Communications of the ACM
The blog archive provides access to past blog postings from Communications of the ACM and other sources by date.
December 2023
From insideHPC
Quantum: Harvard, QuEra, MIT and NIST/University of Maryland Announce Error-Corrected Algorithms on 48 Qubits
BOSTON, December 6, 2023 – Neutral-atom quantum company QuEra Computing today announced what the company said is a quantum computing breakthrough, published in the scientific journal Nature. In experiments led by Harvard University…
From insideHPC
Taking on NVIDIA: AMD Announces Availability of MI300 GPU Accelerators
After years of NVIDIA having its dominant way in the GPU AI chip market -- a market that has exploded over the last 12 months with the emergence of generative AI -- AMD today announced the availability of the long-awaited and…
From Schneier on Security
Security Analysis of a Thirteenth-Century Venetian Election Protocol
Interesting analysis:
This paper discusses the protocol used for electing the Doge of Venice between 1268 and the end of the Republic in 1797. We will show that it has some useful properties that in addition to being interesting…From Computational Complexity
Do We Need to Formalize?
Back in the 1990s I explored the system Nuprl for formalizing mathematical proofs. We had a theoretical paper on quickly checking a proof and I wanted to see if we could code it up and make it work on some simple theorems. It…
From The Computing Community Consortium Blog
CCC Responds to OMB RFC on Advancing Governance, Innovation, and Risk Management for Agency Use of AI Draft Policy
Yesterday, December 5, CCC submitted a response to the Office of Management and Budget (OMB)’s Request for Comments (RFC) on Advancing Governance, Innovation, and Risk Management for Agency Use of Artificial Intelligence Draft…
From CS4FN (Computer Science For Fun)
CS4FN Advent 2023 – Day 6: patterned bauble: tracing patterns in computing – printed circuit boards, spotting links and a puzzle for tourists
Patterned baubles reminded us of printed circuit boards, and a puzzle to do with maps.
From Daniel Lemire's Blog
How fast can you validate UTF-8 strings in JavaScript?
When you recover textual content from the disk or from the network, you may expect it to be a Unicode string in UTF-8. It is the most common format. Unfortunately, not all sequences of bytes are valid UTF-8 and accepting invalid…
From insideHPC
Nexusflow Unveils Open-source Generative AI Model
PALO ALTO, Calif. – Dec. 5, 2023 – Nexusflow, a generative AI company targeting the cybersecurity industry, today announced the release of NexusRaven-V2, a 13-billion parameter open-source genAI model that delivers function
…
From insideHPC
Micron Announces Shipment of Micron 3500 Client SSD
BOISE, Idaho, Dec. 05, 2023 — Micron Technology, Inc. (Nasdaq: MU), today announced it is shipping the Micron 3500 NVMe SSD, which leverages its 232-layer NAND designed for, among other workloads, business applications and scientific…
From The Computing Community Consortium Blog
Deadline Approaching for Nominations for CRA-WP Early Career Awards
The following was adapted from content originally posted on the CRA-WP website by Lauren Lashlee, Program Associate. CRA’s Widening Participation Committee (CRA-WP) has an opportunity to highlight early career researchers…
From Schneier on Security
The Internet Enabled Mass Surveillance. AI Will Enable Mass Spying
Spying and surveillance are different but related things. If I hired a private detective to spy on you, that detective could hide a bug in your home or car, tap your phone, and listen to what you said. At the end, I would get…
From CS4FN (Computer Science For Fun)
CS4FN Advent 2023 – Day 5: snowman: analog hydraulic computers (aka water computers), digital compression, and a puzzle
We recommend keeping water (and snow) away from devices, but did you know you can make computers out of water?!
