Communications of the ACM
The blog archive provides access to past blog postings from Communications of the ACM and other sources by date.
September 2014
From The Eponymous Pickle
Sankey Diagrams in Google Charts
Notes on elements of advanced visualizations. Sankey diagrams including multilevel forms, are available in Google Charts. " ... A sankey diagram is a visualization used to depict a flow from one set of values to another. The…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Kroger Tests Customer Pick-Up
In the Local Paper: Extending their supply chain in a very natural way. Without the expense and complexity of delivery. What will the uptake be? Plan to try this service myself.
From U.S. Public Policy Committee of the ACM
The Food And Drug Administration Seeks Input On Medical Device Security
The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has announced a workshop on medical device cybersecurity for October 21 and 22 in Arlington, Virginia. Titled “Collaborative Approaches for Medical Device and Health Care Cybersecurity,”…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Common Language for Innovation
In Innovation Excellence: Interesting points about how to outline a common language for innovation. Like the idea, but implementing them in a cultural context can be tough.
From The Eponymous Pickle
Analytics Linked with Business Process Modeling
Re examining business process modeling (BPM) and in particular how it can connect with new methods of analytics and data sources. We used BPM extensively in the enterprise. And examined how it would link to intelligent, cognitive…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Humans and Automation
Good You Tube video: Humans Need not Apply. On the continued progress of automation, and what it means to jobs. It not only about replacing humans, it is also about making them much more efficient and extending that efficiency…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Is Your Content Compelling?
Could be quite valuable for a number of areas. This is being experimented with every day in advertising and online. The data to confirm or deny it is considerable. Have not read as yet. In Fastcocreate: " ... Riveted, …
From Gödel's Lost Letter and P=NP
Microsoft Closes SVC
Some additional thoughts Microsoft Research source Omer Reingold is a brilliant researcher, and now all can see that he is also a very classy and thoughtful person. As you all know by now, he and many others have suddenly lost…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Feature Engineering as the Basis of Analytics
Very good informal and non technical look at feature engineering. It is part of any analytic process, sometimes obvious, but also sometimes subtle. My definition: It's adjusting the data and decision problem you have to the…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Tweeting Code
To my still enthusiastic Wolfram network, a clever marketing idea. Not sure how practical. What I see are more clever than practical." ... With Tweet-a-Program, anyone can compose a tweet-length Wolfram Language program and…
From Computational Complexity
MikeFest
I rarely highlight individual events on the blog, but one's advisor only turns sixty once. We will honor Michael Sipser at MIT on Sunday, October 26 with a one-day symposium full of great speakers in complexity. As one of Sipser's…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Watson in the Organization
In the 90s, during the last rise in the use of artificial intelligence in business, we were also impressed with how the basic capabilities could improve and extend expertise. We built dozens of advisory systems that were. Management…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Cloaking Lenses
Ordinary lenses produce cloaking. Fascinating application that at one level is very easy to understand. Everyday applications?
From Schneier on Security
Friday Squid Blogging: Squid Fishing Moves North in California
Warmer waters are moving squid fishing up the California coast. As usual, you can also use this squid post to talk about the security stories in the news that I haven't covered....
From The Eponymous Pickle
Learning or Cloning
Cognitive requires learning. At very least an intelligent system needs to be updated as its context changes. There are many kinds of learning. Passive, active, statistical, inductive, example based … If I buy a book and putWhich…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Evolution of Computer Languages
In the CACM: A view of common computing languages. Interesting, but most likely for those that have used several. Non technical in that it deals with a view of the evolution of languages and their use. Includes video.
From Schneier on Security
Medical Records Theft and Fraud
There's a Reuters article on new types of fraud using stolen medical records. I don't know how much of this is real and how much is hype, but I'm certain that criminals are looking for new ways to monetize stolen data....
From The Eponymous Pickle
An Online Right to be Forgotten
In the New Yorker, a non technical, very readable article about the 'right to be forgotten' on the Internet, which is being exercised now in Europe. Examples and exploration of implications. The selective and accurate redaction…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Seeking Assumption Free Data Science
Steve Miller on 'Freak Data Science', where freak means roughly assumption-free, understandable and useful. Always like that approach, and he has much to say on the topic, like:" ... in agreement with this need to view data.…
From Computer Science Teachers Association
Teacher Collaboration
What do two college professors, two high school teachers and a pre-service teacher have in common? CSTA membership!
I spent several enjoyable weeks this summer working with a great group of CSTA members to create a set of POGIL…From The Computing Community Consortium Blog
James F. Kurose to head Computer & Information Science & Engineering Directorate
Dr. James F. Kurose, Distinguished University Professor in the Department of Computer Science at the University of Massachusetts (UMass), was named the next Assistant Director for Computer and Information Science and Engineering…
From The Eponymous Pickle
An Online Right to be Forgotten
In the New Yorker, a non technical, very readable article about the 'right to be forgotten' on the Internet, which is being exercised now in Europe. Examples and exploration of implications. The selective and accurate redaction…
From The Eponymous Pickle
UXMag and Psychology
Of interest, on psych and design, in user experience:" ... UX Magazine is a central, one-stop resource for everything related to user experience. We provide a steady stream of current, informative, and credible information about…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Tracking Data Use Online
From MIT, with possible use to understand data use and valuation. " ... Researchers in the Decentralized Information Group (DIG) at MIT’s Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory (CSAIL) believe the solution…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Computer Learning Neighborhoods from Images
An example of the ability to make a classification of an image by subtle attributes. Images are a form of unstructured data increasingly being found in large databases. Medical imagery is close behind. In Engadget. " ... Us…
From The Computing Community Consortium Blog
Secure, Trustworthy, Assured and Resilient Semiconductors and Systems (STARSS) Partnership
The National Science Foundation (NSF) and Semiconductor Research Corporation (SRC) announced nine research awards to 10 universities totaling nearly $4 million to develop Secure, Trustworthy, Assured, and Resilient Semiconductors…
From Schneier on Security
Security Trade-offs of Cloud Backup
This is a good essay on the security trade-offs with cloud backup: iCloud backups have not eliminated this problem, but they have made it far less common. This is, like almost everything in tech, a trade-off: Your data is far…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Cyber Security Lab Game
A laboratory for teaching online security concepts in the form of a simulation game. We created similar simulation games for teaching and option evaluation for in store sensor applications. Includes a basic introduction to computer…
From The Female Perspective of Computer Science
C++ and Java Together in CS2: Will it Be Great or a Disaster?
I've been trying something a little bit different for our CS2 class this semester. The course typically covers object-oriented programming in Java along with topics like recursion. In fact, students becoming proficient in Java…
From Schneier on Security
Nasty Vulnerability found in Bash
It's a big and nasty one. Invariably we're going to see articles pointing at this and at Heartbleed and claim a trend in vulnerabilities in open-source software. If anyone has any actual data other than two instances and the…