Major topic areas.
Communications of the ACM, March 2019
By Advaith Siddharthan, Kapila Ponnamperuma, Chris Mellish, et al.
“The Blogging Birds system shows that raw satellite tag data can be transformed into fluent, engaging, and informative texts directed at members of the public and in support of nature conservation.”
Blogging Birds: Telling Informative Stories About the Lives of Birds from Telemetric Data Read More
Wired, June 24, 2019
By Zeynep Tufekci
“Online fakery runs wide and deep, but you don’t need me to tell you that. New species of digital fraud and deception come to light almost every week, if not every day: Russian bots that pretend to be American humans. American bots that pretend to be human trolls. Even humans that pretend to be bots. Yep, some “intelligent assistants,” promoted as advanced conversational AIs, have turned out to be little more than digital puppets operated by poorly paid people. ”
The Internet Has Made Dupes—and Cynics—of Us All Read More
Idle Words
By Maciej Cegłowski
“For the purposes of this essay, I’ll call it “ambient privacy” – the understanding that there is value in having our everyday interactions with one another remain outside the reach of monitoring, and that the small details of our daily lives should pass by unremembered. What we do at home, work, church, school, or in our leisure time does not belong in a permanent record. Not every conversation needs to be a deposition.”
The New Wilderness Read More
National Cyber Security Alliance – Stay Safe Online
“A few proactive steps to declutter, get organized and establish good practices will help safeguard your business against disruptive issues, which can cause chaos if your company’s data is compromised.”
Digital Spring Cleaning for Small and Medium Businesses Read More
Nielsen Norman Group, March 6, 2016
Persuasive Design, Credibility, Trust & User eXperience
By Kate Sherwin
“Summary: Sites must meet users’ basic trust needs before they demand that visitors enter information or engage with them. The trust pyramid has 5 distinct levels of user commitment, each with separate design requirements before users will give a website what it wants from them.”
Hierarchy of Trust: The 5 Experiential Levels of Commitment Read More Nielsen Norman Group, February 24, 2017
Credibility, Trust, User eXperience
By Kate Sherwin
“Summary: …”
Pyramid of Trust Read More Nielsen Norman Group, December 29, 2016 & January 12, 2017
Web, Usability & User eXperience
By Jakob Nielsen
“Jakob Nielsen presents a rare longitudinal study of 12 years’ evolution in web usability: what’s gotten better, and where we still need to improve, and discusses how to base design changes on valid UX research methods and gain the biggest ROI from the usability investment.”
Web UX 2016 vs 2004 & How to Maximize User Research Insight Read More
National Cyber Security Alliance
“Under the overarching theme of ‘Own IT. Secure IT. Protect IT.’, the 16th annual National Cybersecurity Awareness Month (NCSAM) is focused on encouraging personal accountability and proactive behavior in security best practices and digital privacy. It is also focused on drawing attention to careers in cybersecurity. ”
National CyberSecurity Awareness Month – October 2019 Read More Nielsen Norman Group, July 3, 2016
Branding, Interaction Design
By Kate Kaplan
“Summary: While branding has been around since people began buying and trading goods, the definition has evolved in the Digital Age. Consumers now have a wider range of interaction with companies and greater choice in product selection. Today, brand is the holistic sum of customers’ experiences, composed of visual, tonal and behavioral brand components, many of which are shaped by interaction design.”
Brand Is Experience in the Digital Age Read More Nielsen Norman Group, July 23, 2017
Web Usability, Navigation
By Hoa Loranger
“Summary: A site logo linking to the homepage is not enough. Logo design and placement, as well as the presence of a text link to the homepage affect success of navigation to homepage.”
Homepage Links Remain a Necessity Read More Nielsen Norman Group, April 24, 1994
Heuristic Evaluation, Human Computer Interaction, Web Usability
By Jakob Nielsen
“Summary: Jakob Nielsen’s 10 general principles for interaction design. They are called “heuristics” because they are broad rules of thumb and not specific usability guidelines.”
