December 2008 - Vol. 51 No. 12

Features

News Publications board letter Dec 1 2008

ACM Publications: Access and Sustainability

The dissemination of research results and other technical information is one of the primary ways in which ACM carries out its mission as an educational and scientific society. As such, ACM seeks to make its publications accessible to as wide an audience as possible. However, in doing so ACM also has a responsibility to its […]

Ronald F. Boisvert and Holly Rushmeier

Computing Applications

Opinion Publisher's corner Dec 1 2008

Looking Back and Forward

"Well within our sights now is a magazine that can truly be considered the most important scholarly publication in the field of computing." 2008 has been a year of incredible change for Communications of the ACM. Starting with the 50th anniversary issue in January in which it was first announced that the magazine would undergo […]

Scott E. Delman

Computing Applications

Opinion Letters to the editor 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 […]

CACM Staff

Computing Applications

Opinion CACM online Dec 1 2008

Previewing the New CACM Web Site

Readers use Communications' content—print and digital—in different ways. These habits have significantly impacted the design of the soon-to-be-launched Communications Web site.

David Roman

Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning

News Dec 1 2008

Living Machines

Researchers of molecular computing and communication are focusing on the type of breakthroughs needed to make the vision of ultrasmall, biocompatible computers a reality.

Kirk L. Kroeker

Architecture and Hardware

News Dec 1 2008

Touching the Future

In combination with finger and hand gestures, multitouch input is enabling users to manipulate and display information in innovative and unprecedented ways.

Ted Selker

Computing Applications

News Dec 1 2008

Upwardly Mobile

Mobile phones are bridging the digital divide and transforming many economic, social, and medical realities, particularly in developing nations.

Samuel Greengard

Computing Applications

Salon owner Josephine Macaladad with Merlita Werlan at the Balayan Public Market in Batangas, Philippines

News Dec 1 2008

Making a Difference

The Grace Hopper Celebration featured technical talks, workshops, networking events, and lively discussions about increasing the number of women in computer science.

Leah Hoffmann

Computing Applications

Anne Condon introduces A.M. Turing Award winner Fran Allen at the Grace Hopper Celebration of Women in Computing conference

Opinion Viewpoints Dec 1 2008

Emerging Markets: Labor Supply in the Indian IT Industry

Exploring the evolving dynamics and interconnectedness of India's educational system and its IT work force.

Alok Aggarwal

Computing Applications

Opinion Viewpoints Dec 1 2008

Advising Policymakers Is More Than Just Providing Advice

What are the factors that make certain advisory committee reports successful while others are not?

Cameron Wilson and Peter Harsha

Computing Applications

Opinion Viewpoints Dec 1 2008

Kode Vicious: Permanence and Change

Highlighting the importance of doing one's best in view of code longevity and the impermanence of the changineer.

George V. Neville-Neil

Computing Applications

Opinion Viewpoints Dec 1 2008

Time to Take Evolutionary Development Off the Shelf

Large systems projects are failing at an alarming rate. It's time to take evolutionary design methods off the shelf.

Peter J. Denning, Chris Gunderson, and Rick Hayes-Roth

Computing Applications

Opinion Viewpoints Dec 1 2008

Database Dialogue with Pat Selinger

Relational database pioneer Patricia G. Selinger explores the vast realm of database technology and trends in a wide-ranging discussion with Microsoft's James Hamilton.

James Hamilton and Pat Selinger

Computing Applications

Practice Dec 1 2008

High-Performance Web Sites

Want to make your Web site fly? Focus on frontend performance.

Steve Souders

Architecture and Hardware

Opinion Dec 1 2008

CTO Virtualization Roundtable: Part II

When it comes to virtualization platforms, experts say focus first on the services to be delivered.

Mache Creeger

Architecture and Hardware

Research and Advances Contributed articles Dec 1 2008

Got Data? A Guide to Data Preservation in the Information Age

Tools for surviving a data deluge to ensure your data will be there when you need it.

Francine Berman

Computing Applications

Research and Advances Contributed articles Dec 1 2008

Ontologies and the Semantic Web

How ontologies provide the semantics, as explained here with the help of Harry Potter and his owl Hedwig.

Ian Horrocks

Architecture and Hardware

Research and Advances Review articles Dec 1 2008

Open Information Extraction from the Web

Targeted IE methods are transforming into open-ended techniques.

Oren Etzioni, Michele Banko, Stephen Soderland, and Daniel S. Weld

Computing Applications

Research and Advances Research highlights Dec 1 2008

Technical Perspective: One Size Fits All: An Idea Whose Time Has Come and Gone

Beginning in the early to mid-1980s the relational model of data has dominated the DBMS landscape. Moreover, descendents of the early relational prototypes have become the primary commercial relational DBMSs. As such, the basic architecture sold by the commercial vendors is more than two decades old.

Michael Stonebraker

Computing Applications

Research and Advances Research highlights Dec 1 2008

Breaking the Memory Wall in MonetDB

In this paper, we report how research around the MonetDB database system has led to a redesign of database architecture in order to take advantage of modern hardware, and in particular to avoid hitting the memory wall.

Peter A. Boncz, Martin L. Kersten, and Stefan Manegold

Computing Applications

Research and Advances Research highlights Dec 1 2008

Technical Perspective: Patching Program Errors

C programmers are are all too familiar with out-of-bounds memory errors. The paper here presents an intriguing technique for automatically isolating and correcting these errors.

Martin C. Rinard

Computing Applications

Research and Advances Research highlights Dec 1 2008

Exterminator: Automatically Correcting Memory Errors with High Probability

Programs written in C and C++ are susceptible to memory errors, including buffer overflows and dangling pointers. We present Exterminator, a system that automatically corrects heap-based memory errors without programmer intervention.

Gene Novark, Emery D. Berger, and Benjamin G. Zorn

Computing Applications

Opinion Last byte Dec 1 2008

Puzzled: Solutions and Sources

Last month (November 2008, p. 112) we posed a trio of brain teasers concerning circular food shapes. Here, we offer some possible solutions. How did you do?

Peter Winkler

Opinion Last byte Dec 1 2008

Future Tense: Pester Power

Future Tense, one of the revolving features on this page, presents stories from the intersection of computational science and technological speculation, their boundaries limited only by our ability to imagine what will and could be.

Cory Doctorow

Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning