BLOG@CACM

Turing’s 1936 Paper and the First Dutch Computers

Aug 19 2013

The following question has polarized the computer-science community: Did Alan Turing's 1936 paper 'On Computable Numbers' influence the early history of computer building? "Yes, certainly" and "No, definitely not" are often-heard answers. A third, more nuanced, response acknowledges a diversity of local computing habits in the 1940s-1950s, including Dutch computing habits that were based on Turing's 1936 "universal machine" concept.

Edgar Daylight

Architecture and Hardware

Aug 13 2013

Are Data Miners Ready to Hang p the Hard Hat and Put on a Lab Coat?

We will find out this week at the annual ACM SIGKDD on Knowledge Discovery and Data Mining conference in Chicago.

Ankur Teredesai

Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning

Aug 2 2013

Why HCI Should Listen to Mothers

A call for the HCI community to spend some design effort on helping new mothers with the considerable physical and emotional challenges they face.

Judy Robertson

Teaching Programming the Way It Works Outside the Classroom

Aug 1 2013

Philip Guo offers programmers 'Opportunistic Programming' tips that typically are not shared in school.

Philip Guo

Towards Empirical Answers to the Core Problems of Software Engineering

Jul 31 2013

Can empirical research give us an answer to the big problems?

Bertrand Meyer

Leaping the Exascale Chasm

Jul 18 2013

The global race is on to build ever-faster supercomputers, fueled by a combination of scientific and engineering needs to simulate phenomena with greater resolution and fidelity, continued advances in semiconductor capabilities, and economic and political competition.

Daniel Reed

Architecture and Hardware

Jul 18 2013

Why Scientists and Engineers Must Learn Programming

Scientists and engineers who program can work 10 to 100 times faster and come up with more creative solutions than those who don't.

Philip Guo

What’s Our Goal For a CS Degree, and How Do We Know We Got There?

Jul 15 2013

A history of computing suggests that the computer science undergraduate degree is unnecessarily rigorous and may not be achieving the goals we have for it.

Mark Guzdial

Education

Jul 12 2013

Reaching For Engelbart’s Vision of the Future

A meditation on Douglas Engelbart's impact on interactive computing.

Jason Hong

ACM-W: One Way to Support Women in Computing!

Jul 8 2013

An update on ACM-W activities in 2012-2013, and a look to the coming year.

Valerie Barr

So, Who Won The Battle Of The Brains?

Jul 3 2013

And the winner of the ACM International Collegiate Programming Contest is...

The ACM ICPC Competition Continues…

Jul 3 2013

ITMO is the host of this year's ACM ICPC.

St. Petersburg National Research University of Information Technologies, Mechanics and Optics

Jul 3 2013

The Heat Is On

Students work together to solve complicated problems while competing at the ACM International Collegiate Programming Contest.

Jul 3 2013

Here We Go!

The ACM ICPC kicks off!

The Lull Before the Storm

Jul 2 2013

The evening before the ACM International Collegiate Programming Contest (ICPC) World Finals.

The World’s Smartest Programmers Compete: ACM ICPC

Jul 2 2013

An introductory post with background on the ACM International Collegiate Programming Contest.

Ph.D. Students Must Break Away From Undergraduate Mentality

Jul 1 2013

Jason Hong considers how students working on their doctorates in computer science must adapt and evolve to succeed.

Jason Hong

Education Removes Fear: Some Examples From CS Courses

Jun 30 2013

One purpose of education is to remove fear; I present some examples from CS courses.

Philip Guo

Education

Jun 26 2013

CFP: Whither the NSA Warrantless Internet Surveillance Program

Leading protagonists in the NSA’s warrantless internet surveillance debate discuss the program’s current status in light of recent revelations, focusing on the program’s legal basis and ongoing policy implications.

CFP: Homegrown Drones: Should the FAA Take on Regulating Hobbyists?

Jun 26 2013

Panel discusses whether drone use by individuals should be regulated by the FAA.

Sandra Fulton

CFP: Tor: Online Privacy and Anonymity

Jun 26 2013

Next up I'm attending an interesting panel on the Tor Project for Online Anonymity. Tor is a tool that allows users all over the world to browse the Internet anonymously and securely. You can find out more about the Tor Project on its website here. Tor's goal is to hide who's communicating with whom and […]

CFP: FTC Commissioner Julie Brill

Jun 26 2013

Commissioner Brill addresses four major challenges to Big Data and the Reclaim Your Name Initiative

CFP: A Conversation on ECPA Reform in Congress

Jun 26 2013

Representatives Jason Chaffetz (R-UT, 3) and Zoe Lofgren (D-CA,19) discuss the bills they have introduced and the importance of Congressional action on privacy reform.