Communications of the ACM
The blog archive provides access to past blog postings from Communications of the ACM and other sources by date.
April 2014
From Gödel's Lost Letter and P=NP
Bell’s Fifty Year Old Mistake
My Missed Chance For Fame: The 1964 New York World Fair Robert Moses was known as New York’s “Master Builder.” He was hired to run the 1964 New York Fair, for many reasons: he knew how to raise money, knew how to create huge…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Low Cost Understanding of Visual Attention
Ron Wright, colleague,Entrepreneur and Angel Investor, brings this to my attention: ... Neurons Inc Releases NeuroVision - A Cloud Based Tool for Creatives, Retailers and Marketers for fast. low cost analysis of Visual Attention…
From The Computing Community Consortium Blog
CIFellows Evaluation Report is Now Available
The following is a special contribution to this blog by Jessica Cundiff, Research Analyst with CRA’s Center for Evaluating the Research Pipeline (CERP). As part of the CERP team, she helps evaluate the effectiveness of programs…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Amazon Opens Store for Wearable Tech
In Retailwire: " ... Amazon's new store features the "Learning Center," which includes buying guides and product videos, as well as the "Editor's Corner" for wearable tech news and device reviews. ... "
From Schneier on Security
Tracking People from Smartphone Accelerometers
It's been long known that individual analog devices have their own fingerprints. Decades ago, individual radio transmitters were identifiable and trackable. Now, researchers have found that accelerometers in smartphone are unique…
From U.S. Public Policy Committee of the ACM
Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership Negotiations in Washington, D.C. on May 19-23, 2014
The 5th round of Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership negotiations will take place in the Washington, D.C. area from May 19-23, 2014. Stakeholders are invited to provide their viewpoints on the proposed U.S.-EU trade…
From Daniel Lemire's Blog
Seth Roberts and research
Seth Roberts was one of my favourite bloggers. He recently passed away. Seth was an original fellow. He completed his PhD and went on to secure a job at a leading university… only to effectively reject the academic model. He…
From The Eponymous Pickle
UC Analytics Summit 2014: Real World Impact
ANALYTICS SUMMIT 2014: Real-World Impact from Business AnalyticsThe Center for Business Analytics in the Lindner College of Business at the University of Cincinnati is pleased to announce Analytics Summit 2014 on Friday, MayAnalytics…
From U.S. Public Policy Committee of the ACM
Internet Policy Task Force Multistakeholder Forum on DMCA Notice and Takedown on May 8, 2014
The U.S. Department of Commerce’s Internet Policy Task Force will hold the second meeting of the Multistakeholder Forum on DMCA Notice and Takedown on May 8, 2014 in Berkeley, California. A webcast will be available. The meeting…
From U.S. Public Policy Committee of the ACM
ACM-Infosys Foundation Award in the Computing Sciences Winner – David Blei
The ACM-Infosys Foundation Award in the Computing Sciences recognizes personal contributions by young scientists and system developers to a contemporary innovation that, through its depth, fundamental impact and broad implications…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Thoughts on Gamification
In Smart Data Collective: Useful ideas about considering game dynamics driven technologies. In our own experiments these could have been useful to direct our work.
From The Eponymous Pickle
Brain Science and Mind Reading
In Wired: Good, non technical view of brain science and its application to the most asked of all question: Can we read minds?
From The Eponymous Pickle
Progression in Autonomous Vehicles
In IEEE Org: Work by Google in trying to make autonomous vehicles better than ever. Gets back to the problem of 'autonomy' and how it can be delivered with increasingly better streams of data combined with intelligence. Once…
From Schneier on Security
The Quantified Toilet Hoax
Good essay on the Quantified Toilet hoax, and the difference between public surveillance and private self-surveillance....
From The Eponymous Pickle
Humanoid Fire Fighters for the Navy
Navy testing humanoid firefighters. Particularly interested in how these devices can be truly collaborative with humans, both other workers and decision makers. " ... That's the vision coming out of the U.S. Navy's Office…
From Computer Science Teachers Association
The Bad Side of Good Publicity
As a teacher, I have spent the last eighteen years of my life dedicated to teaching technology skills and computer science. One of the most rewarding aspects of this work is when I am visited years later by former students who…
From The Female Perspective of Computer Science
Reflections on My First Year of Teaching
I did it. I survived my first year of teaching. Exams are marked, and grades are submitted. And while I still have students concerned about their results to meet with, I am finally able to breathe and spend some time reflecting…
From Computer Science Teacher - Thoughts and Information From Alfred Thompson
HSCTF: A Cybersecurity Competition For High School Students
HSCTF, an online competition which will educate high school students across the country about computer security, runs from May 18-25, 2014. Competitors in High School Capture the Flag (or HSCTF) will learn computer science skills…
From Daniel Lemire's Blog
How are the bees doing?
Last year, I wrote a controversial opinion piece to reassure my readers: bees are not going extinct. At the time, the European Union had banned neonicotinoid insecticides and it was widely reported the these new insecticides…
From Apophenia
Rule #1: Do no harm.
Rule #2: Fear-mongering causes harm. I believe in the enterprise of journalism, even when it lets me down in practice. The fourth estate is critically important for holding systems of power accountable. But what happens when…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Editing Hyperbolic Headlines
In Language Log: Word of browser plug ins that will convert hyperbolic viral headline language back to reality. Amusing and so true.
From The Eponymous Pickle
Using and Building Mobile Assistants
The idea has been around for some time, and mostly publicly with the Apple Siri. A mobile assistant. Now more recently have found myself using them more freqently. All using natural language processing, sensor data and AI…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Smartstones
Brought to my attending by a former colleague and correspondent. The startup Smartstones: " ... Stay connected and in step with loved ones, simply by touching your Smartstone. ... " I would like to personally invite you toJoin…
From The Eponymous Pickle
ROI in the Age of Integration
Colleague Kim Medynsky writes in Marketing, Media, Advertising and PR in Canada: Kim Medynsky, MBA, is principal at Medynsky & Associates" ... The return on investment (ROI) of campaign spending has been a major challenge for…
From Schneier on Security
Details of Apple's Fingerprint Recognition
This is interesting: Touch ID takes a 88x88 500ppi scan of your finger and temporarily sends that data to a secure cache located near the RAM, after the data is vectorized and forwarded to the secure enclave located on the top…
From Computer Science Teachers Association
Branching Out: Modeling Topics in Social Science
Santa Fe Institute's GUTS y Girls program, in partnership with Arizona State University professor Dan Hruschka, has developed a new curriculum to engage students in understanding how computing and complex adaptive systems play…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Amazon and the Last Mile
In Retailwire: Amazon plans to own the last mile. " .... Authenticating rumors in the marketplace, Amazon is indeed testing its own delivery network in the U.S., according to an extensive report last week in The Wall Street…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Taking Notes by Hand
In Fastcompany: Taking notes by hand is better for memory. ' ... The Best Way To Remember Something? Take Notes By Hand. People who write notes by hand remember the content of meetings and lectures better than than those that…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Parallel Coordinates Visualization
From ZoTero: Examples using parallel coordinates, a method we integrated into the toolbox of standard methods for similar data. " ... Data Visualization Experiments with a Cereal Dataset: Parallel Sets, Parallel Coordinates…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Seeking Touchy Data Visualization
From Carnegie Mellon: " ... Two researchers at Carnegie Mellon University are exploring how touch devices, such as Apple's iPad, can be used in data analysis and visualization. Jeffrey Rzeszotarski, a Ph.D. student in the Human…