Communications of the ACM
The blog archive provides access to past blog postings from Communications of the ACM and other sources by date.
October 2011
From The Noisy Channel
RecSys 2011 Tutorial: Recommendations as a Conversation with the User
Last week, I had the privilege to present a tutorial at the 5th ACM International Conference on Recommender Systems (RecSys 2011). Given my passion for HCIR and my advocacy for transparency in recommender systems, it shouldn’t…
From Computer Science Teachers Association
Getting Ready for CS Ed Week
CS Ed Week is just around the corner, December 4 through 10, and now is the time to prepare for this week in celebration of Computer Science education and the impact of computing. I am serving on the CS Ed Week outreach committee…
From U.S. Public Policy Committee of the ACM
Hill Tech Happenings, Week of October 31
November 3 Hearing: The Research and Science Education Subcommittee of the House Science, Space and Technology Committee will hold a hearing on STEM (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics) education and employment…
From Schneier on Security
Cell Phone Surveillance System
I was not surprised that police forces are buying this system, but at its capabilities.
Britain's largest police force is operating covert surveillance technology that can masquerade as a mobile phone network, transmitting a…From Michael Nielsen
Book tour
Click through for event details. I’ve included a few private events at organizations where it’s possible some readers work. The Tech Museum (Bay Area) November 1 Harvard Book Store / Cambridge Forum (Boston) November 9 Authors…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Neuromarketing Still Raises Questions
Good thoughts in the AdAge Blog: Which pushes the Neurostandards Collaboration Project. Only some 20% of advertising succeeds. Everyone wants to understand non conscious interactions with the message, but there are still lots…
From Wild WebMink
? Eddi Reader this Thursday
I just picked up tickets to go see Eddi Reader in Southampton this Thursday, November 3rd. You may remember her as the heart of the band Fairground Attraction back in the 80s, perhaps with their best known single “Perfect” as…
From The Eponymous Pickle
George Dyson on Innovation and Decisions
Walter Riker sends along a link. An interview with technology historian and philospher George Dyson on evolution and innovation. " ... Dyson: I think that we are generally not very good at making decisions. Mostly, things just…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Have an Augmented Sundae at McDonalds
In the Junaio blog: The use of augmented reality on a smartphone for merchandising in fast food. " ... McDonald
From Michael Nielsen
(Some) garbage in, gold out
During a recent talk David Weinberger asked me (paraphrasing) whether and how the nature of scientific knowledge will change when it’s produced by large networked collaborations? It’s a great question. Suppose it’s announced…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Business Intelligence and Social Networking
New models using social networking. In Information Management. While I agree that social netoworking can be useful in delivering and managing BI work, I think there is still much to do in first finding and developing models…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Designing Drugs with Augmented Reality
From Fastcodesign: How 3-D Printing And Augmented Reality Can Help Design Better Drugs. Clever idea, The idea of using the third dimension to augment design has been common for many years. Leveraging it well for very complex…
From Computational Complexity
The Digital Random Bit Generator
I started this month asking about the nature of randomness and how we generate it for our computers. Let me end the month talking about Intel's clever new digital approach to creating random bits. Intel chips used to have an…
From Schneier on Security
Another ATM Theft Tactic
This brazen tactic is from Malaysia. Robbers sabotage the machines, and then report the damage to the bank. When the banks send repair technicians to open and repair the machines, the robbers take the money at gunpoint.
It's…From The Computing Community Consortium Blog
Pinpointing Anomalies in Complex Financial Data
Researchers at the Department of Energy’s Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL)
From Computer Science Teacher - Thoughts and Information From Alfred Thompson
Interesting Links Post 31 October 2011
Busy week last week. You may have read about my two days in Atlantic City (Kinect-ing at the NJSBA Annual Workshop). Real work. Enjoyable work but none the less it was work. Friday I visited a career technical high school, Upper…
From Computer Science Teacher - Thoughts and Information From Alfred Thompson
Interesting Links Post 31 October 2011
Busy week last week. You may have read about my two days in Atlantic City (Kinect-ing at the NJSBA Annual Workshop). Real work. Enjoyable work but none the less it was work. Friday I visited a career technical high school, Upper…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Breakthrough Innovations in Technology
Fairly well known. A good reminder of some hot areas. In particular the medical records area.
From The Eponymous Pickle
Royal Society Opens Archives
Just announced. " .... The Royal Society has today announced that its world-famous historical journal archive
From The Eponymous Pickle
SIRI vs Clippy
I remember taking a close look at Microsoft's Clippy assistant interface as a replacement for some kinds of software support. It actually did a fairly good job. It used Bayesian techniques to determine the context of a need…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Decision Support
It is really all about decision support. Beyond that it is about decision process improvement. " ... We struggle with questions on supporting decisions, yet what most of the BI industry offers is data, big data, fast dataSome…
From Michael Nielsen
Open Access: A Short Summary
I wrote the following essay for one of my favourite online forums, Hacker News, which over the past few months has seen more and more discussion of the issue of open access to scientific publication. This is a repost, original…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Strategic Planning Smothers Innovation
In Innovation Excellence: A well put caution, it can hamper innovation, but I think there is still value in using strategic planning as an infrastructure for innovation.
From The Eponymous Pickle
Simulating the Brain
An interesting suggestion that IBM can now simulate 4.5% of the human brain. It is always dangerous to compare brains and computing machines. Still not a simulation of the actual capability of the brain, intelligence itself…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Executable English
Interacting with databases via English. Semantic interpretation of social media and execution:" .... It could become a next big thing after Twitter and Facebook. Imagine government and other web sites answering an open ended…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Pushing Your Wikipedia Location Information
A nice, simple idea. Push information based on your current location. A simple layer includes information contained in Wikipedia: New Wikipedia Layer on Geoloqi Gives You Vision Beyond the Greek Gods
From The Computing Community Consortium Blog
Facebook has announced a new installment of its
From The Eponymous Pickle
World Changing Games HQ
I missed this when it first came out: Gameful: An HQ for world changing games. Posited, it appears, by game promoter Jane McGonigal. Ideas to use game dynamics to change things, get actual results? " ... Gameful is…
From Michael Nielsen
Open science in the Wall Street Journal
I have a piece in the Wall Street Journal arguing that publicly funded science should be open science.
From Schneier on Security
Friday Squid Blogging: Video of Kid Eating Squid
It's hard to tell if he likes it.
As usual, you can also use this squid post to talk about the security stories in the news that I haven't covered.