Communications of the ACM
The blog archive provides access to past blog postings from Communications of the ACM and other sources by date.
July 2020
From BLOG@CACM
Towards Equity in K-12 Computer Science Education: Consistency, Cumulativity and Competencies
To address structural barriers in Computer Science education, school districts are now looking beyond the need for specific courses or tools. They are developing K-12 pathways that are consistent, cumultative and competency-based…
From Schneier on Security
Twitter Hacker Arrested
A 17-year-old Florida boy was arrested and charged with last week's Twitter hack. News articles. Boing Boing post. Florida state attorney press release. This is a developing story. Post any additional news in the comments....
From Schneier on Security
Friday Squid Blogging: Squid Proteins for a Better Face Mask
Researchers are synthesizing squid proteins to create a face mask that better survives cleaning. (And you thought there was no connection between squid and COVID-19.) The military thinks this might have applications for self-healing…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Microsoft Backing from Cortana
Microsoft seems to continue to fall back from having Cortana as a general assistant. but has implied they want to tp continue it as a productivity aid for their business tools. They are removing it from a number of well
Microsoft…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Conversing Between Soldiers, Robots
Will be interesting to see how contextual such conversation can be. Would seem risk and embedded goals would also be important. Following to see what more I can learn.
Army Research Enables Conversations Between Soldiers, Robots…
From Schneier on Security
Data and Goliath Book Placement
Notice the copy of Data and Goliath just behind the head of Maine Senator Angus King. This demonstrates the importance of a vibrant color and a large font....
From The Eponymous Pickle
Bad Habit or Addiction to Technology?
A thing to look at again .... ever since gaming started we have been examining, but now its everywhere, all the time. Examining addiction vs negative behavior. I think with the integration of a stronger social component,
Are…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Why Isn't AI used More?
Still narrowly defined, fear of bias claims, hype is creating a caution reaction. Link it to other analytics.
AI Is All the Rage. So Why Aren’t More Businesses Using It?
By Wired via ACM
In late 2017, AB InBev, the Belgian giant…
From The Eponymous Pickle
P&G Had a Good Year
Would have liked to see much more detail, consult the WSJ.
P&G has had a very good year in the WSJ
07/30/2020
Procter & Gamble posted its single biggest yearly sales gain since 2006 as, around the glove, the pandemic kept consumers…
From BLOG@CACM
The Software that Led to the Lockdown
One of the key drivers for the decision to lockdown the U.K. in late March 2020 was a computational epidemiological model developed at Imperial College, London.
From Schneier on Security
Fake Stories in Real News Sites
Fireeye is reporting that a hacking group called Ghostwriter broke into the content management systems of Eastern European news sites to plant fake stories. From a Wired story: The propagandists have created and disseminated…
From Computer Science Teacher - Thoughts and Information From Alfred Thompson
Changing How We Teach Computer Science
I haven't been blogging much lately. I'm adjusting to being retired for the most part but I have been reading and thinking a lot about teaching computer science along the way. Mark Guzdial has been thinking even harder and has…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Is the Pandemic Breaking AI?
This quickly came to mind in an effort underway, if an event is truly rare it has revealed less data, and current AI methods work best with lots of data. Note the mention of CPG, are the buying patterns now so different that…
From The Eponymous Pickle
SeroLearn Demo
I see that Serolearn is moving towards a version 2.0. You can sign up to see the update, and you can try their interactive demo online.In active use by the DOD. See: http://serolearn.com/
... Sign up to experience Sero! 2.0…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Britannica Beyond
Brought to my attention, a new way to deliver the equity of Britannica? Click through to try it. surprised at its emergence. Used to know several people who worked with Britannica.
Curiosity is at the core of Britannica’s…
From The Eponymous Pickle
AI Safer from Hackers
(See details at the link)
A new way to train AI systems could keep them safer from hackers
Technology Review: Blogs: Mims's Bitsby Karen Hao
Artificial intelligence
" ... The research: Bo Li (named one of this year’s MIT Technology…
From insideHPC
Altair Virtual HPC Summit
Altair invites you to join our HPC experts, along with our partners, technology users, and industry peers, to learn about the leading-edge computing solutions that will keep innovation moving forward through 2020 and beyond.