From insideHPC
Algorithmiq in Quantum Utility Path Demonstration with IBM Quantum
Helsinki and Yorktown, Virginia December 4, 2023: Algorithmiq, a scaleup developing quantum algorithms for life sciences, said it has run one of the largest scale error mitigation experiments to date on IBM’s hardware. The company…
From insideHPC
IBM Quantum Debuts 133-Qubit Processor and Quantum System Two
Today, at its annual IBM Quantum Summit in New York, the company debuted the 133-qubit Quantum Heron, the first in what IBM said will be a series of utility-scale quantum processors whose architecture has been engineered over…
From insideHPC
HPC News Bytes 20231204: The New Yorker on NVIDIA, the Open Benchmark Council, Intel and TSMC, Digital Twins for Hydropower
Here's a sprint (5:16) through the latest HPC -AI news, including: NVIDIA's big feature story in The New Yorker, the Open Benchmark Council's TOP100 lists, Intel and TSMC's high-end 3 nanometer fab, digital twins for hydropower…
From BLOG@CACM
The Interdisciplinarity of Data Science from the People Analytics Perspective: Part One
The case of a People Analytics Workshop for undergraduate computer science students.
From Schneier on Security
AI and Trust
I trusted a lot today. I trusted my phone to wake me on time. I trusted Uber to arrange a taxi for me, and the driver to get me to the airport safely. I trusted thousands of other drivers on the road not to ram my car on the…
From CS4FN (Computer Science For Fun)
CS4FN Advent 2023 – Day 4: Ice skate: detecting neutrinos at the South Pole, figure-skating motion capture, Frozen and a puzzle
This post is part of the CS4FN Christmas Computing Advent Calendar and we are publishing a small post every day, about computer science, until Christmas Day. This is the fourth post and the picture on today’s door was an iceContinue…
From Computational Complexity
Where do Non-Primitive Recursive Functions come up NATURALLY?
The following is a conversation between Clyde Kruskal and Bill Gasarch.
CLYDE: Bill, a student, Ian Roberts, asked me if there are any non-primitive recursive functions that people actually want to compute.
BILL: Off hand I would…From CS4FN (Computer Science For Fun)
CS4FN Advent 2023 – Day 3: snowflakes – make your own six-sided HexaHexaFlexagon with our templates
Print and colour in (optional) a HexaHexaFlexagon then see if you can uncover all of Father Christmas' presents...
From CS4FN (Computer Science For Fun)
CS4FN Advent 2023 – Day 2: Pairs: mittens, gloves, pair programming, magic tricks
Day 2 of our Christmas computing advent calendar and we're already seeing double.
From Schneier on Security
Friday Squid Blogging: Strawberry Squid in the Galápagos
Scientists have found Strawberry Squid, “whose mismatched eyes help them simultaneously search for prey above and below them,” among the coral reefs in the Galápagos Islands.
As usual, you can also use this squid post to talk…From Geeking with Greg
Book excerpt: Manipulating customer reviews
(This is an excerpt from my book, "Algorithms and Misinformation: Why Wisdom of the Crowds Failed the Internet and How to Fix It")
Amazon is the place people shop online. Over 40% of all US e-commerce spending was on Amazon…
From insideHPC
HPE Announces GenAI Collaboration with NVIDIA, AI-native Architecture and Hybrid Cloud Solutions
Hewlett Packard Enterprise announced at HPE Discover Barcelona 2023 the next series of AI-native and hybrid cloud offerings for machine learning development, data analytics, AI-optimized file storage, AI tuning and inferencing…
From The Noisy Channel
Search vs. Browse
One of the oldest distinctions in information access is between searching and browsing. Does a user initiate an information-seeking journey by typing keywords into a search box, or by browsing a category hierarchy?
Search vs.Search…From BLOG@CACM
When Data Worlds Collide
Critical sections in analytic workflows.
From Schneier on Security
AI Decides to Engage in Insider Trading
A stock-trading AI (a simulated experiment) engaged in insider trading, even though it “knew” it was wrong.
The agent is put under pressure in three ways. First, it receives a email from its “manager” that the company is not…From CS4FN (Computer Science For Fun)
CS4FN Advent 2023 – Day 1: Woolly jumpers, knitting and coding
Hooray it's December! We have lots of fun Christmas- and computing-themed stuff we hope you will enjoy. First up: the links between knitting and coding.