Communications of the ACM
The blog archive provides access to past blog postings from Communications of the ACM and other sources by date.
August 2014
From The Eponymous Pickle
Tangible Media Group and Enchanted Objects
David Rose, Head of the Tangible Media Group at MIT Media Lab and author of the book: "Enchanted Objects: Design, Human Desire, and the Internet of Things" Reading. We followed this work for years. How can consumer products…
From The Eponymous Pickle
IDEO and Nearables
IDEO worked with us by helping build a Gym for designing consumer products, which connected to our innovation centers. Now they are promoting the idea of bluetooth 'nearables'. Read the comments, they have some good complaints…
From The Eponymous Pickle
We are All Data Scientists Now
Are we all data scientists now? I think so, and in particular we need to get the owners and experts using the data to understand its analytical potential. They can then alert the technically adept scientists to do the work…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Computer Science from MIT
Have worked with a number of groups at MIT. Here a slide show that covers computing developments that have come from there.
From Putting People First
Converting your home to LED lights – still a challenging user experience
Switching to LED bulbs in your home is still a bit expensive, but makes a lot of economic sense – as you quickly earn your money back through a MUCH lowered electricity bill. Yet it is quite a challenge for most people. I just…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Stephen Few on Big Data Reality
A lengthy and thoughtful piece by visualization expert Stephen Few. He concludes and makes some excellent points . People still make most data based decisions in context:" ... I make my living helping people understand and…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Ensemble Methods
Ensemble methods are means of using multiple approaches to solving an analytical problem. Different tools can be better for different machine learning problems, or even different data. Here is a thumbnail history and description…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Meaningful Mobile Maps
Looking at the math to make mobile maps more meaningful. Could also be applied beyond geographical maps to maps of knowledge or interactions. Even virtual reality representations." ... Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT)…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Understanding Expertise and Data Related to Work Descriptions
Have recently started to look at how expertise matches tasks that need to be done. I have worked in this area in the enterprise to attempt to optimize resource allocation. I was pointed to a resource called O Net Online, which…
From U.S. Public Policy Committee of the ACM
NIST Continues To Take Feedback On The Cybersecurity Framework
While cybersecurity legislation remains in a Congressional holding pattern, provisions of the 2013 Executive Order on cybersecurity for critical infrastructure have been implemented. One of them is the Cybersecurity Framework…
From Computer Science Teachers Association
Inspire kids to create our future: Apply for a 2015 RISE Award
Technology has the power to change the world for the better, but today far too few have access to the education or encouragement they need to become creators, not just consumers. Google knows that pre-university exposure to Computer…
From Computer Science Teachers Association
Inspire kids to create our future: Apply for a 2015 RISE Award
Technology has the power to change the world for the better, but today far too few have access to the education or encouragement they need to become creators, not just consumers. Google knows that pre-university exposure to Computer…
From Computer Science Teachers Association
Inspire kids to create our future: Apply for a 2015 RISE Award
Technology has the power to change the world for the better, but today far too few have access to the education or encouragement they need to become creators, not just consumers. Google knows that pre-university exposure to Computer…
From U.S. Public Policy Committee of the ACM
U.S. Department of Justice Invites Public Comments on Movie Captioning and Audio Descriptions
The U.S. Department of Justice is accepting comments on proposed changes to its regulations for captioning and audio descriptions in movie theaters under Title III of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA). Title III covers…
From Schneier on Security
Squid Skin Inspires Eye-Like Photodetector
Squid are color-blind, but may detect color directly through their skin. A researcher is working on a system to detect colored light the way squid do....
From Schneier on Security
Cell Phone Kill Switches Mandatory in California
California passed a kill-switch law, meaning that all cell phones sold in California must have the capability to be remotely turned off. It was sold as an antitheft measure. If the phone company could remotely render a cell phone…
From The Eponymous Pickle
CPG Needs a Digital Game Plan
From the Boston Consulting Group. Obvious perhaps, but also a number of interesting statements and statistics. Every company that plans to be around in the coming decade needs a digital plan." .. Consumer packaged goods (CPG)…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Business Innovation Factory
Brought to my attention. Strong emphasis on storytelling. " ... THE BIF MANIFESTO: We believe that business model innovation is on the critical path to transforming our important social systems including education, health…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Nature of Anonymous Reviews
In RetailWire: Short piece on the topic with statistics. Have been asked to look at this from a Big data, near real time perspective.
From The Eponymous Pickle
BidSquare Auctions
I have worked with an auction company in establishing their offering taxonomies. Also have worked with the technical process of auctions. I see that Cowan's auctions has now allied with several other companies to form a new…
From U.S. Public Policy Committee of the ACM
White House Invites Public Comments on Strategy for American Innovation
The White House Office of Science and Technology Policy and the National Economic Council invite public input on the 2015 update of the Strategy for American Innovation, which was last updated in 2011. Comments are due by September…
From The Female Perspective of Computer Science
This Year's Design for 'Computers for Arts and Social Science Students'
I've been working on our non-majors computing course for a while now. Last year was the first time I got to try it with a large group (440 students!), and also the first time I tried using Python. I have since refined it to…
From Schneier on Security
ISIS Threatens US with Terrorism
They're openly mocking our profiling. But in several telephone conversations with a Reuters reporter over the past few months, Islamic State fighters had indicated that their leader, Iraqi Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, had several surprises…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Statistician's View of Big Data
Colleague Diego Kuonen just gave an update of his excellent talk: A Statistician's View on Big Data and Data Science. Good place to start." ... There is no question that big data have hit the business, government and scientific…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Digital Strategy
McKinsey on digital Strategy. Podcast and text. " ... Incumbent companies face critical decisions when it comes to addressing digitization. In this video interview, McKinsey director Paul Willmott argues the first decision…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Contract Guardian: Signed & Verified Contract Compliance
Have been involved for some time in using technology for compliance systems. I have mentioned the local company Contract Guardian here for some time. They develop systems that manage the complexity of contracts, and delivered…
From My Biased Coin
Shout-out to Sabeti Lab
A shout-out today to my friend and colleague Pardis Sabeti (and her lab) for their Science article on the Ebola virus that appeared earlier today. Pardis and her group have been studying the genetics of viral diseases, and in…
From Computational Complexity
Sixteen Years in the Making
Every paper has a story but Sunny Daniel's Arxiv paper from yesterday deserves a blog post. We begin in 1982 when Ravi Kannan proved that Σ2 (the problems computable in NP with an NP oracle) cannot have n2 size circuits. Kannan's…
From The Computing Community Consortium Blog
Air Force Fiscal Year 2015 Young Investigator Research Program
The Air Force Office of Scientific Research (AFOSR)’s Young Investigator Research Program (YIP) supports scientists and engineers who have received Ph.D. or equivalent degrees in the last five years (on or after 1 May 2009) and…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Why Academics use Social Media
A lengthy Nature report with many statistics. Some surprising. I would further like to see why people outside, or just slightly outside a particular academic or technical field, use Social Media. I frequently find myself in…