Communications of the ACM
The blog archive provides access to past blog postings from Communications of the ACM and other sources by date.
September 2023
From insideHPC
Former Google Cloud President Tariq Shaukat Joins Sonar as Co-CEO
AUSTIN and GENEVA – September 12, 2023 – Sonar, a Clean Code solution provider, announced that Tariq Shaukat has joined the company as co-CEO and a member of the Board of Directors. The company said Shaukat will lead the company…
From insideHPC
Enfabrica Raises $125M Series B for AI Infrastructure Networking Chips
MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif. – Sept. 12, 2023 – Enfabrica Corporation, a startup building converged networking and memory fabric silicon and software for AI and accelerated computing workloads, today announced its close of a $125 million…
From BLOG@CACM
Can LLMs Really Reason and Plan?
Nothing in the training and use of LLMs would seem to suggest remotely that they can do any type of principled reasoning.
From Schneier on Security
Cars Have Terrible Data Privacy
A new Mozilla Foundation report concludes that cars, all of them, have terrible data privacy.
All 25 car brands we researched earned our *Privacy Not Included warning label—making cars the official worst category of products …From Computer Science Teacher - Thoughts and Information From Alfred Thompson
Reimagining CS Pathways: High School and Beyond
This looks like a great opportunity to make a difference in CS education.
We are seeking community involvement in a new project called Reimagining CS Pathways: High School and Beyond, led by CSTA, CSEdResearch.org, ACM, Code.org…From insideHPC
Dr. Ceren Susut Named DOE ASCR Associate Director of Science
Dr. Ceren Susut has been named associate director (AD) of Science for Advanced Scientific Computing Research (ASCR) in the Department of Energy Office of Science (SC). Dr. Susut has served in ASCR for more than 12 years as a
…
From insideHPC
HPC News Bytes 20230911: NVIDIA LLM Inferencing; Honeywell and Quantinuum; TSMC in Silicon Photonics; Microsoft Copilot AI Indemnification
As we reflect on the events of 9/11/2001 (it's still living hell no matter how long ago it happened), let’s quickly (4:52) review last week's HPC news highlights, including: NVIDIA TensorRT-LLM for faster AI inferencing; Honeywell…
From BLOG@CACM
The Confounding Saga of Java Web Application Development
Something that has long frustrated me with the Java ecosystem was the number of Web application frameworks.
From Schneier on Security
On Robots Killing People
The robot revolution began long ago, and so did the killing. One day in 1979, a robot at a Ford Motor Company casting plant malfunctioned—human workers determined that it was not going fast enough. And so twenty-five-year-old…
From Computational Complexity
Asymptotics of R(4,k)- a new result!
At the workshop
Ramsey Theory: Yesterday, Today, and Tomorrow, Edited by Alexander Soifer, 2011. (There is a printed proceedings that you can find.)
I saw Joel Spencer give a great talk titled
…From Putting People First
[Book] Sustainable Innovation
![[Book] Sustainable Innovation](/system/assets/0000/1953/030209_Vanderbeeken_Mark_250.small_square.jpg?1476779420&1260281963)
This book by Experientia president Michele Visciola puts forward a new paradigm to understand and implement Sustainable Innovation (SI). Innovation without sustainability leaves out large swathes of the population or generates…
From insideHPC
At the HPC User Forum: 2 Full Days in Tucson of HPC and AI
This week saw HPC industry analyst firm Hyperion Research host the HPC User Forum, a supercomputing conference with an end-user emphasis held four times a year (two in the U.S. and two internationally) offering two intensive
…
From Schneier on Security
Friday Squid Blogging: Glass Squid Video
Here’s a fantastic video of Taonius Borealis, a glass squid, from NOAA.
As usual, you can also use this squid post to talk about the security stories in the news that I haven’t covered.
Read my blog posting guidelines here.
