Computing professionals sometimes find policy issues ill-defined, confusing, or irrelevant. Perhaps that is why — to date — policy participation has been limited within our community.
June 2012 - Vol. 55 No. 6
Features
Opinion Letters to the editor
The Halting Problem in the Clear Light of Probability
"Turing's Titanic Machine?" considered Alan Turing's contributions to computability theory, concentrating on the halting problem; that is, decide whether a given program will stop or continue indefinitely. The fact that in general no one can know makes it undecidable.
Protecting Against Data Breaches; Living With Mistakes
Jason Hong writes about security breaches and offers a three-pronged approach. Greg Linden discusses the differences between computers and the human brain and their tolerance of errors.
Opinion CACM online
Don’t Throw the Baby Out With the Bathwater
Nearly every day I receive an email that includes a link to a new article related to the Open Access movement. I read every one of these articles because I want to understand the different perspectives on the issue so that I can help contribute to the solution and not the problem.
Electronic patient records contain a treasure trove of data, and researchers are using natural language processing technology to mine the structured data and free text.
Improvements in camera hardware, image processing, camera-photographer interfaces, and image viewing are advancing the state of the art in digital photography.
Local and national governments are turning to open data to cut their costs, increase transparency and efficiency, and respond to the needs of citizens.
Judea Pearl's passionate advocacy of the importance of probability and causality helped revolutionize artificial intelligence.
Sanjeev Arora, winner of the 2011 ACM-Infosys Award, discusses his pivotal role in theoretical computer science.
Opinion Inside risks
Increased attention to cybersecurity has not resulted in improved cybersecurity.
Opinion Kode Vicious
Using a tool for the wrong job is OK until the day when it isn't.
Opinion Privacy and security
Security of the Internet and the Known Unknowns
Seeking answers to questions about Internet vulnerabilities.
Opinion Viewpoint
Why Computer Scientists Should Care About Cyber Conflict and U.S. National Security Policy
Cybersecurity and policy issues for computer scientists.
A Guided Tour of Data-Center Networking
A good user experience depends on predictable performance within the data-center network.
Modeling People and Places with Internet Photo Collections
Understanding the world from the sea of online photos.
Real-Time Computer Vision with OpenCV
Mobile computer-vision technology will soon become as ubiquitous as touch interfaces.
Research and Advances Contributed articles
Why Rumors Spread So Quickly in Social Networks
A few hubs with many connections share with many individuals with few connections.
Research and Advances Contributed articles
Trust Extension For Commodity Computers
A user's trust in a single device can be extended to many other devices.
Research and Advances Review articles
Exploring the technology trends in basic, integrated, and cloud data services.
Research and Advances Review articles
The GCT Program Toward the P vs. NP Problem
Exploring the power and potential of geometric complexity theory. View a video of Ketan D. Mulmuley's FOCS 2010 tutorial on geometric complexity theory.
Research and Advances Research highlights
Technical Perspective: Reconstructing the Unknown, Balancing Structure and Uncertainty
The problem of estimating or reconstructing an unknown structured object from incomplete, partial, noisy measurements is a fundamental one in scientific and technological applications.
Research and Advances Research highlights
Exact Matrix Completion via Convex Optimization
Suppose that one observes an incomplete subset of entries selected from a low-rank matrix. When is it possible to complete the matrix and recover the entries that have not been seen?
Research and Advances Research highlights
Technical Perspective: The Fox and the Hedgehog
"The fox knows many things, but the hedgehog knows one big thing." Philosophers have used this line, attributed to the ancient Greek poet Archilochus, to capture the notion that a person can be either a generalist or a specialist. This distinction exists in software, too.
Research and Advances Research highlights
Lightweight Modular Staging: A Pragmatic Approach to Runtime Code Generation and Compiled DSLs
Good software engineering practice demands generalization and abstraction, whereas high performance demands specialization and concretization. These goals are at odds, and compilers only rarely translate expressive high-level programs to modern hardware platforms. Generative programming is a promising alternative.
Opinion Last byte
Puzzled: Solutions and Sources
Last month (May 2012) we posted a trio of brainteasers concerning designs on square grids. Here, we offer solutions to all three. How did you do?
Opinion Last byte
Artificial intelligence pioneer Judea Pearl discusses probability, causation, the calculus of intervention, and counterfactuals.
