Communications of the ACM
The blog archive provides access to past blog postings from Communications of the ACM and other sources by date.
March 2021
From Schneier on Security
No, RSA Is Not Broken
I have been seeing this paper by cryptographer Peter Schnorr making the rounds: “Fast Factoring Integers by SVP Algorithms.” It describes a new factoring method, and its abstract ends with the provocative sentence: “This destroys…
From The Eponymous Pickle
AI Changing Human Choice and Chance?
Perhaps it will, but its still in very small ways. We are not even close to major changes. ....
AI is killing choice and chance—changing what it means to be human by Nir Eisikovits and Dan Feldman in Techexplore
The history…From The Eponymous Pickle
Syncing time on Smartphones for Measurements
Can be useful for synchronization of measurement.
Twist-n-Sync: Skoltech Scientists Use Smartphone Gyroscopes to Sync Time Across Devices
Skolkovo Institute of Science and Technology (Russia)
February 19, 2021
A software-based algorithm…From Putting People First
What’s mine is ours: how consumption is changing
When customers form an emotional attachment or self-identify with a product, that sense of “mine” enhances its luster and keeps them coming back for more. As shoppers shift away from owning material things, how can marketers…
From Putting People First
[Book] A City Is Not a Computer
A bold reassessment of "smart cities" that reveals what is lost when we conceive of our urban spaces as computers
From Gödel's Lost Letter and P=NP
WSJ Meets Group Algorithms
Our whole life is solving puzzles. — Ernő Rubik Cropped from source Jessica Fridrich is a Distinguished Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering at Binghamton University. She is an expert on data hiding, that is, steganography…
From insideHPC
IBM Says Quantum Error Correcting Software Coming in 2023 – ‘Quantum Comes of Age’
If quantum isn’t to be a technology “that’s always 10 years away,” then quantum error correction (QEC) – one of the high hurdles to quantum becoming a practical reality – must be tamed. This week at a Wall Street Journal virtual…
From The Eponymous Pickle
AWS Enhances Amazon Managed Blockchain with Ethereum support
This is interesting because it incudes ethereum support for Smart Contracts, being examined here.
AWS Enhances Amazon Managed Blockchain with Ethereum support By Maria Deutscher in SiliconAngle
Amazon Web Services Inc. has launched…From BLOG@CACM
Is the Pandemic Affecting Science and Engineering Undergraduate Students?
The importance of the students’ voice.
From The Eponymous Pickle
AI Finds Battery Materials
More detail about the method at the link.
Using AI to Find Essential Battery Materials
As battery demand soars, researchers are turning to artificial intelligence for more effective and sustainable methods By Maria GallucciDemand…From Schneier on Security
Four Microsoft Exchange Zero-Days Exploited by China
Microsoft has issued an emergency Microsoft Exchange patch to fix four zero-day vulnerabilities currently being exploited by China.
From The Eponymous Pickle
AI Video Analysis in Athletics
An example of how AI pattern recognition can achieve fine grain pattern detection and matching. Here in athletic training planning and evaluation. Note links to an athletic tracking system that might be used to provide data…
From Daniel Lemire's Blog
How does your programming language handle “minus zero” (-0.0)?
The ubiquitous IEEE floating-point standard defines two numbers to represent zero, the positive and the negative zeros. You also have the positive and negative infinity. If you compute the inverse of the positive zero, you get…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Soft Robot Swims in the Mariana Trench
An example of extreme exploration, using a soft biomimicking design. Considerable possibilities here.
Soft robot swims in the Mariana Trench in Techexplore by Bob Yirka
A team of researchers affiliated with multiple institutions…From The Eponymous Pickle
China Charges Ahead with National Digital Currency
Implications of these changes for US and Others?
China Charges Ahead with National Digital Currency By The New York Times, March 4, 2021
China has charged ahead with a bold effort to remake the way that government-backed money…From The Eponymous Pickle
Quantum Wavelength Switch
Interesting direction outlines. Note the number of users in the quantum network being key.
