Nielsen Norman Group

Brand Is Experience in the Digital Age

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.”

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Fully Device Independent Quantum Key Distribution

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.”

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Cyber Security in the Quantum Era

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.”

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Vinton G. Cerf

In Debt to the NSF

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.]

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Metrics That Matter

Metrics That Matter

Communications of the ACM, April 2019
By Benjamin Treynor Sloss, Shylaja Nukala, Vivek Rau

“One of the most important choices in offering a service is which service metrics to measure, and how to evaluate them. The difference between great, good, and poor metric and metric threshold choices is frequently the difference between a service that will surprise and delight its users with how well it works, one that will be acceptable for most users, and one that will actively drive away users—regardless of what the service actually offers. … What follows are the types of metrics the Google SRE team has adopted for Google services. These metrics are not particularly easy to implement, and they may require changes to a service to instrument properly. It has been our consistent experience at Google, however, that every service team that implements these metrics is happy afterward that it made the effort to do so.”

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Identity by Any Other Name

Identity by Any Other Name

Communications of the ACM, April 2019
By Pat Helland

“The fascinating thing about identifiers is that while they identify the same “thing” over time, that referenced thing may slide around in its meaning. Product descriptions, reviews, and inventory balance all change, while the product ID does not. Reservations, orders, and bookings all have identifiers that do not change, while the stuff they identify may subtly change over time. Identity and identifiers provide the immutable linkage. Both sides of this linkage may change, but they provide a semantic consistency needed by the business operation. No matter what you call it, identity is the glue that makes things stick and lubricates cooperative work. … The judicious use of ambiguity and interchangeability lubricates distributed, long-running, scalable, and heterogeneous systems.”

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Young girl at keyboard. "Informatics" written on chalk board in background.

Informatics as a Fundamental Discipline for the 21st Century

Communications of the ACM, April 2019
By Michael E. Caspersen, Judith Gal-Ezer, Andrew McGettrick, Enrico Nardelli

“The emphasis of the report is on informatics education, with informatics seen as the science underpinning the development of the digital world—a distinctive discipline with its own scientific methods, its own ways of thinking, and its own technological development.”

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Web Science in Europe: Beyond Boundaries

Communications of the ACM, April 2019
By Steffen Staab, Susan Halford, Wendy Hall

“For the past decade, Web Science has been building the interdisciplinary expertise to face the challenges and realize the value of this rapidly growing and diversifying Web. This task transcends the work of any single academic discipline. While our universities continue—overwhelmingly—to be organized in siloes established in the 20th century, or much earlier, the Web demands expertise from computer science, sociology, business, mathematics, law, economics, politics, psychology engineering, geography, and more. Web Science exists to integrate knowledge and expertise from across fields, integrating this into systematic, robust, and reliable research that provides an action base for the future of the Web.”

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The Web Is Missing an Essential Part of Infrastructure: An Open Web Index

Communications of the ACM, April 2019
By Dirk Lewandowski

“A proposal for building an index of the Web that separates the infrastructure part of the search engine—the index—from the services part that will form the basis for myriad search engines and other services utilizing Web data on top of a public infrastructure open to everyone.”

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Top 10

The Top 10 Things Executives Should Know About Software

Communications of the ACM, July 2019
By Thomas A. Limoncelli

“In 2011, Marc Andreessen wrote an article predicting, ‘Software will eat the world.’ By that he meant two things: First, many traditional businesses are being replaced by software companies. Second, all other companies are finding the value they deliver is increasingly a result of software.

When Andreessen wrote his article none of the 10 biggest companies (by market value) were in software-driven businesses. Today, six of the 10 biggest companies are primarily driven by software. The others are ripe for a transformation.”

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A New Labor Market for People with ‘Coolabilities’

Communications of the ACM, July 2019
By David Nordfors, Chally Grundwag, V. R. Ferose

“Powerful technologies are today ready to open the door to a new paradigm of work: instead of squeezing people into existing job slots, companies can tailor work that fits individuals’ unique skills, talents, and passions, matching them with inspiring teams and offering them a choice of meaningful tasks. This has tremendous benefits for both the employee and employer by creating a “long-tail labor market” in which diversity brings competitive advantage.”

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