acm-header
Sign In

Communications of the ACM

News


bg-corner

An edited collection of advanced computing news from Communications of the ACM, ACM TechNews, other ACM resources, and news sites around the Web.


Behind the Iron Dome: How Israel Stops Missiles
From ACM News

Behind the Iron Dome: How Israel Stops Missiles

The success of Israel's Iron Dome in shooting down missiles fired from Gaza has a lot to do with a company you've probably never heard of: MPrest Systems.

X-37b: Secrets of the ­.s. Military Spaceplane
From ACM News

X-37b: Secrets of the ­.s. Military Spaceplane

In the early morning of 16 June, 2012, a top-secret spaceplane made a picture-perfect landing at the Vandenberg Air Force Base in California.

A Missile-Defense System That Actually Works?
From ACM News

A Missile-Defense System That Actually Works?

The fighting between Israel and Palestinians in the Gaza strip over the last few days is the latest round of violence in a region that has been torn apart by a...

Why the Frontiers of Biology Might Be Inside a Computer Chip
From ACM News

Why the Frontiers of Biology Might Be Inside a Computer Chip

When David Harel started the experiment, the petri dish of mouse cells looked just like any other.

Two-Tonne Witch Computer Gets a Reboot
From ACM News

Two-Tonne Witch Computer Gets a Reboot

The world's oldest original working digital computer is going on display at The National Museum of Computing in Buckinghamshire.

An Amazon Engineer Had a Little Idea That Turned Into a Billion-Dollar Business
From ACM News

An Amazon Engineer Had a Little Idea That Turned Into a Billion-Dollar Business

Once upon a time, Amazon was a dot-com-era technology company best known for selling books.

What Goes Down Must Come Back Up
From ACM News

What Goes Down Must Come Back Up

For most of the past two decades, the NASA and European Topex/Poseidon, Jason-1 and Jason-2 satellites have tracked the gradual rise of the world's ocean in response...

How Metadata Brought Down CIA Boss David Petraeus
From ACM TechNews

How Metadata Brought Down CIA Boss David Petraeus

U.S. Central Intelligence Agency director David Petraeus was brought down by metadata, which is not covered by the Stored Communications Act.

Blue Waters Opts Out of Top500
From ACM News

Blue Waters Opts Out of Top500

The NCSA Blue Waters system is one of the fastest supercomputers in the world, but it won't appear on the TOP500 list—nor will it be taking part in the HPC Challenge...

From ACM News

Say Hello, or 你好, to China’s Siri

You might not have heard of iFlyTek. The company is hardly a household name in its domestic market of China, either.

NASA Observatories Find Most Distant Galaxy Candidate
From ACM News

NASA Observatories Find Most Distant Galaxy Candidate

By combining the power of NASA's Hubble and Spitzer space telescopes and one of nature's own natural "zoom lenses" in space, astronomers have set a new record for...

Bluebrain: Noah Hutton's 10-Year Documentary About the Mission to Reverse Engineer the Human Brain
From ACM Opinion

Bluebrain: Noah Hutton's 10-Year Documentary About the Mission to Reverse Engineer the Human Brain

"Nothing quite like it exists yet, but we have begun building it," Henry Markram wrote in the June 2012 issue of Scientific American. He was referring to a "fantastic...

Will We Ever ­nderstand How Our Brains Work?
From ACM News

Will We Ever ­nderstand How Our Brains Work?

When it comes to the human brain, many scientists believe that we are incapable of understanding how it works because we lack the tools and intelligence to measure...

How to Steal Data from Your Neighbor in the Cloud
From ACM News

How to Steal Data from Your Neighbor in the Cloud

Cloud computing teaches people not to worry about physical equipment for hosting data and running software.

Speeding Algorithms By Shrinking Data
From ACM TechNews

Speeding Algorithms By Shrinking Data

MIT researchers have developed a technique to represent data so that it takes up much less space in memory but can still be processed in conventional ways.  

Researchers Struggle to Measure Big Data's Impact
From ACM News

Researchers Struggle to Measure Big Data's Impact

The impact of big data on the U.S. economy is huge, but how huge isn’t easily determined.  

Climate Likely to Be on Hotter Side of Projections
From ACM News

Climate Likely to Be on Hotter Side of Projections

A new NASA-funded study by the National Center for Atmospheric Research, Boulder, Colo., finds climate model projections that show a greater rise in global temperature...

Mars to Earth: How to Send Hd Video Between Planets
From ACM News

Mars to Earth: How to Send Hd Video Between Planets

"It once was a small step... now it's six big wheels," exclaimed Curiosity's Twitter account after the Nasa rover landed on Mars in early August. The message itself...

Obama's Win a Big Vindication for Nate Silver, King of the Quants
From ACM News

Obama's Win a Big Vindication for Nate Silver, King of the Quants

In the end, big data won.

Wrath of the Math: Obama Wins Nerdiest Election Ever
From ACM Opinion

Wrath of the Math: Obama Wins Nerdiest Election Ever

Congratulations, Barack Obama: You have prevailed in the nerdiest election in the history of the American Republic.
Sign In for Full Access
» Forgot Password? » Create an ACM Web Account