BLOG@CACM – Page 52 – Communications of the ACM

Apr 15 2010

Social Media and the Twitter Backchannel at CHI2010

A marked difference at CHI 2010 compared to last year is the amount of research around social media and the use of social media during the conference. These practices are enabling the conference to be less about one-to-many lectures on the latest research and more about peer-to-peer interactions.

Ed H. Chi

Data and Information

Apr 15 2010

CHI 2010: User Interfaces Learn a Thing or Two

The 2010 conference in Human Factors in Computing Systems has seen a noticeable uptick in projects on and engagement with machine learning.

Michael Bernstein

Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning

Apr 13 2010

CHI 2010 Opening Plenary: Thinking About Messy Futures

"Messy Futures: Culture, Technology and Research" was the title of Genevieve Bell’s opening plenary speech at CHI 2010, and it gave attendees a plethora of facts and ideas to consider—or reconsider.

Jack Rosenberger

HCI

Apr 12 2010

Encouraging Girls to Study Geeky Subjects (part 2): Programmable Bracelets

Some thoughts about novel ways to attract girls to study computing: e-textiles and computational crafts.

Judy Robertson

Education

Apr 11 2010

Internet Information Freedom Revisited.

Many countries have started to control access to information on Internet for their citizens, most famous case being China, but Latin America does not escape this situation.

Carlos Brewer

Computing Applications

Drummond Ltd. Systems engineer Carlos A. Brewer R.

Apr 8 2010

Connecting Computing Education Research to Practice

The SIGCSE 2010 keynotes by Sally Fincher and Carl Weiman suggest how we connect research to changing practice. It's complicated! It's enculturation.

Mark Guzdial

Education

Apr 8 2010

Cleaving Computer Science Into New Degrees

Computer science is becoming too broad to fit under the tyranny of a single bachelors degree. Cleaving the BS in CS into new degrees is a natural growth path.

Mark Guzdial

Education

Apr 7 2010

Encouraging Girls to Study Geeky Subjects (Part 1): Emotionally Intelligent Tutoring Systems

The first in a couple of articles in which I look at some ways of encouraging girls to engage with technical subjects; this focuses on an emotionally sensitive tutoring system to help girls with maths.

Judy Robertson

Education

Apr 5 2010

Errors in Database Systems, Eventual Consistency, and the CAP Theorem

Recently, there has been considerable renewed interest in the CAP theorem for database management system (DBMS) applications that span multiple processing sites. In brief, this theorem states that there are three interesting properties that could be desired by DBMS applications.

Michael Stonebraker

Data and Information

Apr 4 2010

Electronic Voting Systems

What are the implications of electronic voting? Which countries are using this system? What are the advantages of using such systems? And what are the problems with normal voting systems?

Carlos Brewer

Architecture and Hardware

Apr 1 2010

Time to Rethink Computer Science Education: The (Social) Web Changes Everything!

Let's rethink computer science education in face of Web 1.0, Web 2.0, and beyond. The Internet have changed everything we know about how computing is done. It's time to revamp the entire curriculum to make it more relevant to the new world.

Ed H. Chi

Computing Profession

Apr 1 2010

SQL Databases v. NoSQL Databases

Recently, there has been a lot of buzz about NoSQL databases. In fact, there were at least two conferences on the topic in 2009, one on each coast.

Michael Stonebraker

Architecture and Hardware

Mar 29 2010

How Much Software Testing Is Enough?

Investing in a large amount of software testing can be difficult to justify, particularly for a startup company. How much software testing is enough?

Ruben Ortega

Computing Applications

Mar 26 2010

Computing and the Common Core

Computer science education gets a boost from an historic document released by governors and education leaders in the United States and you can show your support for this effort.

Cameron Wilson

Education

Mar 13 2010

A Personal View of the Future of Personal Computing

The future of computers will be created by a conjunction of several key aspects of technology.

Carlos Brewer

HCI

Mar 13 2010

SIGCSE 2010: Keywords, Final Thoughts

The keywords for SIGCSE 2010 include computational thinking, parallel programming, compilers, introductory CS courses, and Initial Learning Environments like Alice, Greenfoot, and Scratch.

Jack Rosenberger

Education

Mar 12 2010

SIGCSE 2010: Carl E. Wieman Keynote

Physicist Carl E. Wieman’s keynote speech at SIGCSE 2010, "Science Education for the 21st Century: Using the Insights of Science to Teach/Learn Science," focused on a scientific approach to the teaching and learning of all sciences.

Jack Rosenberger

Education

Mar 11 2010

SIGCSE 2010: Sally Fincher v. Barbie

Sally Fincher’s keynote focused on the importance of representation, such as how computer scientists represent their work, how they represent their work to each other, and how they represent themselves to the world.

Jack Rosenberger

Education

Mar 10 2010

SIGCSE 2010: Day One

A CS conference is only as good as its selection of keynote speeches, and SIGCSE 2010 offers a formidable cast of keynotes, including a Nobel Prize winner.

Jack Rosenberger

Education

Mar 5 2010

Learning from the DARPA Network Challenge

Part 3: Lessons Learned. This is the story of the Georgia Tech team's experiences in the DARPA Network Challenge, a competition designed to see how online social networks could locate 10 red weather balloons moored throughout the continental US.

Ethan Trewhitt

Computing Applications

Mar 4 2010

Has the Spam War Been Won?

A decade ago, e-mail spam was a severe problem. Now, e-mail spam is barely noticeable. After years of battles between spam filters and spammers creating new tricks to evade those filters, have the spammers lost?

Greg Linden

Computing Applications

Mar 3 2010

Presentations, Humor, and Memes

I have been reflecting on the nature of technical presentations. Public speaking can be great fun. When done well, it is a form of performance art. Enjoy it, and help your listeners enjoy it also!

Daniel Reed

Computing Applications

Mar 3 2010

How Do You Assess Computational Thinking?

There is a big buzz in the field about computational thinking just now. But what is it really? How do you assess it? I offer an initial assessment for a subset of these skills: all comments appreciated!

Judy Robertson

Education

Mar 1 2010

Finding DARPA’s 10 Red Balloons

Part 2: Launch Day. This is the story of the Georgia Tech team's experiences in the DARPA Network Challenge, a competition designed to see how online social networks could locate 10 red weather balloons moored throughout the continental US.

Ethan Trewhitt

Computing Applications

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