Communications of the ACM
The blog archive provides access to past blog postings from Communications of the ACM and other sources by date.
May 2020
From The Eponymous Pickle
Searching Websites the Way You Want
Interesting for non-programmers, to use API's. At the link some technical examples.
Searching Websites the Way You Want
MIT CSAIL
Adam Conner-Simons
May 18, 2020
Researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology's Computer…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Anti Wal-Mart Shoplifting AI by Everseen
Does it work? Am a frequent user of self checkout systems and am always thinking of the implications vs other methods. Here a piece from Wired.
Walmart Employees Are Out to Show Its Anti-Theft AI Doesn't Work in Wired
The retailer…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Why Consumers Are Willing to Share Personal Information on Smartphones
Intriguing difference between phones and laptops.
Why Consumers Are Willing to Share Personal Information on Smartphones
Wharton’s Shiri Melumad speaks with Wharton Business Daily on Sirius XM about why consumers share personal…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Microsoft Builds Supercomputer for OpenAI
Some useful hints here about what is being contemplated. And, of course, big companies like MS, Google, Amazon, Apple, IBM .... have the access to huge amounts of data to work with, and exposure to rich problem types too. …
From insideHPC
ExaAM Project Aims to Transform Additive Manufacturing through Exascale Simulation
In the latest episode of the Let’s Talk Exascale podcast, we are joined by John Turner of Oak Ridge National Laboratory. He is principal investigator of the ExaAM project within the US Department of Energy’s (DOE’s) Exascale …
From Putting People First
[Book] All data are local
![[Book] All data are local](/system/assets/0000/1953/030209_Vanderbeeken_Mark_250.small_square.jpg?1476779420&1260281963)
“In our data-driven society, it is too easy to assume the transparency of data. Instead, we should approach data sets with an awareness that they are created by humans and their dutiful machines, at a time, in a place, with the…
From Putting People First
[Book] Health design thinking
Applying the principles of human-centered design to real-world health care challenges, from drug packaging to early detection of breast cancer.
From The Eponymous Pickle
Indoor Positioning for Retail Innovation
We worked on this problem for our own innovation center tests.
A Smart Indoor Positioning System for Retail Automation
For the last few years we’ve been hearing about the retail apocalypse, though we would characterize it more
You…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Algorithm Selection, Design, as a Learning Problem
Good way to look at it. Many good points, ultimately technical.
Technical Perspective: Algorithm Selection as a Learning Problem
By Avrim Blum
Communications of the ACM, June 2020, Vol. 63 No. 6, Page 86
10.1145/3394623
The following…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Alexa Monologues
Alexa is expanding the possibilities. Need more of this with clear understanding and response.
Amazon Upgrades Alexa’s Long-Form Speech and Vastly Expands Custom Voice Languages and Styles
Eric Hal Schwartz in Voicebot.ai
more
THE…
From Daniel Lemire's Blog
Science and Technology links (May 30th 2020)
We might soon be able to buy memory cards with speeds nearing 4 GB/s. For comparison, an expensive and recent macBook currently has a disk with a 2 GB/s bandwidth. The PlayStation 5 should have a 5 GB/s bandwith. Human industry…
From insideHPC
ISC 2020 Goes Digital Offering an Exciting Program for the HPC Community
ISC 2020 Digital will showcase the latest advancements in HPC, encompassing all the key developments happening in system design, applications, programming models, machine learning, and emerging technologies through a consolidated…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Why is AI so Confused by Language?
From the Elemental Blog, well worth reading through there:
Why is AI so confused by language? It’s all about mental models. By David Ferrucci
In my last post, I shared some telling examples where computers failed to understand…
From Putting People First
MVP vs. “Minimal Desirable Product”
The MVP is a double-edged sword in that it focuses your engineering and product management priorities, but might steamroll user priorities. An MVP that misses 'desirable' will risk the unintended consequence of poor user adoption…
From BLOG@CACM
The Virus Analogy and Validation
The comparison between organic viruses and computer viruses is compelling. But why?
