Communications of the ACM
The blog archive provides access to past blog postings from Communications of the ACM and other sources by date.
September 2020
From The Eponymous Pickle
Computational Models Help Translate Drugs From Animal Studies
Could be a considerable development. We need better drug development methods now. And expect considerable pushback here too.
Computational Model Could Improve Success in Translating Drugs From Animal Studies to Humans
Purdue…
From insideHPC
Rescale Announces Appointments to its Executive Ranks
San Francisco, Sept. 10, 2020 — Rescale Inc., the leader in enterprise big compute, today announced the appointment of two new senior executives, underscoring the company’s commitment to accelerate global science and engineering…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Upcoming Talk: How Will the AI Genie Behave?
Upcoming sponsored by UC, online talk.
You are all cordially invited to the following 29th Arnoff-Schloss lecture, which will be on Zoom on Friday, September 18th, 2020, from 3:30PM to 4:30PM. Please register at https://us02web…
From Computational Complexity
When are both x^2+3y and y^2+3y both squares, and a more general question
In my last post (see here) I asked two math questions. In this post I discuss one of them. (I will discuss the other one later, probably Monday Sept 14.)
For which positive naturals x,y are x^2+3y and y^2+3x both squares?
From insideHPC
Intelligent Fabrics for the Next Wave of AI Innovation
In this sponsored post, our friend John Spiers, Chief Strategy Officer at Liqid, discusses how resource utilization and the soaring costs surrounding it are a constant push and pull issue for IT Departments. Now with the emergence…
From Putting People First
[Book] The Innovation Delusion
![[Book] The Innovation Delusion](/system/assets/0000/1953/030209_Vanderbeeken_Mark_250.small_square.jpg?1476779420&1260281963)
The authors offer a compelling plan for how we can shift our focus away from the pursuit of growth at all costs, and back toward neglected activities like maintenance, care, and upkeep.
From Putting People First
[Book] Slow computing
Slow Computing: Why We Need Balanced Digital Livesby Rob Kitchin and Alistair FraserBristol University PressSeptember 2020 – 224 pages Digital technologies should be making life easier. And to a large degree they are, transforming…
From The Eponymous Pickle
IFTTT Pro Announced
Just received today, always liked IFTTT, used it some, the advances look interesting
Today we’re launching IFTTT Pro, https://ifttt.com/pro a subscription designed to help you build advanced Applets that go way beyond IF THIS…
From insideHPC
Videos, Slides from MUG ’20 Now Available
The MVAPICH User Group Meeting (MUG ’20), built around an implementation of the MPI standard developed by Ohio State University, has posted videos and slides from presentations on a variety of topics at its recent annual conference…
From insideHPC
Quantum Makes LTO-9 Tape Drives Available for Scalar Tape Libraries
SAN JOSE — Sept. 9, 2020 — Quantum Corp. (NASDAQ: QMCO), a global leader in unstructured data and video solutions, today announced that LTO Ultrium format generation 9 technology will be available in its Scalar i6 and Scalar …
From insideHPC
Woman-led Team to Research Human-AI Collaboration in U.S. Army Intelligence Work
The Army Research Office is funding a $617,000 grant for a multi-institutional, majority-female research team for technology-enhanced intelligence analysis led by Dr. Susannah B.F. Paletz, research professor at the University…
From ACM-W supporting, celebrating and advocating for Women in Computing
ACM-W Leadership Vision
Wednesday, August 26 at 3:00 PM ET/12:00 PM PT, featuring Jodi Tims, Reyyan Ayfer, Amelia Cole, and Bushra Anjum [video]
From The Computing Community Consortium Blog
Robotics Roadmap for US Robotics: From Internet to Robotics, 2020 Edition
In 2009, the Computing Community Consortium (CCC) published A Roadmap for US Robotics, From Internet to Robotics (a.k.a. the Robotics Roadmap), which explored the capacity of robotics to act as a key economic enabler, specifically…
From Schneier on Security
How the FIN7 Cybercrime Gang Operates
The Grugq has written an excellent essay on how the Russian cybercriminal gang FIN7 operates. An excerpt:
The secret of FIN7’s success is their operational art of cyber crime. They managed their resources and operations effectively…From Schneier on Security
Privacy Analysis of Ambient Light Sensors
Interesting privacy analysis of the Ambient Light Sensor API. And a blog post. Especially note the “Lessons Learned” section.
