Communications of the ACM
A Healthy Dose of AI
Building artificial intelligence into medical devices can speed diagnoses and potentially improve treatments and outcomes.
From ACM NewsAn edited collection of advanced computing news from Communications of the ACM, ACM TechNews, other ACM resources, and news sites around the Web.
From ACM TechNews
Is Water the Key to Cheaper Nanoelectronics?
Researchers have developed a way to use water to transfer layers from one surface to another by exploiting the fact that different materials have different hydrophilicity...
From ACM TechNews
What Would It Take to Put a Walking Robot on the Moon?
Astro-Technology SOHLA, a small cooperative of companies in Osaka, Japan, wants to put an autonomous humanoid robot on the moon.
From ACM News
Army of Smartphone Chips Could Emulate the Human Brain
If you have a smartphone, you probably have a slice of Steve Furber's brain in your pocket. By the time you read this, his 1-billion-neuron silicon brain will be...
From ACM News
Putting the Touch Into Touchscreens
Your eyes tell you that your hand is locked in a vice-like mechanical device, but your fingertips tell you you're stroking fur. Welcome to the world of haptics,...
From ACM TechNews
Schrodinger's Cash: Minting Quantum Money
MIT researcher Scott Aaronson has brought quantum money a step closer to reality by outlining a computationally secure quantum money scheme founded on the type...
From ACM TechNews
Robots With Skin Enter Our Touchy-Feely World
A team at the Italian Institute of Technology (IIT) in May will circulate to various labs the first components of a touch-sensitive skin for their iCub humanoid...
From ACM TechNews
Barcodes Help Objects Tell Their Stories
Five U.K. academic institutions have collaborated to create the Tales of Things, a Web site based on the concept of the Internet of things that enables users to...
From ACM News
Robots Look to the Cloud for Enlightenment
With the phrase "web 2.0" falling out of vogue, the most exciting new uses of the internet are now all about the cloud, a term for servers invisibly doing smart...
From ACM TechNews
Hand-Held Projector Images Respond to the Real World
A prototype of a handheld projector created virtual characters that interacted with the real world at the recent Virtual Reality 2010 meeting in Waltham, MA.
From ACM News
Entangle Qubits for a True Random Number Machine
Pure randomness is surprisingly difficult to create, even if you draw on the inherent randomness of quantum mechanics. Now, though, a "true" random number generator...
From ACM News
Touch Floors Could Be Next Step in Computer Interfaces
Imagine entering your living room and sliding your foot purposefully over a particular stretch of floor. Your hi-fi system springs to life, pumping out the sounds...
From ACM News
Visual Tricks Can Make Downloads Seem Quicker
Twiddling our thumbs while waiting for files to download is one of the great frustrations of our high-speed, technologically interconnected world. Computer scientists...
From ACM TechNews
Diamond Chips to Make Meaner, Greener Electronics
Researchers at Japan's AIST have developed synthetic diamonds that could be used to make microchips capable of processing high-powered signals without requiring...
From ACM News
Can We Make a Conscious Machine?
Challenges don't get much bigger than trying to create artificial consciousness. Some doubt if it can be done--or if it ever should. Bolder researchers are notAntonio...
From ACM News
Look, No Hands: Cars That Drive Better Than You
With his jeans, white trainers and stripy top, Bob is every inch the well-dressed 6-year-old. He's standing in the middle of a hotel car park and, scarily, I'm...
From ACM TechNews
Babbage Nanomachine Promises Low-Energy Computing
Boston University researchers have created a nanoscale mechanical logic gate that could form the basis of tiny mechanical computers, descendants of Babbage's mechanical...
From ACM TechNews
Frank Moss: Tech to Help Those Who Can't Help Themselves
Frank Moss, head of the Media Lab at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, says there are real opportunities in developing technology for disabled or disadvantaged...
From ACM News
Are Machines Ready to Break Down Language Barriers?
Even in an era of global networks and cheap travel, international communication still faces one great barrier: we don't all speak the same language. But that gap...
From ACM TechNews
Electronics 'Missing Link' Brings Neural Computing Closer
University of Michigan, Ann Arbor Assistant Professor Wei Lu is leading a research effort to make brain-like computers using memristors.
From ACM TechNews