From insideHPC
Quantum Internet Alliance Launches Quantum Internet Application Challenge
DELFT, THE NETHERLANDS—The Quantum Internet Alliance (QIA) has announced the launch of its first ever Quantum Internet Application Challenge, an initiative encouraging quantum enthusiasts to take part in shaping the future of…
From Schneier on Security
LLMs and Tool Use
Last March, just two weeks after GPT-4 was released, researchers at Microsoft quietly announced a plan to compile millions of APIs—tools that can do everything from ordering a pizza to solving physics equations to controlling…
From insideHPC
atNorth Shortlisted for 14th Annual Energy Awards
Reykjavík, Iceland – September 6th, 2023 – atNorth, a Nordic colocation, high-performance computing, and artificial intelligence service provider, today announced that its Sweden data center is on the shortlist for the ‘Physical…
From insideHPC
DE-CIX and DCX Partner to Power AI and HPC
Phoenix – September 07, 2023 – DE-CIX, an Internet Exchange (IX) operator and home to a carrier and data center-neutral interconnection ecosystem, announced its partnership with DCX.us Data Center, a provider of managed hyper…
From The Computing Community Consortium Blog
Applications Now Open: 2024 Jefferson Science Fellowships
The National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine is pleased to announce a call for applications for the 2024 Jefferson Science Fellowships (JSF). Established by the Secretary of State in 2003, these fellowships serve…
From Schneier on Security
The Hacker Tool to Get Personal Data from Credit Bureaus
The new site 404 Media has a good article on how hackers are cheaply getting personal information from credit bureaus:
This is the result of a secret weapon criminals are selling access to online that appears to tap into an especially…From Gödel's Lost Letter and P=NP
Happy Birthday 77
With brief musings on AI and the blog Richard Lipton has turned 77 today. He and Kathryn are back in Manhattan after spending much of the summer in Harbor Springs, Michigan. The original for the photo at right was taken from…
From BLOG@CACM
Ethics and Equity in AI for Collaborative Learning
In designing collaborative learning, design AI features using realistic examples of students’ learning; support teachers' awareness; develop students' sense of belonging.
From insideHPC
Gen AI Chip Startup d-Matrix Announces $110M in Series B Funding
Santa Clara, Calif. – September 6, 2023 – Gerative AI chip startup d-Matrix has closed $110 million in a Series-B funding round led by Singapore-based global investment firm Temasek. The goal of the fundraise is to enable d-Matrix…
From insideHPC
Quantum Software Company Classiq Expands to Boston
Sept. 6, 2023 — Quantum computing software company Classiq Technologies today announced its expansion into the Boston area and the relocation of Shai Lev, vice president of strategic partnerships, to lead the company in North…
From Computational Complexity
Books to Inspire Math
Two of my colleagues and co-authors from my early days at the University of Chicago have released books over the past few months designed to excite people with math, Howard Karloff's Mathematical Thinking: Why Everyone Should…
From insideHPC
Panasas Appoints Ken Claffey CEO, Shea to Remain as COO
SAN JOSE, September 6, 2023 – High performance data storage vendor Panasas has announced that Ken Claffey, former SVP/GM of Enterprise Systems at Seage Technology, has been named CEO. Claffey replaces Tom Shea, who will remain…
From insideHPC
Open Source Hardware Startup Arduino Announces $22M in Series B Funding, Arm Participates in Round
LUGANO, Switzerland—Sept. 6, 2023— Open source hardware company Arduino today announced the closing of an additional $22 million in funding for a total of $54 million in Series B financing. The expansion was co-led by CDP Venture…
From Schneier on Security
Cryptocurrency Startup Loses Encryption Key for Electronic Wallet
The cryptocurrency fintech startup Prime Trust lost the encryption key to its hardware wallet—and the recovery key—and therefore $38.9 million. It is now in bankruptcy.
I can’t understand why anyone thinks these technologies…From Schneier on Security
Inconsistencies in the Common Vulnerability Scoring System (CVSS)
Interesting research:
Shedding Light on CVSS Scoring Inconsistencies: A User-Centric Study on Evaluating Widespread Security Vulnerabilities
Abstract: The Common Vulnerability Scoring System (CVSS) is a popular method for evaluating…From CS4FN (Computer Science For Fun)
“The Truth About AI” – get ready to get tickets to the Ri Christmas Lectures 2023 #XmasLectures with @Ri_Science
The ballot for this year's AI-themed Ri Christmas lectures opens on 14 Sep, but there are other ways to see the lectures live, or later when broadcast.
From Computational Complexity
The CONTRADICTION of Margaritaville and other songs
Jimmy Buffett passed away on Sept 2, 2023. His Wikipedia entry (see here) says his death was peaceful and he was surrounded by friends, family, and his dog, so it was likely expected and of natural causes. I later saw a report…