…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Ant Algorithm for Commercial Fleets
This kind of bio behavior mimicry was experimented with in some yard applications, found to work better for some path variability.
Ant Algorithms Help Fleet Operators Halve Emissions
The Engineer (U.K.)
July 27, 2020
Researchers
…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Risk Dashboards for Power Grids
Like the idea of a risk dashboard ( or graph) to address this kind of problem.
Risk Dashboard Could Help the Power Grid Manage Renewables
An ARPA-E project uses data modeling to help power grid operators deal with the winds of
By…
From insideHPC
SC20 Drops Hybrid Hopes, Goes All Virtual; HPC User Forum Events Cancelled
Two HPC industry conferences have announced their decisions to change the status of their events: one will go virtual, the other is cancelled. SC20, which was to have been held in Atlanta, November 9-19, said last month it was…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Numbers, Mathematics and the Reality of Science
Why can numbers do such a good job of describing reality? Can they describe all of reality?
Recently republished: https://medium.com/@ruth.ym.ng/do-numbers-exist-251e9b61508
Do Numbers Exist? by Ruth Ng
November 2nd 2018
In 1960…
From The Eponymous Pickle
BMW Takes Android Auto Forward
Continue to be a student of in-car use of assistants, here advances in Android Auto. Have been using Echo Auto for some time. Disappointed in its lack of advance into other mobile assistant uses. What will be key next applications…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Google Assistant vs Samsung Bixby
We were early testers of Bixby for general appliance assistance. I see less of it there now. But have not since experienced it brould on the phone. Indication of it promoting changes in its broad use?
Google reportedly negotiating…
From The Eponymous Pickle
CNet Looks at Alexa Event
I attended, good overall. Here a genera overview.
Amazon's Alexa event shows the future of the Echo's voice assistant
Amazon hasn't revealed any major new Alexa-powered hardware this year, but today's Alexa Live developer conference…
From The Eponymous Pickle
SAP to Take Qualtrics Public
Another large cloud competitor. Previously mentioned here. A key means of gathering customer data to drive emerging analytics?
CustomerThink: SAP Takes Qualtrics Public
The News
On July 26, 2020, not two years after announcing…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Talk: Creating Generalizable AI
Looks to be a good piece, I am attending, will be available after the talk.
August 11 Talk with Anima Anandkumar: "How to Create Generalizable AI"
Register now for the next free ACM TechTalk, "How to Create Generalizable AI,"…
From insideHPC
Intersect360: HPC Industry Down 3.7% in 2020 Due to COVID-19, First Decline in 10 Years
Industry analyst firm Intersect360 has announced its forecast for the HPC industry for this year and next, predicting a 3.7 percent decline for 2020 with a market rebound in 2021. Pegging the size of the industry at $39 billion…
From The Computing Community Consortium Blog
Blue Sky Conference Track at ACM HT2020
The Computing Community Consortium (CCC) recently sponsored a Blue Sky Ideas Conference Track at the 31st ACM Conference on Hypertext and Social Media (HT’20), July 13-15 2020, online. The Blue Sky Ideas talk presentations were…
From The Eponymous Pickle
CEO Moment: Leadership in a New Era
McKinsey's look at what the new leadership may look like.
The CEO moment: Leadership for a new era
July 21, 2020 | Article
By Carolyn Dewar, Scott Keller, Kevin Sneader, and Kurt Strovink
Article (12 pages)
COVID-19 has created a
Confronting…
From Schneier on Security
Survey of Supply Chain Attacks
The Atlantic Council has a released a report that looks at the history of computer supply chain attacks. Key trends from their summary: Deep Impact from State Actors: There were at least 27 different state attacks against the…