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


Finally, a Problem That Only Quantum Computers Will Ever Be Able to Solve
From ACM News

Finally, a Problem That Only Quantum Computers Will Ever Be Able to Solve

Early on in the study of quantum computers, computer scientists posed a question whose answer, they knew, would reveal something deep about the power of these futuristic...

How to Control Robots with Brainwaves and Hand Gestures
From ACM News

How to Control Robots with Brainwaves and Hand Gestures

Getting robots to do things isn't easy: Usually, scientists have to either explicitly program them or get them to understand how humans communicate via language...

Martian Dust Storm Grows Global; Curiosity Captures Photos of Thickening Haze
From ACM News

Martian Dust Storm Grows Global; Curiosity Captures Photos of Thickening Haze

A storm of tiny dust particles has engulfed much of Mars over the last two weeks and prompted NASA's Opportunity rover to suspend science operations.

Microsoft Opens Access to Sensor Data on the HoloLens With 'Research Mode' Update
From ACM TechNews

Microsoft Opens Access to Sensor Data on the HoloLens With 'Research Mode' Update

Microsoft has added a research mode to its HoloLens mixed-reality smartglasses so researchers and developers can access a broader spectrum of sensor-captured data...

The Science Behind the World Cup Ball
From ACM News

The Science Behind the World Cup Ball

Each World Cup, the sportswear giant Adidas designs an official ball to be used in the tournament.

New Human Gene Tally Reignites Debate
From ACM News

New Human Gene Tally Reignites Debate

One of the earliest attempts to estimate the number of genes in the human genome involved tipsy geneticists, a bar in Cold Spring Harbor, New York, and pure guesswork...

The Unexpected Fallout of Iran's Telegram Ban
From ACM News

The Unexpected Fallout of Iran's Telegram Ban

Seven weeks after Iran's conservative-led judiciary banned the secure communications app Telegram inside the country, Iranians are still reeling from the change...

New AI System Can Imagine What It Hasn't Seen
From ACM News

New AI System Can Imagine What It Hasn't Seen

"Before we work on artificial intelligence, why don't we do something about natural stupidity?" computer scientist Steve Polyak once joked.

Astronomers See Distant Eruption as Black Hole Destroys Star
From ACM News

Astronomers See Distant Eruption as Black Hole Destroys Star

For the first time, astronomers have directly imaged the formation and expansion of a fast-moving jet of material ejected when the powerful gravity of a supermassive...

Spotlight Falls on Russian Threat to ­ndersea Cables
From ACM News

Spotlight Falls on Russian Threat to ­ndersea Cables

The Trump administration's new sanctions on Russia are casting light on the threat posed to the undersea cables that carry the world's electronic communications...

If You're A Facebook ­ser, You're Also a Research Subject
From ACM News

If You're A Facebook ­ser, You're Also a Research Subject

The professor was incredulous.

Seafloor Fiber Optic Cables Can Work Like Seismometers
From ACM News

Seafloor Fiber Optic Cables Can Work Like Seismometers

There are enough seismometers around these days to detect and locate nearly all earthquakes on land, except the most minuscule ones.

Drone Swarms Are the New Fireworks Lighting Up China's Skies
From ACM News

Drone Swarms Are the New Fireworks Lighting Up China's Skies

Since China banned fireworks across more than 400 cities to reduce pollution, a new entertainment has emerged to fill the skies: drone swarms.

Ramp-­p in Antarctic Ice Loss Speeds Sea Level Rise
From ACM News

Ramp-­p in Antarctic Ice Loss Speeds Sea Level Rise

Ice losses from Antarctica have tripled since 2012, increasing global sea levels by 0.12 inch (3 millimeters) in that timeframe alone, according to a major new...

Colliding Wormholes May Be Causing Gravitational Waves
From ACM News

Colliding Wormholes May Be Causing Gravitational Waves

One of the most significant scientific developments of recent times has been the five separate observations of the elusive ripples in space-time known as gravitational...

Massive Martian Dust Storm Endangers NASA Rover
From ACM News

Massive Martian Dust Storm Endangers NASA Rover

An enormous dust storm is blanketing much of Mars, blocking the sunlight that NASA's 15-year-old Opportunity rover needs to survive.

In Newark, Police Cameras, and the Internet, Watch You
From ACM News

In Newark, Police Cameras, and the Internet, Watch You

The camera perched above the bus stop sends back a continuous feed from the corner of 16th Avenue and South 18th Street in Newark's West Ward.

Cosmic Ray Showers Crash Supercomputers. Here's What to Do About It
From ACM News

Cosmic Ray Showers Crash Supercomputers. Here's What to Do About It

The Cray-1 supercomputer, the world's fastest back in the 1970s, does not look like a supercomputer.

The ­niverse Is Not a Simulation, but We Can Now Simulate It
From ACM News

The ­niverse Is Not a Simulation, but We Can Now Simulate It

In the early 2000s, a small community of coder-cosmologists set out to simulate the 14-billion-year history of the universe on a supercomputer.

AI Could Get 100 Times More Energy-Efficient with IBM's New Artificial Synapses
From ACM News

AI Could Get 100 Times More Energy-Efficient with IBM's New Artificial Synapses

Neural networks are the crown jewel of the AI boom. They gorge on data and do things like transcribe speech or describe images with near-perfect accuracy (see "10...
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