November 2016 - Vol. 59 No. 11

Features

Opinion Departments Nov 1 2016

Globalization, Computing, and Their Political Impact

Globalization and automation provide huge benefits to society, but their adverse effects cannot and should not be ignored. As actors in and beneficiaries of this societal transformation, we have, I believe, a social responsibility that goes beyond our technical roles.

Moshe Y. Vardi

Computing Profession

Opinion Nov 1 2016

Heidelberg Anew

We are reaching an exciting period in scientific discovery in which computation is as important as laboratory experiment and observation.

Vinton G. Cerf

Computing Profession

Opinion Letters to the editor Nov 1 2016

Learn to Live with Academic Rankings

No one likes being reduced to a number. For example, there is much more to my financial picture than my credit score. Yet it is used to make decisions that matter to me, as Moshe Y. Vardi discussed in his Editor’s Letter (Sept. 2016).

CACM Staff

BLOG@CACM Nov 1 2016

Introducing CS to Newcomers, and JES As a Teaching Tool

Valerie Barr gets high schoolers thinking about CS, while Mark Guzdial mulls the benefits of Jython Environment for Students.

Valerie Barr and Mark Guzdial

Computing Profession

News Nov 1 2016

Learning Securely

Because it is easy to fool, machine learning must be taught how to handle adversarial inputs.

Erica Klarreich

Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning

News Nov 1 2016

Blockchain Beyond Bitcoin

Blockchain technology has the potential to revolutionize applications and redefine the digital economy.

Sarah Underwood

Computing Applications

News Nov 1 2016

Farm Automation Gets Smarter

As fewer people work the land, robots pick up the slack.

Tom Geller

Computing Applications

Opinion Privacy and security Nov 1 2016

Cyber Defense Triad For Where Security Matters

Dramatically more trustworthy cyber security is a choice.

Roger R. Schell

Security and Privacy

Cyber Defense Triad for Where Security Matters, illustration

Opinion Legally speaking Nov 1 2016

Fair Use Prevails in Oracle v. Google

Two software giants continue with legal sparring after an initial judicial decision.

Pamela Samuelson

Computing Profession

Fair Use Prevails in Oracle v. Google, illustrative photo

Opinion Economic and business dimensions Nov 1 2016

Visualization to Understand Ecosystems

Mapping relationships between stakeholders in an ecosystem to increase understanding and make better-informed strategic decisions.

Bala R. Iyer and Rahul C. Basole

Computing Applications

Visualization to Understand Ecosystems, illustration

Opinion Education Nov 1 2016

Growing Computer Science Education Into a STEM Education Discipline

Seeking to make computing education as available as mathematics or science education.

Mark Guzdial and Briana Morrison

Computing Profession

Growing Computer Science Education Into a STEM Education Discipline, illustrative photo

Opinion Viewpoint Nov 1 2016

Time to Reinspect the Foundations?

Questioning if computer science is outgrowing its traditional foundations.

Jack Copeland, Eli Dresner, Diane Proudfoot, and Oron Shagrir

Computing Profession

Time to Reinspect the Foundations?, illustration

Opinion Viewpoint Nov 1 2016

Technology and Academic Lives

Considering the need to create new modes of interaction and approaches to assessment given a rapidly evolving academic realm.

Jonathan Grudin

Computing Profession

Technology and Academic Lives, illustrative photo

Practice Nov 1 2016

The Power of Babble

Expect to be constantly and pleasantly befuddled.

Pat Helland

Computing Applications

Practice Nov 1 2016

Scaling Synchronization in Multicore Programs

Advanced synchronization methods can boost the performance of multicore software.

Adam Morrison

Computing Applications

Scaling Synchronization in Multicore Programs, illustration

Practice Nov 1 2016

Research For Practice: Distributed Consensus and Implications of NVM on Database Management Systems

Expert-curated guides to the best of CS research for practitioners.

Peter Bailis, Camille Fournier, Joy Arulraj, and Andrew Pavlo

Computing Applications

Research and Advances Contributed articles Nov 1 2016

Apache Spark: A Unified Engine For Big Data Processing

This open source computing framework unifies streaming, batch, and interactive big data workloads to unlock new applications.

Architecture and Hardware

Apache Spark: A Unified Engine for Big Data Processing, illustration

Research and Advances Contributed articles Nov 1 2016

Pushing on String: The 'Don't Care' Region of Password Strength

Enterprises that impose stringent password-composition policies appear to suffer the same fate as those that do not.

Dinei Florêncio, Cormac Herley, and Paul C. van Oorschot

Computing Applications

Research and Advances Contributed articles Nov 1 2016

A Theory on Power in Networks

Actors linked to central others in networks are generally central, even as actors linked to powerful others are powerless.

Enrico Bozzo and Massimo Franceschet

Computing Applications

A Theory on Power in Networks, illustration

Research and Advances Review articles Nov 1 2016

Sex as an Algorithm: The Theory of Evolution Under the Lens of Computation

Looking at the mysteries of evolution from a computer science point of view yields some unexpected insights.

Adi Livnat and Christos Papadimitriou

Computing Applications

Research and Advances Review articles Nov 1 2016

Recommender Systems: Beyond Matrix Completion

The future success of these systems depends on more than a Netflix challenge.

Dietmar Jannach, Paul Resnick, Alexander Tuzhilin, and Markus Zanker

Computing Applications

Recommender Systems – Beyond Matrix Completion, illustration

Research and Advances Research highlights Nov 1 2016

Technical Perspective: If I Could Only Design One Circuit . . .

"DianNao Family: Energy-Efficient Hardware Accelerators for Machine Learning" shows a deep understanding of both neural net implementations and the issues in computer architecture that arise when building an accelerator for them.

Kurt Keutzer

Architecture and Hardware

Research and Advances Research highlights Nov 1 2016

Diannao Family: Energy-Efficient Hardware Accelerators For Machine Learning

We introduce a series of hardware accelerators (i.e., the DianNao family) designed for Machine Learning (especially neural networks), with a special emphasis on the impact of memory on accelerator design, performance, and energy.

Architecture and Hardware

Research and Advances Research highlights Nov 1 2016

Technical Perspective: FPGA Compute Acceleration Is First About Energy Efficiency

"A Reconfigurable Fabric for Accelerating Large-Scale Datacenter Services" presents a research deployment of Field Programmable Gate Arrays (FPGAs) in a Microsoft Bing datacenter.

James C. Hoe

Architecture and Hardware

Research and Advances Research highlights Nov 1 2016

A Reconfigurable Fabric For Accelerating Large-Scale Datacenter Services

We describe a medium-scale deployment of a composable, reconfigurable hardware fabric on a bed of 1,632 servers, and measure its effectiveness in accelerating the ranking component of the Bing web search engine.

Architecture and Hardware

A Reconfigurable Fabric for Accelerating Large-Scale Datacenter Services, illustration

Opinion Last byte Nov 1 2016

The Candidate

Seeking the programmer vote, an AI delivering a slogan like "Make Coding Great Again" could easily be seen as a threat.

Brian Clegg

Architecture and Hardware

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