2019 AM Turing Award Recipients Ed Catmull and Pat Hanrahan Deliver Their Turing Lectures at SIGGRAPH 2022 - View Livestream Here
Ed Catmull and Pat Hanrahan received the 2019 ACM A.M. Turing Award for fundamental contributions to 3-D computer graphics, and the revolutionary impact of these techniques on computer-generated imagery (CGI) in filmmaking and other applications. They present their Turing Lectures, "Shading Languages and the Emergence of Programmable Graphics Systems" and "The Wild, Unexpected, Exponential Ride Through Computer Graphics," at SIGGRAPH 2022. Tune in here on Monday, August 8, 2022 at 2:15pm - 3:15pm PDT to view the livestream.
Turing Laureates Set Standard for CGI Visual Effects
Working with Ed Catmull and other members of Pixar, Pat Hanrahan was the lead architect of a new kind of graphics system, which was later named RenderMan. In 1995, RenderMan was used to make Toy Story, the first full-length 3-D computer animated film. Hanrahan presented the seminal paper “A Language for Shading and Lighting Calculations,” co-authored with Jim Lawson, at ACM SIGGRAPH in 1990, which lays out the theoretical foundation for RenderMan. “Light Field Rendering,” another groundbreaking paper by Hanrahan and Marc Levoy, introduces a method for giving viewers the sense that they are flying through scenes.
Meet James Larus
James “Jim” Larus is a Professor and former Dean of the School of Computer and Communication Sciences at EPFL (École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne) in Switzerland. Earlier in his career, Larus was a researcher, manager, and director in Microsoft Research for over 16 years and a faculty member at the University of Wisconsin, Madison. He was recently named Editor-in-Chief of Communications of the ACM (CACM), ACM’s flagship magazine. In his interview, Larus discusses his work as Director of the Very-Large Scale Computing Lab (VLSC), creating the MIPS processor simulator SPIM, and his goals as EiC of CACM.
ACM Opens First 50 Years Backfile
ACM has opened the articles published during the first 50 years of its publishing program, from 1951 through the end of 2000, These articles are now open and freely available to view and download via the ACM Digital Library. ACM’s first 50 years backfile contains more than 117,500 articles on a wide range of computing topics. In addition to articles published between 1951 and 2000, ACM has also opened related and supplemental materials including data sets, software, slides, audio recordings, and videos. Read the news release.
Discover the Latest "Selects," Shortlists of Learning Resources Curated by Experts
ACM Selects are themed shortlists curated by subject matter experts for both serious and emerging computing professionals, with the goal of providing new ways to discover relevant resources, either through ACM or authenticated by ACM-affiliated specialists. The latest Selects cover Trustworthy AI in Healthcare, exploring the use of Artificial Intelligence in the healthcare field and its potential for improving overall patient care, reducing costs, improving work/life balance for healthcare workers, and more. You can find part #1 here and part #2 here. Please visit our archive of Selects on a variety of subjects which is available here.
Celebrating Technology Leaders, Episode 10: Blockchain Technology: What's the Big Deal?
Blockchain technology is a mysterious topic for many. Is it a network? A database? A cryptography algorithm? Is it the same as cryptocurrency? In this tenth episode of ACM-W’s webinar series, “Celebrating Technology Leaders,” host Bushra Anjum and panelists Lisa Calkins, Tatiana Zander, and Aneet Anjum discussed blockchain technology, its core concepts, how to differentiate blockchain hype from reality, and what problems are good candidates to be solved with this emerging technology.
Ruth Lennon Selected as the Next ACM-W Chair
Ruth Lennon, current chair of ACM-W Europe, has been appointed the next Global Chair of ACM-W. Ruth is the director of Craobh Technology Consulting, an organization that provides personalized solutions to industry problems. She is also a lecturer with 20 years of experience in the Department of Computing at Letterkenny Institute of Technology, Ireland, and has been a member of ACM for over 20 years.
Read more about Ruth Lennon's selection as Global Chair on the ACM-W website.