From Schneier on Security
Friday Squid Blogging: Humboldt Squid Communication
Humboldt Squid communicate by changing their skin patterns and glowing. As usual, you can also use this squid post to talk about the security stories in the news that I haven't covered. Read my blog posting guidelines here...…
From Gödel's Lost Letter and P=NP
Just Arvind
Theory and practice [ MIT ] Arvind Mithal—almost always referred to as Arvind—is now the head of the faculty of computer science at a Boston trade school. The school, also known as MIT, is of course one of the top places for…
From The Computing Community Consortium Blog
CI Fellows 2020 – Applications Now Open
Applications are now open for the Computing Research Association (CRA) and Computing Community Consortium’s (CCC) Computing Innovation Fellows (CIFellows) Program for 2020. This program recognizes the significant disruption to…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Steve Gibson on Why Contract Tracing Won't Work
I have inserted links below to this analysis of Apple/Google attempts at generalized software based tracking.
See also related Bruce Schneier article: https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2020/05/me_on_covad-19_.html
Steve…
From Schneier on Security
Bogus Security Technology: An Anti-5G USB Stick
The 5GBioShield sells for £339.60, and the description sounds like snake oil: ...its website, which describes it as a USB key that "provides protection for your home and family, thanks to the wearable holographic nano-layer catalyser…
From BLOG@CACM
The Remote Revolution Has to be Driven by Output, Not Salaries
The unfolding COVID-19 pandemic has thrown us all for a loop and forced countless companies to shutter their offices, warehouses, and everything else. Working remotely works best when you pay people for results, not by the hour…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Amazon Echo Look Experiment Ends
A look at the history of and now the end of fashion advice from Echo Look. Had some people look at it but it got only rare interest and the experiment ended quickly. Passing this along to people that had interest for closure…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Street Lamps as a Platform for the Urban Smart City
Considerable piece on using Street lights as a platform for the urban smart city. Have seen this posed a number of times, greet place to start, how often has it been successfully done?
Street Lamps as a Platform
By Max Mühlhäuser…
From insideHPC
Infinidat De-risks Storage Infrastructure with New Offerings and Support for NVMe over Fabrics
Infinidat, a leading provider of multi-petabyte data storage solutions, announced new offerings that reduce storage infrastructure costs, mitigate the risks of technology failures and deficits, and add an extensible NVMe over…
From Schneier on Security
Facebook Announces Messenger Security Features that Don't Compromise Privacy
Note that this is "announced," so we don't know when it's actually going to be implemented. Facebook today announced new features for Messenger that will alert you when messages appear to come from financial scammers or potential…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Microsoft Buying its Way into RPA
Microsoft buys it way into RPA capabilities, announced last week. Late to the space it seems, but now a flurry of activity. With claim of AI capabilities.
Microsoft + Softomotive: What Does This Deal Mean For RPA (Robotic Process…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Simulating Loaded Dice
Intriguing. We spent lots of time updating ow we generated random numbers, sometimes laboriously checking internal random number generators. I can think of ways this could be used to generate numbers more clearly understandable…
From Putting People First
Post Covid, our societies will likely be more value-oriented, local and green
The world after Corona will not be the same. When the corona wave has passed, our societies will likely be more value-oriented, local and green, writes Christian Bason of the Danish Design Centre.
From Putting People First
The changing role of home during crisis
In the first Constellation of Future Matters, the team of the Emerging Technologies Research Lab of Masoch University considers various aspects, from different perspectives, of the home during crisis.
From Daniel Lemire's Blog
Mapping an interval of integers to the whole 64-bit range, fairly?
In my blog post A fast alternative to the modulo reduction, I described how one might map 64-bit values to an interval of integers (say from 0 to N) with minimal bias and without using an expensive division. All one needs toContinue…