Quantum Internet Closer to Reality, Thanks to This Switch
By Purdue University News, March 3, 2021
A new study has found that using aEngineers…From insideHPC
DevGraph CloudFix Designed to Cut AWS Costs
Austin, TX – DevGraph has released CloudFix AWS cost optimization software, built to automatically analyzes AWS accounts and find cost-savings opportunities and automatically deploy fixes at scale. “As a heavy AWS user ourselves…
From insideHPC
CoolIT Receives Growth Investment
Calgary, Alberta. March 4, 2020 – CoolIT Systems, maker of scalable direct liquid cooling technology (DLC), has announced the completion of an undisclosed eight figure investment led by BDC Capital (BDCC), the investment arm …
From insideHPC
10 Teams Slated for 1st Winter Classic Student Cluster Competition
Dan Olds, chief research officer at HPC industry analyst firm Intersect360, provides this update on the Winter Classic Invitational Student Cluster Competition that he is organizing. Back up NCAA, check yourself March Madness…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Amazon Launches tools to Manage Workflows
We were mainly looking at how to manage work flows in general, but the same goal really. Replace some of the resource components with robots, people, analytics external flows. Like to see the examples of how and measures…
From insideHPC
Leopard Imaging Teams with Socionext, Hailo, AWS for AI Video Analytics
FREMONT, CA, YOKOHAMA and TEL AVIV, Israel, March 3, 2021 — Leopard Imaging Inc., provider of embedded camera design and manufacturing, is collaborating with three leading companies to deliver EdgeTuring: an artificial intelligence…
From insideHPC
Fabless Semiconductor Startup Xsight Labs Closes Series D Led by Valor and Atreides, Joined by Fidelity
TEL-AVIV and SAN JOSE — March 3, 2021— Xsight Labs, a fabless semiconductor startup company, today announced the closing of its Series D funding. The round was led by Valor Equity Partners and Atreides Management and was joined…
From insideHPC
CoolIT Systems in Agreement with nVent for High Density Rack-level Liquid Cooling
Calgary, Alberta – March 3, 2020 – CoolIT Systems Inc., a global leader in modular, scalable data center liquid cooling technology, has announced a strategic agreement with nVent Electric plc (NYSE:NVT) (“nVent”), a global leader…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Google Cardboard VR is Gone
I used to recommend these in classes. Still have some around, somewhere .... Too bad. Downward trend in VR signaled?
Google stops selling its Cardboard VR goggles after seven years
The affordable headset helped bring virtual…From insideHPC
Intel Achieves AWS High Performance Computing Competency Status
Intel has announced it has achieved Amazon Web Services (AWS) High Performance Computing (HPC) Competency status. This designation recognizes that Intel has demonstrated deep experience helping customers optimize their HPC workloads…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Publix Pandemic Sales Increase
Interesting numbers, starting with increased sales. A kind of behavioral measure of interest. Much more at the link.
Publix Super Markets: For the full fiscal 2020 year, Publix saw net earnings rise by $1 billion to $4 billion…From insideHPC
Pure Storage and Equinix Collaborate to Deliver ‘Physical Infrastructure at Software Speed’
MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif. — March 3, 2021 — Today Pure Storage (NYSE: PSTG), which delivers storage as a service in a multi-cloud world, and Equinix, Inc. (Nasdaq: EQIX), the digital infrastructure company, announced Pure Storage…
From The Computing Community Consortium Blog
Great Innovative Idea – Smartmedia: Adapting Streamed Content to Fit Location and Context
The following Great Innovative Idea is from Yaron Kanza (AT&T Labs-Research), David Gibbon (AT&T Labs-Research), Divesh Srivastava (AT&T Labs-Research), Valerie Yip (AT&T Labs-Research), and Eric Zavesky (AT&T Labs-Research).…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Retrain Your Model, Update the Data
Such an obvious thing, but often forgotten. I make a point to include such updating instructions in everything I delivered. No data, except from physics, is static. Estimate, at least, the risk involved in not updating a model…
From insideHPC
Ungaro Departs: New Leadership Blood as HPE and Dell Drive for No. 1 in HPC
HPE and Dell, engaged in a neck-and-neck struggle for superiority in HPC servers, also are engaged in a reshuffling of their HPC leadership teams that may reflect similar visions of HPC’s broadening adoption across IT. Last week…