Computing and Gun Violence

What a hot topic to discuss!

• Viewpoint Can Computer Professionals and Digital Technology Engineers Help Reduce Gun Violence?  -- from Communications of ACM
• Can 'Smart Gun' Technology Help Prevent Violence? - from NPR's "All Things Considered"

Algorithms: The Ever-Growing, All-Knowing Way of the Future

Algorithms: The Ever-Growing, All-Knowing Way Of The Future, posted May 14, 2012.

Why I like this article:

• Good introductory article about a variety of uses of algorithms at a high level
• Good for one of the first (if not *the* first) week of class.

Discussion topics:

• How can algorithms be used for good?
• How can algorithms be used for evil?

Google's n-grams

Digitized book project unveils a quantitative "cultural genome"

While I don't usually like to use press releases, this one is better than the other articles I found about the project.

Why I like this article:

• a concrete article of something a CS1 student could write (processing text file, counting the number of words, using lists/dictionaries) on a small scale
• a surprising application of computer science
• discussion question: does adding computing take the "art" out of humanities?

What is IBM's Watson?

What is IBM's Watson?