Communications of the ACM
The blog archive provides access to past blog postings from Communications of the ACM and other sources by date.
January 2021
From Computational Complexity
Grading policies during Covid-No easy answers
Because of COVID (my spellecheck says covid and Covid are not works, but COVID is) various schools have done various things to make school less traumatic. Students already have problems, either getting COVID or having their…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Descriptive Analytics
Always been a fan of the idea, of descriptive analytics, an excellent predecessor to more complex work as needed. . Here an overview of its value.
The Value of Descriptive Analytics: Evidence from Online Retailers by Ron …From The Eponymous Pickle
Expansion of Amazon Ring Network
The Verge reports on the considerable linking of Ring devices with police and fire departments. Have had one installed since they emerged. As usual the privacy fanatics assume that this can be abused, and thus is inherently…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Whats a Transformer?
A major advance in NLP capabilities? Venturebeat does a good job of explaining and suggesting this will be one of the major AI advances of the year. Essentially as I see it a library and model that supports better conversation…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Printing Bone with Living Cells
Considerable idea.
Scientists Use Novel Ink to 3D-Print 'Bone' With Living Cells, By University of New South Wales (Australia), January 27, 2021
New South Wales Sydney may allow surgeons to use three-dimensional printing…From The Eponymous Pickle
Microsoft's Quantum Chip
Microsoft moves forward in quantum chip research.
Microsoft’s new quantum chip could help control thousands of qubits in Digital Trends by Luke Dormeh
Microsoft doesn’t just make Windows and Surface tablets — it’s also doing…From The Eponymous Pickle
See Who is Watching with Crowdsourced Maps
Clever idea, but how will it decrease the power of surveillance?
Crowdsourced Maps Will Show Exactly Where Surveillance Cameras Are Watching
Fast Company, Mark Sullivan, January 26, 2021
Human rights organization Amnesty International…From The Eponymous Pickle
Detecting Flu-Like Illness with Behavior
Quite a considerable idea, depending on accuracy. It appears the data from is anonymous and thus private, Similar to a proposal we outlined, never implemented, which aimed to determined the 'mode' (searching, seeking, examining…
From The Eponymous Pickle
BMW Aims to Manufacture with Quantum
BMW looking at nimbler process control for manufacturing. Embedded is a prediction for use within the next two years.
BMW Takes First Steps Into Quantum Computing Revolution
CNet, Stephen Shankland, January 27, 2021
BMW is using…From The Eponymous Pickle
Smart Manufacturing - AI OS for Industry 4.0
Putting all the pieces together for Industry 4.0
Smart Manufacturing Startup Builds AI OS for Industry 4.0 in NAnalyze
Smart manufacturing. Industry 4.0. Smart factories. Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT). Manufacturing on…From The Eponymous Pickle
The Value of Constraints for Creativity
Even if you don't embed them formally, we found, as in an optimization. It states the walls to bounce off of. Note the use of 'some' in the statement, which then requests the next word: which?
The Role of Constraints in Creative…From Gödel's Lost Letter and P=NP
Alan Selman, 1941–2021
Keeping a promise to structure the field of complexity 2017 Who’s Who award Alan Selman, my longtime friend and colleague, passed away last Friday, from the one illness that is most cruel for someone who has excelled by brainpower…
From insideHPC
PSSC Labs Announces PowerServe Uniti HGX for AI
Lake Forest, CA – PSSC Labs, a developer of artificial intelligence (AI), high performance computing (HPC) and big data computing solutions, today announced the launch of PowerServe Uniti HGX, the newest product in their AI/HPC…
From The Eponymous Pickle
AI to Understand Consciuous of a 'Theory of Mind'
We read much on 'Theory of mind', as it related to things like intelligent undertanding and 'consciousness'. Could this leverage us into better definitions and uses of consciousness in context?
New MIT brain research shows how…From The Eponymous Pickle
UsIng AI to Work with Regulations
Consider possible use as 'Contract-Digital-Twin' (my term) to determine how it might simulate the application of regulations in varying contexts. A smart contract of sorts. Thoughts?
