Communications of the ACM
The blog archive provides access to past blog postings from Communications of the ACM and other sources by date.
July 2010
From U.S. Public Policy Committee of the ACM
Policy Highlights from Communications of the ACM - July 2010 (Vol. 53, No. 7)
Below is a list of items with policy relevance from the July issue of Communications of the ACM. As always, much of the material in CACM is premium content, and free content one month may slip behind a pay wall the next. You…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Optimizing Floor Space
It's an idea that continues to be pushed further. Optimize the store space by using kiosks and other densely compacted selling ideas within the store. Here is another example, Radio Shack kiosks selling in Target Stores.
From The Eponymous Pickle
Becoming Disconnected
David Carr, who has been talking much about the negative effects of online, gives some examples of people that have deliberately cut themselves from the net. They say with good results.
From The Eponymous Pickle
Photographer's Legal Rights
Now having a quality camera in my cell phone I find myself taking many more images for both personal and professional reasons. I can also then get them to the people that need them quickly that way. In private spaces wherea…
From The Eponymous Pickle
BI on a Limited Budget
A new TDWI report: BI on a Limited BudgetBI on a Limited Budget: Strategies for Doing More with LessThe current economic downturn has accentuated the need among business intelligence (BI) teams to do
From Wild WebMink
Evolutionary Pressures
From The Eponymous Pickle
IPads in Business
Some good examples in CW of IPads being used in business.
From Schneier on Security
Friday Squid Blogging: Squid Launcher from "Despicable Me"
Don't squid me, bro.
From The Eponymous Pickle
About Emotionally Effective Advertising
Just received and of interest: About Face: The Secrets of Emotionally Effective Advertising by Dan Hill D.V. Reading parts of it now, more to follow. I also see the author is from the consulting firm Sensory Logic, which is…
From The Female Perspective of Computer Science
What Your Identity Has to Do With Learning
What happens if one of your identities conflicts with what you're trying to learn in school? For instance, what if you are a creationist Christian learning science, or someone whose family is just not into school? Or what ifWhat…
From Schneier on Security
Doomsday Shelters
Selling fear:
The Vivos network, which offers partial ownerships similar to a timeshare in underground shelter communities, is one of several ventures touting escape from a surface-level calamity. Radius Engineering in Terrell…From The Eponymous Pickle
Unilever Tracks Omo Boxes
Report in Adage that Unilver will be tracking a small sample of boxes of Omo detergent in Brazil using a GPS device. The Adage headline about 'stalking' is inflammatory to say the least. When I first saw this I thought it"…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Shopkick
Another good example of bridging retail and mobile underway:Shopkick bridges the mobile and retail worlds.We are funded by Kleiner Perkins's "iFund" and are the makers of CauseWorld, the fastest growing location-based mobile…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Mobile Choices
Another example of the use of Mobile to engage in-store, note in particular the use of barcode scanning, which is becoming more common. I recently saw several people scanning product in a store. I am taking a look at the vendor…
From The Computing Community Consortium Blog
White House OSTP blog cites CCC again
In a recent blog post “Reflections on the NNI
From The Eponymous Pickle
Smartphone and Accessories Blog
A correspondent has set up a blog on new Smartphone developments and accessories.
From Schneier on Security
Hacking ATMs
Hacking ATMs to spit out money, demonstrated at the Black Hat conference:
The two systems he hacked on stage were made by Triton and Tranax. The Tranax hack was conducted using an authentication bypass vulnerability that Jack…From Wild WebMink
? Competitive Behaviour
Apple Ships More Mobile Phones Than Motorola For The Second Quarter In A Row More a statement of Motorola’s decline that Apple’s advance, but still a significant sign of a market transition that I am sure will continue as “phone”…
From Putting People First
Genevieve Bell
In 2009, Dr. Genevieve Bell, an Australian-born anthropologist and ethnographer, who is an Intel Fellow and heads Intel’s newly created Interaction and Experience Research (IXR) division, was selected as South Australia’s Thinker…
From U.S. Public Policy Committee of the ACM
House Passes Bill to Improve Accessibility on the Web
The House recently passed H.R. 3101, the 21st Century Communications and Video Accessibility Act. Sponsored by Rep. Markey of Massachusetts, the bill seeks to apply standards of accessibility first encouraged by the Americans…
From The Eponymous Pickle
New Seed Accelerator in Cincinnati
New in the heart of the Midwest, by a former colleague, The Brandery:The Brandery opens it doors: New seed accelerator launches in Cincinnati by Dave KnoxToday I
From The Eponymous Pickle
Wal-Mart was Wrong to Just Tag Pallets
I just wrote a guest column at one of my favorite retail blogs: Storefrontbacktalk. About how Wal-Mart first tested RFID tags extensively on cases and pallets. Now they are moving to test on clothing, and the test is now,Wal…
From Computational Complexity
What is the complexity of these problems and metaproblems?
The following problem is from Doctor Eco's Cyberpuzzles. I have shortened and generalized it.
We are going to put numbers into boxes. If x,y,z are in a box then it CANNOT be the case that x+y=z. If you put the numbers 1,2,.…From The Eponymous Pickle
Acceleration of Addiction
Paul Graham on the acceleration of addiction via technology. Technology gives us more of what we want, so is it accellerating addiction? Pretty clear the answer is yes.
From Wild WebMink
links for 2010-07-29
Dell's fraud settlement explodes PC market myths "Intel's rebates amounted to 38 per cent of Dell's operating profit in the fiscal year 2006, and rose to 76 per cent (or $720m) in one quarter alone, Q1 2007. While almost all…
From My Biased Coin
The 2050 Calculator
As regular blog-readers know, I'm a tremendous fan of David MacKay, who has gone from being a leader in the general area of Bayesian inference (author of Information Theory, Inference & Learning Algorithms) to the author of the…
From Schneier on Security
Security Vulnerabilities of Smart Electricity Meters
"Who controls the off switch?" by Ross Anderson and Shailendra Fuloria.
Abstract: We're about to acquire a significant new cybervulnerability. The world's energy utilities are starting to install hundreds of millions of 'smart…From Wild WebMink
? Jailbreaking Decision Is Temporary Relief
While the decision by the US Library of Congress to create exceptions to the Digital Millennium Copyright Act for jailbreaking iPhones is very welcome, the reaction has been just a touch too euphoric. There are two big reasons…
From Apophenia
Facebook privacy settings: Who cares?
Eszter Hargittai and I just published a new article in First Monday entitled: “Facebook privacy settings: Who cares?” Abstract: With over 500 million users, the decisions that Facebook makes about its privacy settings have the…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Wolfram|Alpha Widgets Beta Announced
This is something that is quite interesting I have just received and am starting to explore. Knowledge should be in the form of installable widgets, shouldn't it? I plan to create some and try them on my blog and pass along…