communications of the acm

Departments

5 Education Policy Committee Letter Educating Computing’s Next Generation

By Robert B. Schnabel

8 In the Virtual Extension

9 Letters To The Editor

I Want a Personal Information Pod

10 BLOG@CACM

Matters of Design, Part II

Jason Hong discusses how Apple creates well-designed products and what the human-computer interaction community can learn from its methods.

12 CACM Online ACM on the Move By Scott E. Delman

27 Calendar

116 Careers

Last Byte

120 Q&A

The Chief Computer

Kelly Gotlieb recalls the early days of computer science in Canada. By Leah Hoffmann

News

13 The Quest for Randomness It’s not easy to generate a string of numbers that lack any pattern or rule, or even to define exactly what randomness means.

By Gary Anthes

16 Engineering Sensation in Artificial Limbs

Advancements in mobile electronics have led to several prosthetics innovations in recent years, but providing reliable touch sensations to users remains an elusive goal. By Kirk L. Kroeker

19 Social Games, Virtual Goods The popularity of virtual goods and currencies in online gaming is changing how people think and act about money.

By Samuel Greengard

Viewpoints

24 Emerging Markets

Managing Global IT Teams: Considering Cultural Dynamics Successful global IT team managers combine general distributed team management skills enhanced with cultural sensitivity.

By Fred Niederman and Felix B. Tan

28 Historical Reflections Building Castles in the Air Reflections on recruiting and training programmers during the early period of computing. By Nathan Ensmenger

31 Technology Strategy and Management Platform Wars Come to Social Media The world can absorb more social media sites, but how many?

By Michael A. Cusumano

34 Kode Vicious

Coder’s Block

What does it take to clear the blockage?

By George V. Neville-Neil

36 Viewpoint

Asymmetries and Shortages of the Network Neutrality Principle What could neutrality achieve?

By José Luis Gómez-Barroso and Claudio Feijóo

Reaching Future Computer Scientists
Think teachers, not students.
By Patricia Morreale and David Joiner

about the Cover: the art of exploded-view illustrations explore the pieces and cuts and shape of the missing geometry and spatial relationships among parts. this month’s cover story traces ways to identify and analyze design principles for creating more powerful and effective visualizations.

23 British Computer Scientists Reboot After a year of turmoil, computer scientists at King’s College London have retained their jobs, but substantial challenges lie ahead. By Sarah Underwood

cover illustration by leonello calvetti
IllustratIon by weknow/shutterstock