Communications of the ACM
The blog archive provides access to past blog postings from Communications of the ACM and other sources by date.
June 2021
From The Eponymous Pickle
IBM Open Sources Hyperledger
Had examined this sometime ago, seems IBM wants it and blockchain to succeed. This will promote it it be be better tested.
IBM Donates Code Improvements to Open Source Hyperledger
“The intent is to improve the usability of Hyperledger…From Schneier on Security
VPNs and Trust
TorrentFreak surveyed nineteen VPN providers, asking them questions about their privacy practices: what data they keep, how they respond to court order, what country they are incorporated in, and so on.
Most interesting to me…From Schneier on Security
Andrew Appel on New Hampshire’s Election Audit
Really interesting two part analysis of the audit conducted after the 2020 election in Windham, New Hampshire.
Based on preliminary reports published by the team of experts that New Hampshire engaged to examine an election discrepancy…From ACM-W supporting, celebrating and advocating for Women in Computing
Welcome from the ACM-W Chair – June 2021
We’ve reached the end of another year of programming for ACM-W. And what a year it has been! In spite of the challenges we’ve faced, ACM-W activity worldwide continued in the form of virtual Celebrations, Chapter activities,…
From Gödel's Lost Letter and P=NP
Thursday—June 17th—A Debate on Program Correctness
There are two ways to write error free programs; only the third one works–Alan Perlis Perlis on Coding Joy source Alan Perlis, the first Turing Award winner, summarized the whole issue of program correctness in his single quote…
From insideHPC
Graphcore and SiPearl Form Euro Partnership to Combine AI and HPC
Graphcore, the British maker of the Intelligence Processing Unit (IPU) for artificial intelligence workloads, and SiPearl, the Franco-German company building an HPC chip, have entered into a strategic partnership intended to
…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Global Chip Shortages Leading to Fakes
Chip shortages leading to fakes and safety in the operation of systems.
The Global Chip Shortage is Creating a New Problem: More Fake Components By ZDNet
From face masks to hand sanitizer and onto vaccine passports: almost all…From insideHPC
Subzero Engineering and Armstrong World Industries Partner to Serve U.S. Data Center Market
San Antonio, TX, June 15 , 2021 – Subzero Engineering, a maker of data center containment solutions, and Armstrong World Industries (AWI), a designer and manufacture of commercial and residential ceiling, wall, and suspension…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Amazon Autonomous Warehouse Robotics
Advances in Amazon Warehouse robotics to improve safety and operations. Note includes autonomous operation.
Amazon Details Warehouse Robots, 'Ernie' and 'Bert'
CNBC, Lauren Feiner, June 13, 2021
Retail giant Amazon is testing new…From insideHPC
Intel’s Infrastructure Processing Unit Targets Hyperscaler Data Centers
Intel has unveiled a programmable networking device for hyperscalers and their massive data center infrastructures. Called the Infrastructure Processing Unit and announced at Intel made the announcement during the Six Five Summit…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Automating Space Weather Prediction
Ultimately a very important function, Coronal Mass Ejection is dangerous to many technical functions on earth. Neural methods for pattern analysis for coronal holes.
AI Spots Coronal Holes to Automate Space Weather Prediction…From Daniel Lemire's Blog
How long should you work on a problem ?
Lev Reyzin says that working too long on a problem might be unproductive: I, personally, have diminishing (or negative?) returns to my creative work as I explicitly work on a problem past some amount of time. I often have insights…
From The Eponymous Pickle
China Based TikTok Says it Will Collect US Biometric Data
See also Bruce Schneier with further comments on this.
TikTok just gave itself permission to collect biometric data on US users, including ‘faceprints and voiceprints By Sarah Perez in TechCrunch
A change to TikTok’s…From The Eponymous Pickle
P&G Positions for Inflation
My former and longtime employer writes, on the threat of Inflation Challenges. With innovation.
P&G Is Positioned for Inflation Challenges
Procter & Gamble Vice Chairman and COO Jon Moeller tells investors it has winning products…From The Eponymous Pickle
How Long Will it be Until we can Talk to Animals?
