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Opinion Dec 1 2008

Apple Builds Great Platforms, Too, Not Just Products

Why is Michael Cusumano puzzled about Apple? The main point in his Viewpoint column "Technology Strategy and Management" (Sept. 2008) was that you can either build products or you can build platforms. He then claimed that Microsoft is successful because it builds platforms and said he was puzzled by Apple’s success since it creates only […]
Computing Applications
Opinion Nov 1 2008

Letters to the Editor: Even Science Would Benefit From Auctions

In "designing the Perfect Auction" (Aug. 2008), Hal R. Varian noted that such auctions have many practical and obvious applications, including in Web advertising, cooperative robotics, digital business ecosystems, digital preservation, and network management. Auctions, by means of complementary community currencies, can also radically shift the way we conceive scientific cooperation. As we advocated in our paper "Selecting Scientific Papers for Publication via Citation Auctions" (IEEE Intelligent Systems, Nov./Dec. 2007), replacing peer review with an auction-based approach would benefit science in general. The better a submitted paper, the more complementary scientific currency its author(s) would likely bid to have itpublished. If the bid would truly reflect the paper's quality, the author(s) would be rewarded in this new scientific currency; otherwise, the author(s) would lose the currency.
Computing Applications
Opinion Sep 1 2008

Knuth’s Art of Recovering from Errors

I really enjoyed Donald E. Knuth reminiscing in Edward Feigenbaum’s interview with him ("The ‘Art’ of Being Donald Knuth," July 2008). Who else would have moved to Stanford University to slow down? Knuth’s self-effacing modesty notwithstanding, I would like to challenge anyone to examine the literature preceding Knuth’s contribution to algorithms and compiler theory. There […]
Computing Applications
Opinion Aug 1 2008

Words Both Kind and Contrary

For the first time in many, many years I found Communications (July 2008) both friendly to the reader and useful. Over the years, the physical form and font of the issues were very unfriendly, let alone the content, which was quite rarified. Not this latest issue. The redesign makes the physical attributes—paper (non-glossy, yeah!), layout, […]
Computing Applications
News Jun 1 2008

News Track

Researchers at IBM Almaden Research Center have demonstrated the feasibility of a class of data storage called racetrack memory that combines the data storage of a magnetic hard disk with the speed and strength of flash memory at relatively low cost. Technology Review reports that, unlike flash, racetrack memory would not degrade over time. A […]
Computing Applications
News May 1 2008

ACM A.M. Turing Award Nominations Solicited

Nominations are invited for the 2008 ACM A.M. Turing Award. ACM’s oldest and most prestigious award is presented for contributions of a technical nature to the computing community. Although the long-term influences of the nominee’s work are taken into consideration, there should be a particular outstanding and trendsetting technical achievement that constitutes the principal claim […]
Computing Applications

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