Researchers use AI to help businesses…From Schneier on Security
Including Hackers in NATO Wargames
This essay makes the point that actual computer hackers would be a useful addition to NATO wargames:
The international information security community is filled with smart people who are not in a military structure, many of whom…From The Eponymous Pickle
Best practices in design conversational AI in integration with Business Software
Good thoughts here regards linking business software to Conversational AI. Intro below:
Further thoughts on integrating business process and Conversational AI. Examining for a particular application. I like the implication…From Daniel Lemire's Blog
Number Parsing at a Gigabyte per Second
Computers typically rely on binary floating-point numbers. Most often they span 64 bits or 32 bits. Many programming languages call them double and float. JavaScript represents all its numbers, by default, with a 64-bit binary…
From insideHPC
DOE Office of Science Workshop: Mapping Brain Circuitry at Scale
Jan. 29, 2021 – The National Institute of Health BRAIN Initiative and the Department of Energy’s Office of Science will hold virtual workshops in February and March exploring brain connectivity. Generating complete maps of mammalian…
From Gödel's Lost Letter and P=NP
Happy Un-Birthday Rich
Still going strong Richard DeMillo just turned 74 years old the other day. Happy Birthday Rich, and many more. Today I want to wish him also a happy un-birthday. Recall an un-birthday is celebrated on any day that is not your…
From Schneier on Security
New iMessage Security Features
Apple has added added security features to mitigate the risk of zero-click iMessage attacks.
Apple did not document the changes but Groß said he fiddled around with the newest iOS 14 and found that Apple shipped a “significant…From The Eponymous Pickle
On the Satellite Crowd
A discussion of the crowding of satellites, mentioned here a number of times before. The crowd needs to be much better managed.
Thousands More Satellites Will Soon Orbit Earth—We Need Better Rules to Prevent Space Crashes …From insideHPC
SK hynix MOU with Dalian, China, on Acquisition of Intel Fab for Supporting Chinese IT Industry
Dalian, China – Seoul, Korea – Jan. 29, 2021 – SK hynix Inc. (or ‘the Company’, www.skhynix.com) today signed a memorandum of understanding (“MOU”) with the Dalian Municipal People’s Government of China and the Administrative…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Multiple value Slots for Improved Dialog
Reported in Amazon Developer, Dialog is the thing.
Now Available: Use Multi-Value Slots to build more Natural conversations
Karthik Ragubathy Jan 19, 2021
Share: CLI Dialog Management
Today we are excited to announce the general…From insideHPC
UberCloud and GNS Systems in Strategic Partnership for Cloud-HPC-as-a-Service
Braunschweig, Germany and Los Altos, California – January 25, 2021 – GNS Systems GmbH and The UberCloud Inc. are pleased to announce they have entered into a strategic partnership, combining GNS HPC integration and consulting…
From insideHPC
Things to Know When Assessing, Piloting, and Deploying GPUs – Part 2
In this insideHPC Guide, our friends over at WEKA suggest that when organizations decide to move existing applications or new applications to a GPU-influenced system there are many items to consider, such as assessing the new…
From insideHPC
Kim Budil Named 1st Woman Director of LLNL
Kim Budil has been named director of Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL). Charlene Zettel, chair of Lawrence Livermore National Security, LLC (LLNS), which manages the laboratory for the Department of Energy’s (DOE)…
From insideHPC
For Exascale Systems and Beyond: DOE Funds $12M for Adapting Software for Next-Gen Supercomputers
The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) today announced plans to provide up to $12 million for research aimed at adapting scientific software to run on next-generation of supercomputers. DOE said applications will be open to DOE
…
From The Computing Community Consortium Blog
Nominations Sought for New CCC Council Members
The Computing Community Consortium (CCC) is charged with catalyzing and empowering the U.S. computing research community to articulate and advance major research directions for the field. Established in 2006 through a cooperative…
From insideHPC
observIQ’s Stanza Log Agent Now Part of OpenTelemetry Project
January 28, 2021 — observIQ, a provider of next-generation observability solutions for ITOps and DevOps teams, today announced that its open source log agent Stanza is part of the OpenTelemetry Project as the key component for…