First I thought this was a silly question. But it is really a primary question of intelligence. Its not just a translation, but a need to parse into a useful structure so it can be translated into/from our world. Peoples…
From insideHPC
Los Alamos in R&D Pact with Quantum Computing Inc. for Exascale and Petascale Simulations
Quantum Computing Inc., a Leesburg, VA-based company focused on bridging classical and quantum computing, today announced a three-year cooperative research and development agreement with Los Alamos National Laboratory. QCI will…
From BLOG@CACM
The Evolution of Computing Power in Switzerland
Milestones in the history of computing from the Swiss National Supercomputing Center, Lugano.
From The Eponymous Pickle
Quantum Heat
Heat and quantum computing. Quantum Computing requires physical machines which will need heat management. And that such machines may be quite 'delicate' when they erase information. Shows we have much to do before we have…
From Schneier on Security
TikTok Can Now Collect Biometric Data
This is probably worth paying attention to:
A change to TikTok’s U.S. privacy policy on Wednesday introduced a new section that says the social video app “may collect biometric identifiers and biometric information” from its“faceprints…From The Computing Community Consortium Blog
Listen to the Catalyzing Computing Podcast, Episode 35 – Computer Architecture with Mark D. Hill (Part 1)
A new episode of the Computing Community Consortium‘s (CCC) official podcast, Catalyzing Computing, is now available. In this episode, Khari Douglas (CCC Senior Program Associate) interviews Dr. Mark D. Hill, the Gene M. Amdahl…
From The Noisy Channel
The Eternal Quest for Meaning
In 1668, John Wilkins published An Essay Towards a Real Character, and a Philosophical Language. In it, he proposed a universal language that would represent every concept with its own symbol.
Here is an excerpt from his treatise…From The Eponymous Pickle
McDonald's Drive Through Bot may Violate Law
Been following work by retailers to improve efficiency. This example seems a weak attempt at blocking new tech.
McDonald’s drive-thru AI bot may have broken privacy law By Ryan Daws | June 11, 2021 | TechForge Media in AI…From The Eponymous Pickle
UK Plans a Pandemic Radar
With plans for testing in a future pandemic.
via ACM NEWS
U.K. Has a Plan for a New 'Pandemic Radar' System By Wired
About four years ago, seven infants and toddlers and a 37-year-old woman were admitted to a hospital in Sibu…From The Eponymous Pickle
Top Supply Chain Tech Trends
Some good thoughts on tech trends in supply chain.
Gartner Reveals Top 8 Supply Chain Technology Trends in SDCExec
Gartner has identified the top eight supply chain technology themes for 2021, which were selected for their transformational…From The Eponymous Pickle
3D Printing Human Liver Tissue
Continue to make remarkable advances using 3D Prining.
Wake Forest teams win a NASA prize for 3D printing human liver tissue
Nobody was really expected to conquer the 'Vascular Tissue Challenge' when it launched....
In Engadget…From Putting People First
Anthro-Vision: a new way to see in business and life
If there’s one simple message for the general reader in her new book Anthro-Vision it is this: the promise and value of anthropology lies in making visible that which is close to hand but ignored. It offers a means to see the…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Salesforce and Marketing AI
Overview of Salesforce and Marketing AI
Using AI to Automate Marketing Processes Using Salesforce Tools
Salesforce relies heavily on AI technology to help companies dramatically expand their market share. By Diana Hope
Artificial…From Putting People First
Heidi Larson, vaccine anthropologist
Heidi Larson studies vaccine rumors—how they start, and why some flourish and others wither. Tackling misperceptions individually is like eliminating a single microbial strain: when one germ is gone, another will bloom. Instead…
From Putting People First
Humans are imperfect, inconsistent decision-makers
In their new book, Daniel Kahneman, Olivier Sibony and Cass Sunstein offer strategies for improvement | An Economist book review
From Putting People First
The human error of Artificial Intelligence
Rather than trying to fix the biases of AI systems and their human error, we need to find ways to coexist with it. Anthropology can help us a lot here.