIC 2013, the conference on “ethnographic praxis in industry”, kicked off in London today, with experts from around the world gathering for the three-day conference exploring ethnographic investigations and principles in the…
From Schneier on Security
Reforming the NSA
Leaks from the whistleblower Edward Snowden have catapulted the NSA into newspaper headlines and demonstrated that it has become one of the most powerful government agencies in the country. From the secret court rulings that …
From Computer Science Teacher - Thoughts and Information From Alfred Thompson
Interesting Links 16 September 2013
Well I was able to blog more often last week. Paying a bit for it as I had a ton of grading to do over the weekend. When inspiration (or something that feels like it) strikes I blog. Grading is less fun though more important.…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Retailers and Private Label Packaging
In Foodprocessing: " ... As retailers put more emphasis on private-label products, they are relying on packaging that sets their merchandise apart, instead of mimicking national brands. Target, for example, has created an identity…
From Schneier on Security
Take Back the Internet
Government and industry have betrayed the Internet, and us.
By subverting the Internet at every level to make it a vast, multi-layered and robust surveillance platform, the NSA has undermined a fundamental social contract. The…From The Eponymous Pickle
Food Inflation in US
A piece by MJ Perry on Food Inflation and Prices in the US. Inflation in food has been down considerably since the 70s. Further instructive statistics about food as a portion of expenditure.
From Computer Science Teacher - Thoughts and Information From Alfred Thompson
Women in Computing–An Image To Think About
Picture from the Facebook page of www.ilovesmartwomen.com
From The Eponymous Pickle
Army Visualization
The US army / SAIC is using Tableau for Data visualization. This appears to be a descriptive visualization, as opposed to an analytic example " ... "We have all this equipment that has accumulated over all those operations…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Project10X: Semantic Research
Brought to my attention. Semantic analysis work is always of interest. " .... Mills Davis is founder and managing director of Project10X — a research consultancy specializing in next wave semantic technologies and solutions.…