Communications of the ACM
The blog archive provides access to past blog postings from Communications of the ACM and other sources by date.
September 2020
From Daniel Lemire's Blog
Science and Technology links (September 19th 2020)
A large city dating back 4,300 years has been discovered in China. It predates the Chinese civilization. At its center was a wide pyramid supporting a 20-acre palace. Little is known about the people living there other than the…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Cosmetic Surgery Goldmine?
A look at consequences of behavior in pandemic, suggested by a former colleague.
Zoom has turned into a goldmine... for the cosmetic surgery industry
Martin Lindstrom Brand and Culture Transformation Expert and Founder of Lindstrom…
From insideHPC
Cambridge Quantum Computing with IBM Launches 1st Cloud-Based Quantum Random Number Generator
Cambridge Quantum Computing (CQC) has launched the world’s first cloud-based Quantum Random Number Generation (QRNG) Service with integrated verification for the user. Randomness is an essential and ubiquitous raw material in…
From insideHPC
SUSE Announces Third Quarter Financial Results
LONDON –SUSE, the world’s largest independent open source company, today announced financial results* and highlights from the third quarter of its fiscal year 2020 ended July 31. SUSE’s Q3 revenue increased 14% year over year…
From Schneier on Security
Nihilistic Password Security Questions
Posted three years ago, but definitely appropriate for the times.
From The Eponymous Pickle
3D Printing Poses a "Grave and Growing Threat" to Privacy
Had never thought of the premise suggested here, but yes is a consideration. Grave? Also mentions watermarking which we also studied for retail applications.
3D Printing Poses a "Grave and Growing Threat" to Privacy, Experts…
From The Eponymous Pickle
The Story of 'Have I Been Pwned'
Rather late saw this mentioned in TWIT Security Now. Where Steve Gibson comments from a security point of view. Deserves a read by people attempting to innovate and sell the results. Considerable blog post below after a quick…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Grocery
Pointed out to me. Book that links to my past technical life. With some interesting links into our current situation. Probably a good read for those getting into this space.
The Secret Life of Groceries: The Dark Miracle of …
From The Eponymous Pickle
Dreams
Seems we have done little in the space since Freud. Is interesting to see Nokia in the space. Gathering data is again a good place to start. AI I assume to mine and classify in new ways.
Insights Into Dreams and What They
The…
From BLOG@CACM
The Laughing is Over
Celebrating the 50th anniversary of the first U.S. Computer Chess Championship in 1970.
From insideHPC
Accelerate Your Development of GPU Based Innovative Applications
In this sponsored post by our friends over at AMD, we take a deep into how GPUs have become an essential component of innovative organizations that require the highest performing clusters, whether one server or thousands of servers…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Fourth Industrial Revolution and Manufacturing’s Great Reset
Manufacturing rushes towards a fourth industrial revolution.
The Fourth Industrial Revolution and manufacturing’s great reset by McKinsey
By Francisco Betti, Enno de Boer, and Yves Giraud
Manufacturers that are ahead in scaling
Since…
From The Eponymous Pickle
IFTTT Lets You Set Price Forever
And from IFTTT expands their offering, pricing, with demonstrations and a contest.
....Set your price, forever
You spoke, we listened. No more confusion on the length of IFTTT Pro pricing. Set your price before October 7th and
Watch…
From Schneier on Security
Amazon Delivery Drivers Hacking Scheduling System
Amazon drivers — all gig workers who don’t work for the company — are hanging cell phones in trees near Amazon delivery stations, fooling the system into thinking that they are closer than they actually are:
The phones in trees…From The Eponymous Pickle
Approximately Correct is Useful
Brought to my attention, and made me smile. Al, as all human decision making, is approximately correct. Yes you can define problems tightly enough so that they will be exactly correct. Say that 2+2 =4. But in the real world…
From Schneier on Security
Friday Squid Blogging: Nano-Sized SQUIDS
SQUID news:
Physicists have developed a small, compact superconducting quantum interference device (SQUID) that can detect magnetic fields. The team l focused on the instrument’s core, which contains two parallel layers of graphene…From The Eponymous Pickle
Alibaba Blockchain Patents
How much are patents driving this competition?
