Communications of the ACM
The blog archive provides access to past blog postings from Communications of the ACM and other sources by date.
March 2014
From Computer Science Teachers Association
Senator Gillibrand Proposes New Legislation for CS
U.S. Senator Kirsten Gillibrand announced today her education agenda to encourage more youths, especially women, to pursue careers in science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) and to encourage the development of computer…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Data Visualization Resources
A library site describing and linking to books, papers and white papers of data visualization expert Stephen Few.
From The Eponymous Pickle
Research: Hand Written Notes Improve Recall
Interesting take in the Chronical for Higher Education. " ... Distractions posed by laptops in the classroom have been a common concern, but new research suggests that even if laptops are used strictly to take notes, typing…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Virtual Retail Shopping vs Shelf Research
Will we eventually be using virtual reality to shop? Another area of examination in the innovation center. The recent emergence of Oculus and Google Glass brings the idea to the surface again. Virtual shelves are being used…
From Schneier on Security
The Continuing Public/Private Surveillance Partnership
If you've been reading the news recently, you might think that corporate America is doing its best to thwart NSA surveillance. Google just announced that it is encrypting Gmail when you access it from your computer or phone,…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Designing and Visualization Connected
Stephen Few on Design in the Real World. Have discussed our experiments in this space recently. He states " ... designer/teacher Victor Papanek, whose work I only recently discovered. You can read them yourself in Papanek’s…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Pepsi in Augmented Reality Digest
An interesting digest of augmented reality applications, most in marketing and entertainment driven, a good view of what is going on commercially in the space. From Augmented Pixels. Featured, Pepsi's effort:" ... Pepsi Max…
From Computer Science Teacher - Thoughts and Information From Alfred Thompson
Interesting Links 31 March 2014
I’ve been writing more code then usual lately. Mostly just for the fun of it. That means less time on the Internet collecting good links. But it’s been great getting back in touch with my coding side. I expect some (more) blogs…
From U.S. Public Policy Committee of the ACM
USACM Describes The Systems Engineering Analysis It Recommends For Surveillance Programs
In comments to both the Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board and the Review Group on Intelligence and Communications Technologies, USACM recommended the use of an independent systems engineering analysis to review the…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Birds and Gamified Education
Having been involved in a number of gamification projects, I have always thought it is the gaming companies that could ultimately do the best in applying game dynamics to serious learning problems. So I like this effort of trying…
From The Eponymous Pickle
The Meaning of R for Science and Industry
In FastcoLabs: Thoughtful piece about open source and science. I am in the midst of looking at packages for the application of data modeling and mining capabilities. This project will not need to be inserted into an enterprise…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Wearables as a Sixth Health Sense
In CWorld: How do you think of wearable computing? We have become very used to having a device next to us that acts as sensor, library and communicator. So is it another sense that we need to treat the same way as our others…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Democratizing Data Visualization
An upcoming look at the 'Exhibit' experiment, which I remember hearing about, but have not followed. In a couple of corporate connections the concept of 'democratizing data' has been emphasized. Here is a good example of its…
From Putting People First
Behavioral approaches to product innovation at the Base of the Pyramid
Alexandra Fiorillo, Principal of GRID Impact, writes that if we want to achieve full financial inclusion, we cannot simply offer more financial products and services to more people and hope they need, want, like, and use them…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Robots Taking Jobs
To what extent are robots starting to take substantial jobs? As an example, we examined ways to use robots in repetitive motion supply chain jobs, and in some limited lab work applications. The work of knowledge workers has…
From Putting People First
IBM invests $100M in interactive experience labs globally
IBM this week announced plans to commit more than $100 million to globally expand its consulting services capability to help clients with experience design and engagement. As part of the investment, the company will open 10 new…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Email Triggers and Analytics
Obvious, most interesting are the details of how this can extend these capabilities with new data and analytics. Then, where does the analytics invade? In ClickZ: When a marketer sets up email triggers to send messages toTechnology…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Persuading and Looking Smart
I like the notion of a "Re-engineered Engineer', and try to look smart. And that I can persuade. While being friendly. But we all wonder, are we succeeding? Here is where I got the idea: Dave Hill - The Re-Engineered Engineer…
From Schneier on Security
Friday Squid Blogging: Encounter Between a Submersible Robot and a Giant Squid
Wow....
From Computer Science Teachers Association
A Year Later: the Centrality of Teachers in Code.org
It has been a little over a year since Code.org released its viral video in the midst of a larger push for computer science education. The video used well-known celebrities to speak to the importance of computer science, but…
From The Computing Community Consortium Blog
Teen uses CS skills to discover way for government to save millions
A middle school student who used computer science to develop a hundred million dollar cost savings plan for the government was featured in an article on CNN.com, “Teen to government: Change your typeface, save millions.” Suvir…
From Schneier on Security
Creating Forensic Sketches from DNA
This seems really science fictional: It's already possible to make some inferences about the appearance of crime suspects from their DNA alone, including their racial ancestry and some shades of hair colour. And in 2012, a team…
From The Eponymous Pickle
SIRI and Watson and Natural Language Processing
Interesting thoughts comparing SIRI and Watson. SIRI's natural language processing (NLP) capabilities and interface are her most obvious characteristics .... how does this compare to how Watson is being positioned? We will…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Products and Manufacturing
Newly discovered blog: Product Lifestyle Stories: Insights on Products, manufacturing and service.
From Computer Science Teacher - Thoughts and Information From Alfred Thompson
Why So Many Programming Languages
A post I wrote some time ago bemoaning the lack of new operating systems has been the most frequently viewed post of all time on this blog. Today I’m posting some thoughts about the opposite issue. We have an abundance, perhaps…
From Gödel's Lost Letter and P=NP
A Matchless Result
A famous algorithm, a new paper, a full correctness proof Vijay Vazirani is one of the world experts on algorithmic theory, and is especially known for his masterful book on approximation algorithms. Among many results in computational…
From Gödel's Lost Letter and P=NP
A Matchless Result
A famous algorithm, a new paper, a full correctness proof Vijay Vazirani is one of the world experts on algorithmic theory, and is especially known for his masterful book on approximation algorithms. Among many results in computational…
From Daniel Lemire's Blog
Technology sets the bar higher
I am old enough that, as a kid, I did not have access to a calculator. My mother, a teacher, had an electronic calculator that you had to plug in the wall. She would use it to crunch in the grades at the end of each term. It…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Industrial Internet Consortium Resources
Correspondent Shoumen Datta reports that the Industrial Internet Consortium Site has been made public. " ... Accelerating Innovation In Connected, Intelligent Machines and Processes ... " He has also updated his tutorial.…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Kimberly Clark : More Specialists Needed
KC says more marketing specialists needed. In particular technological skill that can determine what is possible with new data." .... As companies turn to digital marketing to build their brands, they will need marketing specialists…