Communications - December 2010

12/2010

vol. 53 no. 12

Practice

42 A Conversation with Ed Catmull Pixar’s president Ed Catmull sits down with Stanford professor (and former Pixar-ian) Pat Hanrahan to reflect on the blending of art and technology.

48 The Theft of Business Innovation An ACM-BCS Roundtable on Threats to Global Competitiveness

These days, cybercriminals are looking to steal more than just banking information.

By Mache Creeger

Articles’ development led by queue.acm.org

photograph by tom Upton; image by robert hodgin

about the Cover:

Computer Science
education Week,
designated by the U.S.
house of representatives,
recognizes the
transformative role of
computing and the need
to bolster computer
science at all educational
levels. aCm will promote
CSed Week (dec. 5–11) to
help raise awareness of
computing and its role in
preparing citizens of all
ages to grow and prosper in the 21st century. photograph
by Steve paine/ Carrypad.com.

Contributed Articles

56 Certified Software

Only if the programmer can prove (through formal machine-checkable proofs) it’s free of bugs with respect to a claim of dependability.

By Zhong Shao

67 Business Impact of Web 2.0 Technologies

What do wikis, blogs, podcasts, social networks, virtual worlds, and the rest do for corporate productivity and management?

By Stephen J. Andriole

IT 2008: The History of a New Computing Discipline The IT model curriculum represents an excellent starting point toward understanding more about IT as an academic discipline. By Barry Lunt, J. Ekstrom, Han Reichgelt, Michael Bailey, and Richard LeBlanc

A Global Collaboration to Deploy Help to China A firsthand account of an international team effort to install the Sahana disaster-management system in Chengdu, Sichuan after an earthquake. By Ralph Morelli, Chamindra de Silva, Trishan de Lanerolle, Rebecca Curzon, and Xin Sheng Mao