July 2014 - Vol. 57 No. 7
Features
Two years ago, the ACM Europe Council formed ACM-WE to sponsor European initiatives for women in computing.
Welcome to "Cerf's Up!" I am grateful for Editor-in-Chief Moshe Vardi's invitation to continue writing for Communications; this column succeeds the "From the President" column I penned during my service to ACM in that role.
Opinion Letters to the Editor
Snowden Weak Link: Copying to USB Device
I wish reality were as simple as Bob Toxen made it out to be in his article "The NSA and Snowden: Securing the All-Seeing Eye" (May 2014).
The Difficulty of Teaching Programming Languages, and the Benefits of Hands-on Learning
Mark Guzdial considers the "poor learnability" of programming languages, while Philip Guo enumerates some practical benefits to working in a CS lab.
Next-generation scientific instruments are forcing researchers to question the limits of massively parallel computing.
Robots Compete in Disaster Scenarios
The DARPA Robotics Challenge pitted teams from around the world against each other in a series of disaster-themed tasks.
Holographic Projection Systems Provide Eternal Life
Optical tricks help deceased entertainers keep on performing.
Opinion Legally speaking
Watching TV on Internet-Connected Devices
The ABC vs. Aereo case has potentially far-reaching consequences.
Opinion Computing ethics
Toward a Pedagogy of Ethical Practice
Teaching computing ethics in a manner that allows students to address both abstract ethical knowledge and actual ethical practice.
Opinion Technology strategy and management
Considering the opportunities and challenges for commercial firms involved with government business process outsourcing.
Opinion Broadening participation
Effective teaching practices for broadening participation in computer science.
Opinion Viewpoint
Structural Challenges and the Need to Adapt
Broadening the conversation about scholars and scholarship in computing and information research.
Opinion Viewpoint
Licensing Professional Software Engineers: Seize the Opportunity
Professional organizations should be in the forefront of the ongoing discussion about licensing professional software engineers.
Automated QA Testing at Electronic Arts
A discussion with Michael Donat, Jafar Husain, and Terry Coatta
Research and Advances Contributed articles
Community Sense and Response Systems: Your Phone as Quake Detector
The Caltech CSN project collects sensor data from thousands of personal devices for real-time response to dangerous earthquakes.
Research and Advances Contributed articles
The Rise of RaaS: The Resource-as-a-Service Cloud
In the RaaS cloud, virtual machines trade in fine-grain resources on the fly.
Research and Advances Review articles
Big Data and Its Technical Challenges
Exploring the inherent technical challenges in realizing the potential of Big Data.
Research and Advances Research highlights
Technical Perspective: The Power of Joint Multiuser Beamforming
Having multiple Wi-Fi Access Points with an overlapping coverage area operating on the same frequency may not be a problem anymore.
Research and Advances Research highlights
JMB: Scaling Wireless Capacity with User Demands
JMB, a joint multiuser beamforming system, enables independent access points (APs) to beamform their signals and communicate with their clients on the same channel as if they were one large MIMO transmitter.