Communications of the ACM
The blog archive provides access to past blog postings from Communications of the ACM and other sources by date.
October 2016
From Computational Complexity
My chair wants me to post about.. Mohammad Haj wants me to post about.. I want to post about...
Maryland is looking to hire lecturers and my chai Samir wants me to post it on my blog. I think he overestimates the power of the blog, however, here is the link. I could use this to launch into a post about either the value…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Babbling Metadata
My favorite topic. Metadata. In the end it makes the data work. Hardly babble. Good piece. In the CACM.
The Power of Babble
Expect to be constantly and pleasantly befuddled by Pat Helland
Metadata defines the shape, the form…
From Gödel's Lost Letter and P=NP
Halloween Math Style
The top scariest possible results Head chopped from source Washington Irving was a famous writer of the early 1800’s who is best known for his short stories. The Legend of Sleepy Hollow was based on the folklore that each Halloween…
From Schneier on Security
How to Avoid Kidnapping Children on Halloween
A useful guide....
From The Eponymous Pickle
Defining What Computers Can do, and the Implications
AI and analytic methods have expanded the realm of what computers can do, just like spreadsheets and word processors expanded computing skills to many office tasks, improving their efficiency, and as a result needing fewer accountants…
From Daniel Lemire's Blog
My review of Deus Ex: Mankind Divided (video game)
The Deus Ex series is set in a dystopian futuristic universe. (It reminds me a bit of Japan’s Ghost in the Shell.) The latest game in the series (Deux Ex: Mankind Divided) is set less than 15 years in the future (2029). In this…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Implications of Agile Culture
I am teaching a course on leading analytics change at Columbia, and this Cisco blog post provided some interesting information about using methods like Agile. Worth a look, passing it along to my students. In the Cisco Blog…
From Schneier on Security
A High-End Card-Reading Device
An impressive Chinese device that automatically reads marked cards in order to cheat at poker and other card games....
From insideHPC
UberCloud Celebrates 3rd year of its HPC Cloud Marketplace Service
“When we started the marketplace 3 years ago the service we offered was all manual,” explained Wolfgang Gentzsch who founded UberCloud together with Burak Yenier in 2012. “But already then we were developing our HPC software
…
From insideHPC
Fortissimo Launches HPC Resource Broker Service
"Engineers and scientists can now get access to HPC resources more easily because of the Fortissimo Marketplace, a new platform for brokering high-performance computing (HPC) services. The new cloud-based marketplace offers small…
From The Eponymous Pickle
More on Staples Using Voice to Deliver Easy Button Assistant
An attempt to move the voice driven digital assistant, like Amazon's Echo, into the office. Brings back the 'Easy' marketing angle. Would seem that Amazon has the opportunity to do this as well. Implications for procurement…
From insideHPC
Keynotes Announced for Intel HPC Developer Conference at SC16
The Intel HPC Developer Conference at SC16 has announced its keynote speakers. Jonathan Cohen and Kai Li from Princeton will present, Going Where Neuroscience and Computer Science Have Not Gone Before. "Taking place Nov. 12-13…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Wearables Reaching Saturation
Have Wearables reached a saturation point?
" ... With the success of FitBit and the advent of the Apple Watch, the tech press seems to have taken it as a foregone conclusion that wearable devices are on their way to the same ubiquity…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Surface Dial Examined
I have been a long time experimenter with alternative interfaces. From mice, to feet driven mice, to touch pens, speech and neural interaction and more. So I was interested when I saw the 'Surface Dial', being used for another…
From insideHPC
insideHPC Research Report on GPUs
In this research report, we reveal recent research showing that customers are feeling the need for speed—i.e. they’re looking for more processing cores. Not surprisingly, we found that they’re investing more money in accelerators…
From insideHPC
Changing the Face of the SC Conference Series: An Interview with SC16 General Chair John West
Over 10,000 members of the worldwide HPC community will reconvene in Salt Lake City this year for SC16. To preview what the conference has in store, we caught up with the SC16 General Chair, John West from TACC. "C is really
…
From The Computing Community Consortium Blog
Great Innovative Idea- Wearable Health: Exploring Human-Centered Solutions of On-Body Technologies to Improve Healthcare
The following Great Innovative Idea is from Vivian Motti, Assistant Professor in the Department of Information Sciences and Technology at George Mason University. Motti presented her poster, Wearable Health: Exploring Human-Centered…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Turn a Smart Phone Into a Car Key
Another security issue? In the Verge:
Toyota invented a box that turns your smartphone into a car key
Smart Key Box will help make car-sharing easier
by Andrew J . Hawkins
From The Eponymous Pickle
Context and Text Mining
Context always matters. Text mining or elsewhere. Good example here.
Context Matters When Text Mining Posted by Dalila Benachenhou
Many times the most followed approach can result in failure. The reason has more to do with…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Deep Learning Changing Your Life
Like it says, the basic neural pattern recognition ideas have been around for decades. But improvements have led to deeper insights. Are these changing your life? In the CACM.
From Putting People First
IKEA/Economist Group (EIU) study focuses on the new ‘American Dream’ today
Press release – September 21, 2016 Discovering the New American Dream, an Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU) report sponsored by IKEA US shows that the American Dream, which was once outlined by owning a home with a ‘white picket…
From XRDS
The Surface Dial and the Physical/Digital Divide in Interactions
Microsoft announced their new Surface Studio this week. It acts as an all-in-one computer, but with a modular screen that can be re-positioned to act as a drawing tablet. The idea of a computer screen that works as a drawingContinue…
From XRDS
Using Scrum in your research
Agile methods on software development are very popular. The root of these methods must be sought in the on the Agile Manifesto that says: Individuals and interactions over processes and tools Working software over comprehensive…
From updated sporadically at best
Dropbox Selective Sync Bug, or How It Took a Whole Evening to Update My Profile Photo
I encountered a pretty bad Dropbox bug today. I'm wondering if anybody else has encountered anything similar, and also wanted to share how I got around it in case it happens to anybody else.
This evening I was changing my Twitter…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Price Optimization Using Decision Trees
Interesting example, a technique I also experimented with for Retail. Good because it relates to specific business process, and be can tested in that context. Easy to understand the idea of a decision tree. And building or…
From insideHPC
Data Storage Best Practices for Life Science Workflows
"Unchecked data growth and data sprawl are having a profound impact on life science workflows. As data volumes continue to grow, researchers and IT leaders face increasingly difficult decisions about how to manage this data yet…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Making it Easier for Happy Customers to Buy More
Yes. Amazon understands this with Prime and Dash and Echo. In the HBR: " ... You have great loyalty scores and low customer churn. But sales are flat – or worse, falling. What’s going on? In most cases, this happens because…
From insideHPC
FPGAs Accelerate Machine Learning at Baidu
Xilinx has announced that Baidu, a Chinese language Internet search provider, is utilizing Xilinx FPGAs to accelerate machine learning applications in its datacenters in China. "Acceleration is essential to keep up with the rapidly…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Neural Brain to Text Progress
Remember this topic being brought up for a long time, and often claims that is was close to happening. Have now been involved in the spoken interface for some time, a reliable thought interface sounds very appealing. Considerable…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Considering Rebel Talent
Let Your Workers Rebel by Francesca Gino
Employee engagement is a problem. To fix it, encourage your workers to break rules and be themselves. We’ll show you who does it right and how you can too.