Communications of the ACM articles from March 1998

Communications of the ACM archives from March 1998

The year-2000 problem and the new riddle of induction. (response to Peter Wegner, vol.40, no.9, p. 20, September 1997)
March 1, 1998... Normally, my columns are a product of accretion. This one, however, was interrupt driven. The trigger in this case was the convergence of two independent events: my response to Peter Wegner's article "Why Interaction Is More Powerful than...

The Internet gains acceptance in the Persian Gulf.
March 1, 1998... Over the last 20 years, the number of countries with Internet (ARPAnet in the mid-1970s) connectivity has increased from about a half-dozen to over 170. Growth rates for the number of hosts and users have been around 100% annually for a decade....

Marketing information on the I-Way. (Internet)
March 1, 1998... DATA JUNKYARD OR INFORMATION GOLD MINE? The Internet, information superhighway, or I-Way, as it is variously called, is revolutionizing the ways in which products and services are marketed to customers. Its impact is rapidly transcending the...

An emerging model of web site design for marketing.
March 1, 1998... The world of marketing is continually evolving. New technologies create new and innovative means of interacting with customers. The Web has created a new revolution in marketing by providing much more than just a new medium through which...

Physicians in cyberspace. (use of web sites for private medical practice)
March 1, 1998... A GROWING NUMBER OF DOCTORS ARE DISCOVERING THE BUSINESS BENEFITS OF A WEB PRESENCE. In an industry where the number of new entrants such as large, hospital-owned practices and HMO-owned practices is growing rapidly, can the use of a Web...

Creating a custom-mass production channel on the Internet.
March 1, 1998... THE COLLECTIVE POWER OF BUYERS' CUSTOM PREFERENCES CAN GREATLY INFLUENCE SELLERS' OFFERINGS. Buyers often desire custom products at commodity prices - with no switching costs. Alternatively, suppliers would like to sell mass-produced...

Consumer privacy concerns about Internet marketing.
March 1, 1998... A BUYER'S-EYE VIEW OF ONLINE PURCHASING WORRIES. The Internet is quickly becoming the world's largest public electronic marketplace. It is estimated to reach 50 million people worldwide, with growth estimates averaging approximately 10% per...

Web-based Customer Decision Support Systems.
March 1, 1998... Richer systems that connect companies TO their customers enhance THE decision-making process AND their bottom line. Web-based marketing has typically been based upon electronic publishing. Using the Web, companies are able to place marketing...

Silicon trends and limits for advanced microprocessors.
March 1, 1998... Beyond the physical, chemical, and intellectual limits designers have overcome for the past 25 years may lie the ultimate limit to microprocessor design - money. Gordon Moore, one of the founders of Intel, first observed in the early 1970s...

How to avoid unwanted Email.
March 1, 1998... Despite looking like conventional email, a channelized email address and its related agent allow email users to reliably cut off unwanted correspondents. Unwanted communication ranges from nuisance (junk mail) to annoyance (telemarketing) to...

Collaborative, programmable intelligent agents. (e-mail computer programs)
March 1, 1998... Extracting semantics from everyday documents, intelligent agents, illustrated by Apple Data Detectors, infer high-level goals from simple user actions. We began our research on intelligent agents with the same romantic imagery that has...

The case for collaborative programming.
March 1, 1998... Team programming usually means coordinating efforts of individual programmers who divide up the programming tasks for a large, complex system. Collaborative programming is used here to mean two programmers working jointly on the same algorithm...

Are computers addictive?
March 1, 1998... Last month we considered some of the risks associated with Internet gambling. While noting that gambling is addictive, and that the Internet can compound the problems therewith, we left implicit the notion that computer use itself might have...

Stuart Zweben urges members to vote on changes to ACM's constitution and bylaws. (interview with Association for Computing Machinery past pres Stuart Zweben)(ACMemberNet)(Interview)
March 1, 1998... In April, 1998 ACM members will be asked to vote on changes to the Constitution and Bylaws (see feature article, this page and the March, 1998 President's Letter in Communications of the ACM). Stuart Zweben spearheaded the task force that...

Proposed changes to ACM Constitution and Bylaws. (Association for Computing Machinery)(ACMemberNet)
March 1, 1998... The ACM Council and Executive Committee will be seeking a vote from the membership in April, 1998 to make certain changes in the ACM's Constitution and Bylaws. After a careful examination of the present and future needs of the Association,...

ACM's Computing Classification System update.(ACMemberNet)
March 1, 1998... ACM's Computing Classification System (CCS), formerly known as the Computing Reviews Classification System, has been updated, effective January, 1998. It is available at http://www. acm.org/class/, together with its 1964 and 1991 predecessors;...

Jonathan Grudin appointed editor-in-chief of TOCHI. (Transactions on Computer-Human Interaction journal)(ACMemberNet)
March 1, 1998... Jonathan Grudin has been named the new Editor-in-Chief of ACM Transactions on Computer-Human Interaction, one of the essential resources of the growing human-computer interaction field. He has appointed Kenneth Anderson as Information Director....

Dorothy and Peter Denning discuss computer security issues. (publication of the book 'Internet Besieged')(ACMemberNet)
March 1, 1998... How does a company on the Internet remain safe? What can it do to combat intrusions? How can it make sure that the business it conducts over the Internet is secure? Internet Besieged, co-edited by Dorothy and Peter Denning, is a collection...

FOCUS to offer partial travel support to IFIP WCC '98 in Vienna and Budapest. (Federation on Computing in the United States; International Federation for Information Processing; World Computer Congress)(ACMemberNet)
March 1, 1998... The Federation on Computing in the United States (FOCUS), organized jointly by the ACM and the IEEE Computer Society, serves as the officially recognized U.S. member of the International Federation for Information Processing (IFIP). FOCUS has...

SIGOPS continues tradition of vigorous conference activity. (Association for Computing Machinery's Special Interest Group on Operating Systems)(ACMemberNet)
March 1, 1998... Now in its 31st year, ACM's Special Interest Group on Operating Systems (SIGOPS) is one of the Association's oldest SIGs, and, with a membership of approximately 3400, is the fifth largest SIG. Through its conferences, workshops, and...

ACM Policy98: shaping policy in the information age. (Association for Computing Machinery)(ACMemberNet)
March 1, 1998... The ACM Policy98 Conference will be held May 10-12, in 1998 at the Washington Renaissance Hotel in Washington DC. The conference will bring together leading computer scientists and industry and government professionals committed to socially...