June 2013 - Vol. 56 No. 6

Features

Opinion Jun 1 2013

ACM's Special Interest Groups (SIGs) cover 36 areas of computing, from graphics to computer-human interfaces, theory to computer architecture, programming languages to bioinformatics, and much more. SIGs form the locus of ACM's technical activities.

Erik R. Altman

Computing Applications

Opinion From the president Jun 1 2013

Honoring Our Best

It is June again and we gather once more in San Francisco to honor the best among us. It is fitting that we do this, not only to celebrate the successes of our colleagues but to convey to the general public the remarkable power of computer science.

Vinton G. Cerf

Computing Applications

Opinion Letters to the Editor Jun 1 2013

How to Claim Your Fair Share in Academic Publishing

In his editor's letter "To Boycott or Not to Boycott" (Mar. 2013), Moshe Y. Vardi said the traditional author partnership with commercial publishers has turned into an abusive relationship. It is time computer scientists broke off that relationship,

CACM Staff

Computing Applications

BLOG@CACM Jun 1 2013

Computer Security Needs Refocus; And Be Nice About It

Jason Hong wonders whether computer security is missing the mark, while Judy Robertson supports refusing to tolerate discourtesy.

Jason Hong and Judy Robertson

Computing Applications

News Jun 1 2013

Deep Learning Comes of Age

Advances on multiple fronts are bringing big improvements to the way computers learn, increasing the accuracy of speech and vision systems.

Gary Anthes

Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning

rainbow brainwaves made from a computer simulation

News Jun 1 2013

The Future Is Flexible Displays

Manufacturers hint that bendable screens are coming soon, but academics argue that many engineering challenges remain.

Gregory Mone

Computing Applications

prototype of Samsung's flexible smartphone

News Jun 1 2013

Augmented-Reality Glasses Bring Cloud Security Into Sharp Focus

The possibility of a new $200-billion-plus industry has cloud security experts bracing for the ramifications.

Paul Hyman

Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning

News Jun 1 2013

Proofs Probable

Shafi Goldwasser and Silvio Micali laid the foundations for modern cryptography, with contributions including interactive and zero-knowledge proofs.

Neil Savage

Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning

News Jun 1 2013

ACM Honors Computing Innovators

ACM's awards celebrate achievements in networks, information retrieval, multi-agent systems, computer science education, versatile compiler technologies, and more.

CACM Staff

Computing Applications

Opinion Privacy and security Jun 1 2013

Cybercrime, Cyberweapons, Cyber Wars: Is There Too Much of It in the Air?

Where reality stops and perception begins.

Stas Filshtinskiy

Computing Applications

Cybercrime, Cyberweapons, Cyber Wars, illustration

Opinion The business of software Jun 1 2013

What Is a ‘Good’ Estimate?

Whether forecasting is valuable.

Phillip G. Armour

Computing Applications

What Is a 'Good' Estimate?, illustration

Opinion Kode Vicious Jun 1 2013

Swamped By Automation

Whenever someone asks you to trust them, don't.

George V. Neville-Neil

Computing Applications

Opinion The profession of IT Jun 1 2013

Thumb Numbers

Rules of thumb stated as numerical rules are enticing, but many are folk theorems that may not apply in your critical situation.

Peter J. Denning

Computing Applications

Opinion Inside risks Jun 1 2013

Learning from the Past to Face the Risks of Today

The Space Shuttle software program can provide guidance to today's projects.

Nancy G. Leveson

Computing Applications

Opinion Viewpoint Jun 1 2013

Access to the Internet Is a Human Right

Connecting Internet access with freedom of expression and creativity.

Stephen B. Wicker and Stephanie M. Santoso

Computing Applications

Practice Jun 1 2013

Resolved: The Internet Is No Place For Critical Infrastructure

Risk is a necessary consequence of dependence.

Dan Geer

Architecture and Hardware

Practice Jun 1 2013

Real-Time GPU Audio

Real-time finite difference-based sound synthesis using graphics processors.

Bill Hsu and Marc Sosnick-Pérez

Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning

image created by an audio reactive visual application

Practice Jun 1 2013

There Is No Getting Around It: You Are Building a Distributed System

Building a distributed system requires a methodical approach to requirements.

Mark Cavage

Architecture and Hardware

Research and Advances Contributed articles Jun 1 2013

Incentives and Rewarding in Social Computing

Praise, pay, and promote crowd-member workers to elicit desired behavioral responses and performance levels.

Ognjen Scekic, Hong-Linh Truong, and Schahram Dustdar

Architecture and Hardware

Incentives and Rewarding in Social Computing, illustration

Research and Advances Contributed articles Jun 1 2013

Consequence Analysis of Complex Events on Critical U.S. Infrastructure

How to mitigate a cyber-physical attack that disables the transportation network and releases a cloud of chlorine gas.

Architecture and Hardware

Consequence Analysis of Complex Events on Critical U.S. Infrastructure, illustration

Research and Advances Review articles Jun 1 2013

Content Recommendation on Web Portals

How to offer recommendations to users when they have not specified what they want.

Deepak Agarwal, Bee-Chung Chen, Pradheep Elango, and Raghu Ramakrishnan

Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning

Content Recommendation on Web Portals, illustrative photo

Research and Advances Research highlights Jun 1 2013

Technical Perspective: Circuit Placement Challenges

For a semiconductor circuit with billions of transistors, finding desired locations of circuit components is a challenging task that substantially impacts circuit quality and manufacturing cost.

Yao-Wen Chang

Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning

Research and Advances Research highlights Jun 1 2013

SimPL: An Algorithm For Placing VLSI Circuits

VLSI placement optimizes locations of circuit components so as to reduce interconnect. We propose an algorithm for large-scale placement that outperforms prior art both in runtime and solution quality on standard benchmarks.

Myung-Chul Kim, Dong-Jin Lee, and Igor L. Markov

Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning

SimPL: An Algorithm for Placing VLSI Circuits, illustration

Opinion Last byte Jun 1 2013

Puzzled: Solutions and Sources

Last month (May 2013) we posed a trio of brainteasers concerning Ant Alice and her ant friends who always march at 1 cm/sec in whatever direction they are facing, reversing direction when they collide.

Peter Winkler

Computing Applications

Opinion Last byte Jun 1 2013

Q&A: Cracking the Code

Turing Award recipients Shafi Goldwasser and Silvio Micali talk about proofs, probability, and poker.

Leah Hoffmann

Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning

Turing Award recipients Shafi Goldwasser and Silvio Micali

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