Alibaba on Track to Be the Largest Blockchain Patent Holder by End of 2020: Study
In Coindesk by Paddy Baker
Alibaba is on track to supersede U.S. computer giant IBM as the single-largest…
From The Eponymous Pickle
The Sciences of Reflection
Another example of advanced sensory analysis that can improve 'seeing' in multiple complex environments.
Research reflects how AI sees through the looking glass by Cornell University
AI learns to pick up on unexpected clues…
From insideHPC
insideHPC Special Report Optimize Your WRF Applications – Part 2
A popular application that simulates climate change is the Weather and Research Forecasting (WRF) model. This white paper discusses how QCT can work with leading research and commercial organizations to lower the Total Cost of…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Robots Harvesting Coconuts
In earlier days I was introduced to harvesting coconut trees in south Florida. Even knew people who could climb up them to do that. Who then attempted to teach it to me, but left me only with the knowledge of how hard it was…
From The Eponymous Pickle
USAF Seeks Shift in How Jets, Missiles, Satellites Are Designed
Makes sense to construct a digital model of any complex system. The robustness of the model will be important. Also depends on contexts of use. Risks.
USAF Seeks Shift in How Jets, Missiles, Satellites Are Designed
The Washington…
From insideHPC
Quantum Computing: Inaugural €10,000 Hartree Centre & Atos Joseph Fourier Prize Launched
London, 16 September 2020 – Atos, a global leader in digital transformation, together with the Science and Technology Facilities Council (STFC) Hartree Centre this week launch a new UK and Ireland competition aimed at supporting…
From insideHPC
Altair Acquires HPC I/O Diagnostics Specialist Ellexus
Altair has announced its second acquisition in two days. The company today announced the acquisition of Ellexus, an input/output (I/O) analysis tool designed to help customers address issues quickly, improving speed accuracy
…
From The Eponymous Pickle
IBM Promises 1000 qubit Quantum Computer
To what kinds of problems are likely to be addressed by Quantum computers? Will this then be a narrowly focused 'supercomputer'. HPC (High performance Computing) for specific problem types and domains. We worked with an early…
From insideHPC
Pure Storage to Acquire Container Platform Portworx
Pure Storage (NYSE: PSTG), the multi-cloud storage as-a-service vendor, has agreed to acquire Portworx, a Kubernetes data services platform, for approximately $370 million. Portworx is used for persistent storage, high availability…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Japan Flying Taxi Services
Closer to filling up the skies? Good detail at the link.
Japan on Track to Introduce Flying Taxi Services in 2023
SkyDrive’s success in conducting a piloted eVTOL test indicates short-hop flights are close to commercial reality…
From insideHPC
Supermicro Contributes to the MN-3 Supercomputer Earning #1 on Green500 List
Supermicro and Preferred Networks (PFN) collaborated to develop the most efficient supercomputer anywhere on earth, earning the #1 position on the Green500 list. This supercomputer, the MN-3, is comprised of Intel® Xeon® CPUs…
From Putting People First
The effect of Covid-19 on education in Africa
This report, and the survey findings behind it, provides a unique insight into the perspectives of EdTech experts regarding the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic on education in Africa. It is based on the findings of a survey of…
From Computer Science Teacher - Thoughts and Information From Alfred Thompson
Why Computer Science Teachers Should Read Books
Since I retired I have been reading more computer science related books. You may have read my book reviews on Humble Pi, Weapons of Math Destruction, or Computer Science in K-12. More and more I realize that I missed out on a…
From insideHPC
Altair Acquires HPC Workload Management Specialist Univa
Altair has acquired Univa, an enterprise-grade workload management, scheduling, and optimization solutions company for HPC and artificial intelligence (AI) on-premises and in the cloud. Altair, which designs data analytics, product…