From Schneier on Security
Interesting Attack on the EMV Smartcard Payment Standard
It’s complicated, but it’s basically a man-in-the-middle attack that involves two smartphones. The first phone reads the actual smartcard, and then forwards the required information to a second phone. That second phone actually…
From The Eponymous Pickle
GPT-3 Generates an Article for the Guardian
Much broiling about the ability of 'AI' do human kinds of tasks. OpenAI has made claims for its language generator GPT-3. How well does it do? The Guardian put it to the test. Excerpt below, more at the link.
A robot wrote…
From ACM-W supporting, celebrating and advocating for Women in Computing
New from ACM-W Europe
Why is diversity seemingly an NP-Hard Problem? Why can we not simplify the issue and just fix it?
From ACM-W supporting, celebrating and advocating for Women in Computing
ACM-W Scholarship for Attendance of Research Conferences program
We also pleased to announce the award granted in the last round of discussions.
From The Eponymous Pickle
Turn Your Echo into a Phone
Been placing calls via Alexa for some time, this seems to close the loop. This seems to open the loop for new kinds of skills that direct, handle, record, manage incoming calls. A little like Google Duplex? New abilities
From Schneier on Security
Ranking National Cyber Power
Harvard Kennedy School’s Belfer Center published the “National Cyber Power Index 2020: Methodology and Analytical Considerations.”
The rankings:
- US
- China
- UK
- Russia
- Netherlands
- France
- Germany
- Canada
- Japan
- Australia
From The Eponymous Pickle
Considering the use of Falsification in Science
Here a link to an Opinion piece in the SciAM. Worth a read along with responses. Thinking this and its implications broadly for establishment and testing, and use of science.
The Idea That a Scientific Theory Can Be ‘Falsified…
From Schneier on Security
The Third Edition of Ross Anderson’s Security Engineering
Ross Anderson’s fantastic textbook, Security Engineering, will have a third edition. The book won’t be published until December, but Ross has been making drafts of the chapters available online as he finishes them. Now that the…
From The Eponymous Pickle
NASA Patents a Way to get to the Moon
NASA patents a faster, cheaper way to get to the moon. US10696423B1 Will this speed the move to colonizing the moon. Details and patent at link below.
Method for transferring a spacecraft from geosynchronous transfer orbit…
From insideHPC
Video: GigaIO on Optimizing Compute Resources for ML, HPDA and other Advanced Workloads
In this interview, GigaIO CEO Alan Benjamin talks about systems performance problems and wasted compute resources when implementing ML, HPDA and other high demand workloads that involve high data volumes. At issue, Benjamin explains…
From The Eponymous Pickle
New Solar Tech Emergent
How good and how soon is still unclear.
Solar Closing in on "Practical" Hydrogen Production
Researchers develop a solar tech that splits water into hydrogen and oxygen with record efficiency
By Mark Anderson in IEEE
Israeli and…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Talk: From a Physics Experiment to a Quantum Network System
Access to the below talk is now open:
Thank you for attending Quantum Networks: From a Physics Experiment to a Quantum Network System. This webcast is now on-demand, should you like to view it again.
Use the link below to enter…
From Schneier on Security
US Space Cybersecurity Directive
The Trump Administration just published “Space Policy Directive – 5“: “Cybersecurity Principles for Space Systems.” It’s pretty general:
Principles. (a) Space systems and their supporting infrastructure, including software, should…From insideHPC
Insilico Medicine AI-powered COVIDomic for COVID-19 Research
Santa Clara, CA – Insilico Medicine, a leader in artificial intelligence for drug discovery and development, announced the launch of a system for COVID-19 basic and clinical research. COVIDomic is a foundational technology that…
From insideHPC
NSF awards $696K for Jetstream Project Year 6
Bloomington, IN — The Pervasive Technology Institute at Indiana University has been awarded nearly $700,000 from the National Science Foundation to fund the Jetstream cloud computing system’s sixth project year. This brings the…