Communications of the ACM
The blog archive provides access to past blog postings from Communications of the ACM and other sources by date.
September 2017
From The Eponymous Pickle
A Tensorflow Tutorial
Have now seen several tutorials, this one starts simply I will be following the other parts and give some commentary as I can. For a definition of TensorFlow, see how Google does it at their site:
.... TensorFlow™ is an open…
From insideHPC
Mapping the Brain with the Theta Supercomputer
Researchers are using the Theta supercomputer at Argonne to map the intricate layout of brain neurons. "The basic goal is simple — would like to be able to image all of the neurons in the brain — but the datasets from X-rays
…
From The Computing Community Consortium Blog
NSF WATCH TALK- The Science of Deep Specification
The next WATCH talk, called The Science of Deep Specification is Thursday, September 21st, from 12 PM-1 PM EST. The presenter is Benjamin Pierce, a Henry Salvatori Professor of Computer and Information Science at the University…
From The Eponymous Pickle
How China is doing Digital
Quite a good piece, with statistics of interest. Updated details here.
China’s digital economy: A leading global force
By Jonathan Woetzel, Jeongmin Seong, Kevin Wei Wang, James Manyika, Michael Chui, and Wendy Wong
China is already…
From Computational Complexity
Random Storm Thoughts
It's Monday as I write this post from home. Atlanta, for the first time ever, is in a tropical storm warning. Georgia Tech is closed today and tomorrow. I'm just waiting for the power to go out. But whatever will happen here
…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Kroger Tests Kitchen 1883 Restaurant Concept
Had seen this done on the west coast, apparently with some success. Gets more people to the physical site. Comfort food makes sense, with regional and ethnic contributions. How can this be best linked to the store?
The Kroger…
From insideHPC
Kubernetes Meets HPC
"While the notion of packaging a workload into a Docker container, publishing it to a registry, and submitting a YAML description of the workload is second nature to users of Kubernetes, this is foreign to most HPC users. An
…
From insideHPC
AI Breakthroughs and Initiatives at the Pittsburgh Supercomputing Center
Nick Nystrom and Paola Buitrago from PSC gave this talk at the HPC User Forum in Milwaukee. "The Bridges supercomputer at PSC offers the possibility for experts in fields that never before used supercomputers to tackle problems…
From insideHPC
New PGI 17.7 Release Supports NVIDIA Volta GPUs
Today NVIDIA released Version 17.7 of PGI 2017 Compilers and Tools, delivering improved performance and programming simplicity to HPC developers who target multicore CPUs and heterogeneous GPU-accelerated systems.
The post New…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Neato Maps Rooms
More cleaning, mapping. Other applications in the smart home?
By Evan Ackerman in IEEE Spectrum
The Neato D7 remembers the layout of your home, allowing it to recognize…
From Schneier on Security
Hacking Robots
Researchers have demonstrated hacks against robots, taking over and controlling their camera, speakers, and movements. News article....
From insideHPC
Intel® Parallel Studio XE 2018 Released
Intel has announced the release of Intel® Parallel Studio XE 2018, with updated compilers and developer tools. It is now available for downloading on a 30-day trial basis. " This week’s formal release of the fully supported product…
From Computer Science Teacher - Thoughts and Information From Alfred Thompson
Be a Router and Share Messages
The curriculum I am using for Advanced Placement Computer Science Principles is the excellent Code.Org curriculum. I really like the Internet Simulator that is involved in many of the early lesson in the Internet unit. It really…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Age of Digital Assistants
Not a bad view, but the longer term potential is greater than implied.
