July 2021 - Vol. 64 No. 7

Features

Opinion Departments Jul 1 2021

Program Verification: Vision and Reality

In 1969, Tony Hoare wrote in "An Axiomatic Basis for Computer Programming" about mathematical certainty, great reliance, and confidence. In retrospect, the hope for "mathematical certainty" was idealized, and not fully realistic, I believe.

Moshe Y. Vardi

Computing Applications

Careers Career paths in computing: Computing enabled me to … Jul 1 2021

Obtain a Ph.D. and a Career in Data

Innovative new approaches to learning are enabling people to gain skills that are vital in today's workplace.

Victoria Holt

Computing Applications

Opinion Editor's letter Jul 1 2021

Two Sides of the Software Engineering Coin

Two columns from the January 2021 Communications: Michael A. Cusumano's "Technology Strategy and Management" and Thomas Haigh's "Historical Reflections," offer a stark contrast with respect to the engineering profession.

CACM Staff

BLOG@CACM Jul 1 2021

Securing Seabed Cybersecurity, Emphasizing Intelligence Augmentation

John Arquilla considers the outlook for undersea cyberwar, while Judi Fusco, Pati Ruiz, and Jeremy Roschelle discuss how building equitable applications in education requires an emphasis on augmenting intelligence.

John Arquilla, Judi Fusco, Pati Ruiz, and Jeremy Roschelle

Computing Applications

News Jul 1 2021

Formal Software Verification Measures Up

Verified coding techniques use mathematical proofs to ensure code is error-free and hacker-resistant. Can the approach revolutionize software?

Samuel Greengard

Computing Applications

News Jul 1 2021

A Battery-Free Internet of Things

The Internet of Things can thrive without hardwired or consumable power sources.

Esther Shein

Architecture and Hardware

News Jul 1 2021

The Future of Supply Chains

Droids, drones, and driverless technologies are fueling a supply chain revolution.

Paul Marks

Architecture and Hardware

Starship Technologies autonomous food-delivery robot

News Jul 1 2021

Charles M. Geschke (1939-2021)

Charles M. Geschke helped create the modern world of computing, where beautiful typography and expressive, artistic graphics are as integral to most users' experience as numbers and text.

Simson Garfinkel and Eugene H. Spafford

Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning

Opinion Legally speaking Jul 1 2021

Reimplementing Software Interfaces Is Fair Use

A multifactored rationale for denying Oracle's claim against Google.

Pamela Samuelson

Architecture and Hardware

gears and technology company icons, illustration

Opinion Privacy Jul 1 2021

Lessons From the Loo

Illustrating privacy concepts with potty talk.

Lorrie Faith Cranor

Computing Applications

Opinion Computing ethics Jul 1 2021

Responsible Computing During COVID-19 and Beyond

Navigating the ethical and societal impacts of technologies.

Computing Applications

Opinion Viewpoint Jul 1 2021

The Limits of Differential Privacy (and Its Misuse in Data Release and Machine Learning)

Differential privacy is not a silver bullet for all privacy problems.

Josep Domingo-Ferrer, David Sánchez, and Alberto Blanco-Justicia

Computing Applications

Opinion Viewpoint Jul 1 2021

Why Computing Students Should Contribute to Open Source Software Projects

Acquiring developer-prized practical skills, knowledge, and experiences.

Diomidis Spinellis

Computing Profession

small figures and large chat icon, illustration

Opinion Viewpoint Jul 1 2021

The 2021 Software Developer Shortage Is Coming

Companies must address the difficulty of hiring and retaining high-skilled employees from an increasingly smaller labor supply.

Travis Breaux and Jennifer Moritz

Computing Profession

chair, desk, and computer screen in a spotlight, illustration

Practice Jul 1 2021

Application Frameworks

While powerful, frameworks are not for everyone.

Chris Nokleberg and Brad Hawkes

Computing Applications

Practice Jul 1 2021

Always-on Time-Series Database: Keeping Up Where There's No Way to Catch Up

A discussion with Theo Schlossnagle, Justin Sheehy, and Chris McCubbin.

Theo Schlossnagle, Justin Sheehy, and Chris McCubbin

Computing Applications

Research and Advances Turing lecture Jul 1 2021

Deep Learning for AI

How can neural networks learn the rich internal representations required for difficult tasks such as recognizing objects or understanding language?

Yoshua Bengio, Yann LeCun, and Geoffrey Hinton

Architecture and Hardware

Research and Advances Contributed articles Jul 1 2021

The Harm in Conflating Aging With Accessibility

Including older adults as full stakeholders in digital society.

Computing Applications

Research and Advances Contributed articles Jul 1 2021

Flexible Work and Personal Digital Infrastructures

PDIs are emerging as alternative sociotechnical infrastructures to enhance flexible work arrangments.

Computing Applications

man wearing cap juggles laptop computers, illustration

Research and Advances Review articles Jul 1 2021

Spatial Concepts in the Conversation With a Computer

Conversing about places with a computer poses a range of challenges to current AI.

Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning

Research and Advances Research highlights Jul 1 2021

Technical Perspective: An Elegant Model for Deriving Equations

"Deriving Equations from Sensor Data Using Dimensional Function Synthesis," by Vasileios Tsoutsouras, et al., addresses the key problem of discovering relationships that hold between physical quantities from data using dimensional analysis to drastically narrow down the space of hypotheses.

Sriram Sankaranarayanan

Architecture and Hardware

Research and Advances Research highlights Jul 1 2021

Deriving Equations from Sensor Data Using Dimensional Function Synthesis

We present a new method, which we call dimensional function synthesis, for deriving functions that model the relationship between multiple signals in a physical system.

Vasileios Tsoutsouras, Sam Willis, and Phillip Stanley-Marbell

Architecture and Hardware

Research and Advances Research highlights Jul 1 2021

Technical Perspective: Tracking Pandemic-Driven Internet Traffic

"A Year in Lockdown," by Anja Feldmann, et al., offers a detailed look at how Internet traffic changed during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Jennifer Rexford

Computing Profession

Research and Advances Research highlights Jul 1 2021

A Year in Lockdown: How the Waves of COVID-19 Impact Internet Traffic

We review the impact of the first year of the COVID-19 pandemic on Internet traffic in order to analyze its performance.

Computing Profession

Zoom meeting on laptop computer screen and social icons, illustration

Opinion Last byte Jul 1 2021

String Me Along

Seeking the ever-elusive shortest path.

Dennis Shasha

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