View ACM’s 75th Anniversary Celebration On Demand
ACM organized a special one-day conference to celebrate its 75th anniversary. This event was truly a memorable day of panels featuring world-leading scholars and practitioners on topics central to the future of computing. Panelists imagined what might be next for technology and society. ACM’s 75th Anniversary Celebration took place at the Palace Hotel in San Francisco on June 10. View the livestream on demand. Visit the event webpage for more details, including the program.
TechBrief on Quantum Computing and Simulation
ACM TechBriefs is a series of short technical bulletins by ACM’s Technology Policy Council that present scientifically-grounded perspectives on the impact of specific developments or applications of technology. Designed to complement ACM’s activities in the policy arena, the primary goal is to inform rather than advocate for specific policies. The new edition focuses on quantum computing and simulation, the various yet profound societal and individual risks the latter may pose, and its potential benefits.
BCB '22, August 7 - 10
The ACM Conference on Bioinformatics, Computational Biology, and Health Informatics is the flagship conference of SIGBio, ACM's Special Interest Group on Bioinformatics. Workshops include Parallel and Cloud-based Bioinformatics and Biomedicine; Computational Network Biology; No-Boundary Thinking; and AI Shakes up Drug Safety. Scheduled keynote speakers are Tiffani J. Bright (American Medical Informatics Association), Kelvin Droegemeier (University of Oklahoma), and Wendy Nilsen (NSF). The event will be held in Chicago, Illinois, USA.
SIGGRAPH '22, August 8 - 11
The SIGGRAPH conference will again include both on-demand presentations and scheduled sessions, celebrating advancements in computer graphics, digital art, animation, visual effects, machine learning, artificial intelligence, immersive and mixed realities, scientific visualization, and more. Featured speakers are 2019 ACM A.M. Turing Award winner Pat Hanrahan (Stanford University), Sougwen Chung (artist and researcher), Ime Archibong (Meta), and ACM Turing Award Laureate and Academy Award-winner Ed Catmull (co-founder of Pixar). This event will be held in Vancouver, Canada.
KDD 2022, August 14 to 18
The SIGKDD Conference on Knowledge Discovery and Data Mining brings together researchers and practitioners from data science, data mining, knowledge discovery, large-scale data analytics, and big data. Workshops include “Deep Learning on Graphs,” “Machine Learning in Finance,” “Misinformation and Misbehavior Mining on the Web & Making a Credible Web for Tomorrow,” and more. Keynote speakers are Lise Getoor (UC Santa Cruz), Milind Tambe (Google Research), and Shang-Hua Teng (USC). This conference will be held in Washington DC, USA.
The Seattle Report on Database Research
In "The Seattle Report on Database Research," authors Daniel Abadi, Anastasia Ailamaki, David Andersen, et al., explore the myriad of changes that have affected the field of database research in recent years, including the need for data science and database researchers to work together to enable the data to insights pipeline, the role and societal challenges inherent in data governance, and rethinking cloud services architectures to adjust for new hardware trends, disaggregation, and new consumption models.
FHIR: Reducing Friction in the Exchange of Healthcare Data
In the world of modern healthcare, there are many challenges to achieving a stable, working system. Among these are: too much friction throughout the patient-doctor information exchange process; a moving target created by healthcare technology innovation; and many different formats of healthcare data. One potential cure for these problems and more may be Fast Healthcare Inoperability Resources (FHIR). Here, we talk to James Agnew (CTO) and Adam Cole (Senior Solutions Architect) of Smile CDR about what makes FHIR successful, and what it needs to overcome.
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Lifelong Learning
ACM offers lifelong learning resources including online books and courses from Skillsoft, TechTalks on the hottest topics in computing and IT, and more.
ACM Updates Code of Ethics
ACM recently updated its Code of Ethics and Professional Conduct. The revised Code of Ethics addresses the significant advances in computing technology since the 1992 version, as well as the growing pervasiveness of computing in all aspects of society. To promote the Code throughout the computing community, ACM created a booklet, which includes the Code, case studies that illustrate how the Code can be applied to situations that arise in everyday practice and suggestions on how the Code can be used in educational settings and in companies and organizations. Download a PDF of the ACM Code booklet.