10 Usability Heuristics for User Interface Design Read More Nielsen Norman Group, October 17, 2010
Psychology and UX Interaction Design
By Jakob Nielsen
“Summary: What users believe they know about a UI strongly impacts how they use it. Mismatched mental models are common, especially with designs that try something new.”
Mental Models Read More Nielsen Norman Group, 2013
Design
By Don Norman
“In this entertaining and insightful analysis, cognitive scientist Don Norman hails excellence of design as the most important key to regaining the competitive edge in influencing consumer behavior.”
The Design of Everyday Things Read More Nielsen Norman Group, August 22, 2010
Strategy
By Jakob Nielsen
“Summary: Although successful websites typically have high usability, average sites can hurt their business by copying design elements that don’t work well in other contexts.”
Should You Copy a Famous Site’s Design? Read More
Search Engine Land
Third Door Media
Editor: Pamela Parker
“Search engine optimization seems like alchemy to the uninitiated. This guide to success factors, best practices and potential pitfalls can build the framework for your SEO strategy.”
The Periodic Table of SEO Factors (updated for 2019) Read More
Articles published by The Salt Lake Tribune.
Video by Utah Dept. of Transportation & KSL-TV
Violent storms in the Salt Lake and Utah Counties area resulted in flooding and mud & rock slides in several canyons and nearby run-off zones. Here are a few articles from The Salt Lake Tribune chronicling the aftermath.
Summer Avalanches in Little Cottonwood Canyon Read More
MIT Technology Review, July/Aug 2019
“It’s part of our ethos that technology can and should be a force for good. Our annual list of 35 innovators under 35 is a way of putting faces on that idea. ”
35 Innovators Under 35 – 2019 Read More
Communications of the ACM, April 2019
Research Highlights : “Technical Perspective: Was Edgar Allan Poe Wrong After All?”
By Gilles Brassard
Research Highlights : “Fully Device Independent Quantum Key Distribution“
By Umesh Vazirani, Thomas Vidick
“Artur Ekert realized as early as 1991 that a different kind of quantum cryptography was possible by harnessing entanglement, which is arguably the most nonclassical manifestation of quantum theory. Even though Ekert’s original protocol did not offer any security above and beyond my earlier invention with Bennett, he had planted the seed for a revolution. It was realized by several researchers in the mid-2000s that entanglement-based protocols could lead to unconditional security even if they are imperfectly implemented—even if the QKD apparatus is built by the eavesdropper, some argued. For a decade, these purely theoretical ideas remained elusive and seemed to require unreasonable hardware, such as an apparatus the size of the galaxy! Vazirani and Vidick’s paper provides an unexpectedly simple and elegant solution, indeed one that is almost within reach of current technology. Once it becomes reality, codemakers will have won the definitive battle, Poe’s prophecy notwithstanding.”
Fully Device Independent Quantum Key Distribution Read More
Communications of the ACM, April 2019
By Petros Wallden, Elham Kashefi
“The ability to communicate securely and compute efficiently is more important than ever to society. The Internet and increasingly the Internet of Things, has had a revolutionary impact on our world. Over the next 5-10 years, we will see a flux of new possibilities, as quantum technologies become part of this mainstream computing and communicating landscape. Future networks will certainly consist of both classical and quantum devices and links, some of which are expected to be dishonest, with functionalities of various sophistication, ranging from simple routers to servers executing universal quantum algorithms. The realization of such a complex network of classical and quantum communication must rely on a solid novel foundation that, nevertheless, is able to foresee and handle the intricacies of real-life implementations and novel applications.”
Cyber Security in the Quantum Era Read More
Communications of the ACM, April 2019
By Vinton G. Cerf
“We collectively owe much to the foresight and nuanced decisions taken by the leadership of [National Science Foundation’s] Computer, Information Systems and Engineering Directorates (CISE) and its Division of Computer and Network Systems.” [Without that, there would be no Internet as we know it today.]
In Debt to the NSF Read More