Communications of the ACM
The blog archive provides access to past blog postings from Communications of the ACM and other sources by date.
July 2019
From The Eponymous Pickle
OnTop-Down Testing
Simple but well stated. How do you test? Whats important? Useful tips: See also 'Chaos Engineering', at the tag below, now also in common use.
4 keys to a top-down testing strategy
By Hans Buwalda, Chief Technology Officer…
From The Computing Community Consortium Blog
NITRD Request for Information on VIA Task Force Report: R&D Opportunities in Video & Image Analytics
The Networking and Information Technology Research and Development (NITRD) National Coordination Office (NCO) requests input from all interested parties on the VIA Task Force Report: R&D Opportunities in Video & Image Analytics…
From insideHPC
Considerations for Managing HPC Resources
In this special guest feature, Robert Roe from Scientific Computing World writes that companies faced with increasing complexity are developing new services and tools to help users manage their HPC resources. "The single biggest…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Why Digital Transformations Fail
Currently reading, the author is a former colleague who on top of this problem for the complex enterprise. Advanced methods emerging today, like AI need data, and thus need the enterprise to be acting digitally to make it available…
From insideHPC
Exploring the Universe with the SKA Radio Telescope and CUDA
In this video, Wes Armour from the Oxford eResearch Centre discusses the role of GPUs in processing large amounts of astronomical data collected by the Square Kilometre Array and how CUDA is the best suited option for their signal…
From insideHPC
Advania Launches First HPC cloud service based on Intel Xeon Platinum 9200 processors
Today Advania Data Centers (ADC) announced the industry’s first HPC cloud service based on Intel Xeon Platinum 9200 processors. This combination provides unprecedented performance and application compatibility, enabling customers…
From insideHPC
Active Archive Alliance Report: Solving Data Growth Challenges
According to this new report, “Archival data is piling up faster than ever as organizations are quickly learning the value of analyzing vast amounts of previously untapped digital data. The need to securely store, search for,…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Think to Type Getting Closer
Though I remember this was close years ago. Introducing anticipatory completion may help, but also with some of the usual errors.
Facebook is inching closer to a think-to-type computer system
There's a long way to go to 100 word…
From Schneier on Security
Another Attack Against Driverless Cars
In this piece of research, attackers successfully attack a driverless car system -- Renault Captur's "Level 0" autopilot (Level 0 systems advise human drivers but do not directly operate cars) -- by following them with drones…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Amazon Managed Blockchain
Received from AWS: See also FAQ.
Amazon Managed Blockchain
Easily create and manage scalable blockchain networks
Amazon Managed Blockchain is a fully managed service that makes it easy to create and manage scalable blockchain…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Polly Makes for Better Text to Voice
Just heard a demonstration of Amazon's New Polly voice delivery system. Very much better then the current 'reading' capability. Will be trying it with some of my test text files. Key also is the ability to retrain to new…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Microsoft Moves to Teams, Drops Skype for Business Online
Have now been using Teams since its inception. Works well for team operations, chats and goal focused collaboration. Skype works but has always been shaky, its advantage is its huge global enrollment. How will either of…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Toward a General Theory of Neural Nets
Good thoughtful piece in Quanta Mag. Does not mean we have solved the general problem, nor does it mean we have even successfully used the model of biological neurons completely for AI problems. I do like the steam engine analog…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Merck Drone Medicine Delivery in Puerto Rico
Drones move forward for advanced delivery tasks in disasters Some intriguing details are included.
Merck takes part in test of medicine-delivery drones in Puerto Rico
Merck, Volans-I, Softbox and AT&T are working with Direct Relief…
From The Eponymous Pickle
IEEE Guide to Robotics
I note that IEEE has a guide to robotics online. Which shows an number of types of robotic implementations. of which Some of which I had never seen. Not complete by any means, I see there is no category about micro robotics…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Deciding When to Trust
Have recently been involved with the concept of 'smart contracts' and trustble agreements. How might this idea be included in the construction of such things? Things that we can trust in a neuroscience sense? Is trust just…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Stuntronics by Disney Imagineering
Beware stunt doubles. We toured Disney way back, and saw very early prototypes of this idea. Both stunt doubles and actors in general should be aware of a future like this.
Stuntronics in IEEE Robotics
Stuntronics are animatronic…
From insideHPC
Ciena Bolsters Janet Network in the U.K. for Education and Research
Jisc in the UK is deploying Ciena’s Packet Networking platforms to enhance its Janet Network and provide high-speed connectivity across the UK. “Ciena’s platforms help us provide the fast, highly-resilient and scalable connectivity…
From The Computing Community Consortium Blog
Call for White Papers for Revision of the US Robotics Roadmap (Deadline August 15th)
Through support from the Computing Community Consortium (CCC) the US National Robotics Roadmap was first created ten years ago by a group of 120 people from industry and academia. It has since been used by government agencies…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Autonomous Aircraft Landing
I thought this was commonly possible, but I note here it is being done without dependence on ground based antennas, so the plane, as I understand it is completely autonomous. So will this be in the future of aviation?
German…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Cisco On IOT in New Orleans Preventing Crime
Used to spend quite a bit of time in New Orleans. Never thought of it as particularly low crime, based on what I saw in the papers. Like to see that change. But aims to be better yet with IOT as Cisco outlines in their blog…
From insideHPC
SDSC Awarded NSF Grant for Triton Stratus
The National Science Foundation has awarded SDSC a two-year grant worth almost $400,000 to deploy a new system called Triton Stratus. "Triton Stratus will provide researchers with improved facilities for utilizing emerging computing…
From insideHPC
Video: Supercomputing Sediment Transport in Estuaries
In this video, Salme Cook from the University of New Hampshire describes how she is using NCSA's Blue Waters supercomputer to model estuaries. One of the big challenges oceanographers face is the inability to observe their science…
From insideHPC
Podcast: Is Cloud too expensive for HPC?
Is Cloud too expensive for HPC? Enquiring minds want to know, as does the HPC community whose single-minded obsession with maximum price-performance is notorious and legendary. The Radio Free team looks at actual cloud pricing…
From insideHPC
Video: HPC at CASC
In this video, researchers describes activities at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory’s Center for Applied Scientific Computing (CASC). Director Jeffrey Hittinger, a fellow from 1996 to 2000, and Teresa Bailey, a fellow…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Amazon to Retrain Third of Workforce
Internal retraining makes much sense given the cost of acquisition and HR.
Amazon to Retrain a Third of Its U.S. Workforce
The Wall Street Journal
Chip Cutter
Amazon will spend up to $700 million to retrain 100,000 of its U.S.
…
From Schneier on Security
ACLU on the GCHQ Backdoor Proposal
Back in January, two senior GCHQ officials proposed a specific backdoor for communications systems. It was universally derided as unworkable -- by me, as well. Now Jon Callas of the ACLU explains why....
From Computer Science Teacher - Thoughts and Information From Alfred Thompson
Too Little Time and Too Many People
Four years ago I was at a two day informal gathering of teachers. As much as I really enjoy conferences like CSTA, SIGCSE, ISTE and others there was some real magic about an informal gathering of about 12-14 teachers who cross…
From The Eponymous Pickle
AI Enhanced Editing of Sports Coverage
Watched some of the recent Wimbledon, and IBM frequently pointed out that Watson was choosing and editing and delivering the film clips based on measures like human applause. And then writing copy based on some 20 million clips…
From The Eponymous Pickle
DARPA and Zero Knowledge Proofs
Does make sense that this kind of capability would be generally useful. A key kind of cybersecurity.
Generating zero-knowledge proofs for defense capabilities by DARPA
There are times when the highest levels of privacy and security…