Communications of the ACM
The blog archive provides access to past blog postings from Communications of the ACM and other sources by date.
February 2012
From The Eponymous Pickle
Unilever Invests in Internet Marketing
More Internet data leverage: " ... Unilever and Nielsen announce an agreement for the use of Nielsen Online Campaign Ratings reach, frequency and gross rating point (GRP) measurement for all Unilever brand Internet ad campaigns…
From Putting People First
Nudging consumers into making better life choices
Designers are beginning to understand how irrational thinking plays into the decisions people make, writes Rob Girling of Artefact. That knowledge can be used to openly influence consumers to make responsible choices. “Recent…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Illumishare
Microsoft's Illumishare. A virtual reality effort by Microsoft that allows the mixing of the virtual and real. The video emphasizes education examples, but it appears to be generally useful. How do you share physical objects…
From Computational Complexity
The Erdos- de Bruijn theorem
The mathematician Nicolaas Govert de Bruijn passed away on Feb 17, 2012. The number of things named after him is quite large. I will discuss the Erdos-de Bruijn theorem.
Erdos-de Bruijn theorem: An (infinite) graph G is …From Putting People First
Connected homes for connected people
The French think tank Fing (who was also behind the LIFT France event last year) collaborated last year with VIA, Promotelec, Renault Group, La Poste, Minatec Laboratory (CEA), CNR Sant
From The Eponymous Pickle
High Performance Analytics
SAS's always insightful Jim Goodnight, on high performance analytics.
From Wild WebMink
? Pratchett Does Sci-Fi
My attention was drawn to a new direction that fantasy author Terry Pratchett is taking. His Discworld series has been a huge success among a wide circle of people who find the
From Schneier on Security
FBI Special Agent and Counterterrorism Expert Criticizes the TSA
Good essay. Nothing I haven't said before, but it's good to hear it from someone with a widely different set of credentials than I have.
From The Computing Community Consortium Blog
We’ve blogged about this topic before, but there’s another terrific article
From Putting People First
Habits are the new viral: why startups must be behavior experts
The economic value of web businesses increasingly depends on the strength of the habitual behavior of their users, argues Nir Eyal on Techcrunch. These habits ultimately will be a deciding factor in what separates startup winners…
From Putting People First
Two more posts by Sam Ladner on corporate ethnography
After her much talked about piece “Does corporate ethnography suck?” – which presented a cultural analysis of academics critiques of industry ethnography as a second rate or illegitimate forms of ethnography – Sam Ladner followed…
From Putting People First
User environment driving technology
Sierra Wireless
From Computer Science Teacher - Thoughts and Information From Alfred Thompson
Microsoft at SIGCSE 2012
For the first time in several years I am not attending SIGCSE this week. I
From The Eponymous Pickle
Retail Needs a Reboot
Insightful, somewhat simplistic view of the changes in retail from GigaOM. Classic retail needs to be re-thought definitely, reboot perhaps. The insertion of innovative methods that combine mobile and mortar are needed.…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Branding Knowledge Management Initiatives
Branding Knowledge Management. By Lauren Trees. An interesting element that we had not thought about in great detail during our own internal tests. What we were attempting to do was to make knowledge management as transparent…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Who is on Your Network?
From ComputerWorld. A clever little free mobile App for Apple or Android or desktop called Fing that scans your local network and tells you what is on it. Simple and easy to use. The link above will tell you much more about…
From The Eponymous Pickle
BiggerPlate Mapping Groups
I have long been a proponent of concept, mind and process maps as a means of capturing and delivering many kinds of knowledge. BiggerPlate is a sharing repository of knowledge maps. A great place to start to get an outline…
From The Eponymous Pickle
More Direct Social Selling
In Supermarket News: " ... The Economist Intelligence Unit found that more consumer-goods companies are using social media to sell directly to customers, and the number is expected to increase. In a survey of more than 200 executives…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Google Knowledge Graph
I order to be more precise search must embed semantic reasoning. In Mashable, an interview about the challenge and the use of semantic knowledge networks. Google Knowledge Graph Could Change Search Forever. " ... The future…
From The Computing Community Consortium Blog
IBM:
From Computerworld: Scientists at IBM Research
From The Female Perspective of Computer Science
Help Design a Book for Computer Science Beginners
Bringing computer science to the masses is my passion, through education and outreach. I've run mini-courses for girls, designed a video game, lead workshops for professional women, taught arts and social science students, and…
From The Computing Community Consortium Blog
DARPA Director:
Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) Director Regina Dugan recently sat on an panel sponsored by
From The Eponymous Pickle
Formalizing the Water Cooler
Good thoughts about why and how to gather corporate knowledge from obvious, but rarely captured sources, like informal conversations. Points to less formal places like social networks. In my career I remember several times…
From Computer Science Teacher - Thoughts and Information From Alfred Thompson
How Young Can/Should You Start Teaching Programming?
Or perhaps how young should you try? And to top if off, why do you want to start them so young in the first place? I received the following from a teacher friend of mine the other day and it has had me thinking ever since.
…From Schneier on Security
"Cyberwar Is the New Yellowcake"
Good essay on the dangers of cyberwar rhetoric -- and the cyberwar arms race.
From The Eponymous Pickle
Risk Analysis App
Boris Agranovich of the Global Risk Community has posted an early look at a new free App that: " ... will offer simple way for decision-makers to identify the potential business impact of their organisation's assets and processes…
From U.S. Public Policy Committee of the ACM
Guest Post on Cybersecurity Legislation from Chris Bronk
What follows is a guest post from Chris Bronk, Information Technology Policy Fellow at Rice University’s Baker Institute for Public Policy. He’s a new member of USACM, but the post reflects only his thoughts on the Cybersecurity…
From Computer Science Teachers Association
Mobile Devices in the Classroom
This fall I took an online class to learn about ways to use cellphones in the classroom. There has been much in the media recently about ways to utilize this ubiquitous technology in a positive way to enhance learning. While …
From The Eponymous Pickle
Cognitive Computing Page
A reconnect with some IBM researchers led me to revisit their cognitive computing presence:" ... Researchers at IBM have been working on a cognitive computing project called Systems of Neuromorphic Adaptive Plastic Scalable…
From Wild WebMink
? Is Windows to blame for viruses?
A historical post, for a change. A comment on a mailing list tonight – that something was “rather like blaming Windows for getting viruses” –