The Age of Digital Assistants – What and when to expect? By Shishir Kathurwar in CustomerThink
“ The better we get, the less time you spend talking,…
From The Computing Community Consortium Blog
NSF/CISE Launches Search Committee for Computing and Communication Foundations (CCF) Division Director
The following is a letter to the community from James Kurose, Assistant Director, and Erwin Gianchandani, Deputy Assistant Director, of the National Science Foundation (NSF) Directorate of Computer & Information Science & Engineering…
From insideHPC
IBM Simulates Chemistry with Quantum Computing
IBM scientists have developed a new approach to simulate molecules on a quantum computer that may one day help revolutionize chemistry and materials science. “Over the next few years, we anticipate IBM Q systems’ capabilities…
From Schneier on Security
On the Equifax Data Breach
Last Thursday, Equifax reported a data breach that affects 143 million US customers, about 44% of the population. It's an extremely serious breach; hackers got access to full names, Social Security numbers, birth dates, addresses…
From insideHPC
CPC Enhances Non-spill Quick Disconnects for Liquid Cooled HPC
As liquid cooling becomes more and more pervasive in HPC datacenters, the mitigation of leaks and spills is a growing concern. Enter CPC, a maker of quick disconnects (QDs) designed specifically for liquid cooling use. Today
…
From insideHPC
Benefits of Multi-rail Cluster Architectures for GPU-based Nodes
Craig Tierney from NVIDIA gave this talk at the MVAPICH User Group meeting. "As high performance computing moves toward GPU-accelerated architectures, single node application performance can be between 3x and 75x faster than
…
From insideHPC
Entering the Era of Simulation Driven Design
In this special guest feature, Robert Roe from Scientific Computing World reports from the European Altair Technology Conference and finds that simulation-driven design is taking center stage for the CAE industry. "Jim Scapa
…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Transitioning to Industrial AI
Some quite useful thoughts here, about work flow and production versus testing, retesting and retraining systems. Ultimately we learn this, but sometimes painfully. Not different from implementing any kind of analytics or solution…
From insideHPC
Video: Best Practices between HPC centers and Industrial Users
Bill Kramer from NCSA gave this talk at the HPC User Forum in Milwaukee. "NCSA and Hyperion Research released a new study that examines HPC and Industry partnerships. Aimed at identifying and understanding best practices in partnerships…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Waymo Training Cars
Inside Waymo's Secret World for Training Self-Driving Cars
An exclusive look at how Alphabet understands its most ambitious artificial intelligence project
Alexis C. Madrigal ....
From The Eponymous Pickle
Airbags for Robots (To protect the Humans they Work With)
From Idea Connection. Includes a video. Via Ideaconnection.
Airbags for Robots Protect Co-Workers
Inflatable airbags for robots could help to protect their fragile, human co-workers.
As robots begin to work more closely with…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Watson Analyzing Social Tone
Instructive Watson Example, via O'Reilly
How can I use IBM Watson to analyze the tone of social media posts?
Learn how to use IBM Watson's APIs and natural language understanding to analyze the tone of social media posts like tweets…
From Computer Science Teacher - Thoughts and Information From Alfred Thompson
NCWIT Aspirations in Computing 2018
Several of my students have applied for this award and all found it quite worthwhile.There are many benefits for students in high school and college. It’s really helpful for girls and young women to be recognized for their interests…
From Schneier on Security
Hacking Voice Assistant Systems with Inaudible Voice Commands
Turns out that all the major voice assistants -- Siri, Google Now, Samsung S Voice, Huawei HiVoice, Cortana and Alexa -- listen at audio frequencies the human ear can't hear. Hackers can hijack those systems with inaudible commands…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Apple on Virtual and Augmented Reality
Saw these presentations today. Relatively little was presented on AR and VR, except in the game space. But apparently it will be presented live in their visitor center. The iPhoneX seems to be built for it. But the content…
From insideHPC
Cavium Joins the OpenMP Effort for ThunderX2 Processor
Today the OpenMP ARB organization announced that Cavium has joined as a new member. "Cavium’s membership in the OpenMP ARB further highlights our strong belief in industry’s demand for parallel computing and the significance
…
From BLOG@CACM
Finding the World's Smallest Mechanical Parallel Calculator
Discovery of a 12-fold Curta in Britain.