Keith Kirkpatrick

Communications of the ACM, July 2020, Vol. 63 No. 7, Pages 17-19
10.1145/3398390
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It is hard to imagine a world without electronic devices. From servers, personal computers, and storage devices to smartphones, tablets, and wearable devices, electronic devices drive businesses, entertain and enable consumers to interact with the world, and keep the world's information and physical infrastructure networks running on a 24/7 basis. Not surprisingly, the number of electronic devices in use...

The use of Internet-based distance learning has become commonplace among for-profit colleges and at traditional universities, with most programs focusing on older, non-traditional students who are seeking a degree while balancing other work/life commitments. With the mass closings of K-12 schools due to the COVID-19 pandemic, distance-based learning is now being deployed at the primary school level to ensure students remain engaged and educated.
Schools have taken myriad approaches to using t...

The concept of a smart city has been around for decades, driven by a utopian vision of city systems, services, workers, and residents functioning in synchronicity for a more efficient, safer, and productive environment. Artificial intelligence (AI) will likely be the catalyst for enabling the smart city. Smart cities will use machine learning (ML), deep learning (DL), computer vision (CV), and natural language processing (NLP) technologies (among others) to enable city services, assets, and s...

As of late February 2020, there have been more than 80,000 reported cases of coronavirus infections around the globe. While the spread of the virus may have been inevitable, modern technology has certainly added to the challenge. For example, inexpensive air, vehicle, and rail travel has allowed infected people to spread the virus far beyond its genesis in Wuhan, China. The use of social media is allowing unfounded rumors around the cause, prevention techniques, and likely impact of the virus...

The quantum computing market is a small but rapidly maturing one from the technology perspective. However, for quantum computing to succeed it needs the market in suitable applications to also mature. The quantum computing scientists will tell you: despite the progress the question remains if, not when, quantum computing will become mainstream. This statement on the future for quantum may make it seem as if it is a technology more relevant to a 2050 Trends to Watch than a 2020 one. However, t...

10.1145/3329721
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Since their introduction more than a decade ago, smartphones have been equipped with cameras, allowing users to capture images and video without carrying a separate device. Thanks to the use of computational photographic technologies, which utilize algorithms to adjust photographic parameters in order to optimize them for specific situations, users with little or no photographic training can often achieve excellent results.
The boundaries of what constitutes computati...

Automation is the key to gaining efficiency in many industries. But for some types of work, basic automation, often referred to as robotic process automation (RPA), won’t suffice due to the complexity of the tasks. These can include assessing and analyzing content, finding patterns in data, and making decisions based on those findings.
The legal industry is one vertical market that is ripe for increasing automation, particularly with respect to the review and analysis of legal contracts. Whil...

Artificial intelligence (AI) is rapidly entering a new phase within enterprises. An increasing number of enterprises are transforming trial AI programs into full-blown, enterprise-wide deployments. This trend is largely based on the early successes of pilot programs, as well as the continuing advancements in AI hardware, software, and services.
A key reason why enterprises are embracing AI is companies have realized that the massive amount of process, operational, and transactional data they ...

Quantum computing (QC) can best be defined as the use of the attributes and principles of quantum mechanics to perform calculations and solve problems. Quantum computers are designed to utilize quantum bits (qubits), which are subatomic particles such as electrons and photons, to represent data. When these qubits are combined, or entangled, they can exist in multiple states (known as superposition). The result is that multiple calculations can be carried out at once, as each qubit can represe...

A digital twin is a digital representation that provides the elements and dynamics of how a device or ecosystem operates and lives throughout its life cycle. Digital twins are useful for simulating the capabilities of machine tools in a safe and cost-effective way, as well as identifying the root causes of problems occurring in physical tools or infrastructure. If a physical machine tool breaks down or malfunctions, engineers can evaluate the digital traces of the digital twins’ virtual machi...

One of the key challenges faced by multinational corporations and governments is ensuring the secure transmission of data across the internet. Despite the use of data encryption protocols, there are still security risks associated with sending sensitive data between parties. Malevolent operators may be able to crack mathematical security protocols or acts of sabotage or carelessness may expose cryptographic keys inadvertently, allowing other parties to eavesdrop or intercept a message without...

One of the major challenges in the healthcare field is being able to accurately assess the overall health of a patient. Most people see a number of different healthcare providers. Even though electronic medical records (EMRs) have taken hold (EMR penetration in office-based settings in the U.S. is at about 86%, according to 2017 data from the Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology), there is relatively little information sharing between practices unless records a...

Despite the significant progress being made with autonomous vehicles, it will be at least a decade before driverless passenger cars are produced in large volumes, and likely decades before traditional cars disappear from the roads. That is why automotive original equipment manufacturers (OEMs), suppliers, and technology vendors are focused on the development and deployment of in-car AI technology, which provides drivers with a safe and intuitive way to interact with the vehicle’s operational ...

Over the next several decades, autonomous vehicles (AVs) are likely to be a common sight on roadways both in the United States and around the world. But ensuring that these vehicles can safely operate without driver intervention on the various types of highways, streets, and roads, while simultaneously managing traffic, other vehicles, and changing weather conditions, requires significant testing to feed data into the driving algorithms.
A 2016 Rand Corporation study estimated that AVs would ...

The healthcare industry has traditionally been an early adopter of new technology, particularly tools and techniques that can make healthcare delivery safer, more effective, and more efficient. Nonetheless, the speed of that adoption is often curtailed by regulators, which are charged with ensuring that not only are new technologies safe to use, but also offer improvements in efficacy, speed, or accuracy. Moreover, in recent years, regulators also have focused on ensuring that any new device,...