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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.


From ACM News

How Seagate's Terabit-Per-Square-Inch Hard Drive Works

Magnetic hard disks will soon be able to store one terabit (a trillion bits) per square inch.

Police Are Using Phone Tracking as a Routine Tool
From ACM News

Police Are Using Phone Tracking as a Routine Tool

Law enforcement tracking of cellphones, once the province mainly of federal agents, has become a powerful and widely used surveillance tool for local police officials...

The Miri Has Two Faces: Go 'behind the Webb' (telescope)
From ACM News

The Miri Has Two Faces: Go 'behind the Webb' (telescope)

A short new video takes viewers behind the scenes with the MIRI or the Mid-Infrared Instrument that will fly on-board NASA's James Webb Space Telescope.

Dead Stars 'to Guide Spacecraft'
From ACM News

Dead Stars 'to Guide Spacecraft'

German scientists are developing a technique that allows for very precise positioning anywhere in space by picking up X-ray signals from pulsars.

Systems to Handle Big Data Might Be This Generation's Moon Landing
From ACM News

Systems to Handle Big Data Might Be This Generation's Moon Landing

An effort to build a radio telescope that can see back 13 billion years to the creation of the universe is prompting a five-year €32 million ($42.7 million) effort...

­.s. Outgunned in Hacker War
From ACM News

­.s. Outgunned in Hacker War

The Federal Bureau of Investigation's top cyber cop offered a grim appraisal of the nation's efforts to keep computer hackers from plundering corporate data networks...

How the Cost of Computation Restricts the Processes of Life
From ACM News

How the Cost of Computation Restricts the Processes of Life

Back in the 1960s, the IBM physicist Rolf Landauer showed that computation comes with a cost: every (irreversible) calculation, he said, always burns through a...

More Energy Efficient Transistors Through Quantum Tunneling
From ACM TechNews

More Energy Efficient Transistors Through Quantum Tunneling

Researchers at the University of Notre Dame and Pennsylvania State University say they have made breakthroughs in the development of tunneling field effect transistors...

Google Patents Tech to Serve Ads Based on Background Noise
From ACM TechNews

Google Patents Tech to Serve Ads Based on Background Noise

Google has received a patent for technology that would enable it to deliver advertising based on what it calls "environment conditions."  

'mount Sharp' on Mars Links Geology's Past and Future
From ACM News

'mount Sharp' on Mars Links Geology's Past and Future

One particular mountain on Mars, bigger than Colorado's grandest, has been beckoning would-be explorers since it was first sighted from orbit in the 1970s.

The '80s Called, and They Want Their Cellphones Back
From ACM News

The '80s Called, and They Want Their Cellphones Back

Julie Barbour-Issa calls her eight-year-old cellphone "the dinosaur. It's a brick, and I could use it as a weapon in an emergency," says the 30-year-old Norwood...

Eye-Tracking Computers Will Read Your Thoughts
From ACM News

Eye-Tracking Computers Will Read Your Thoughts

Consider, for a moment, the following list: Republican. Abortion. Democrat. Future. Afghanistan. Health care. Same-sex marriage.  

Cassini Spacecraft For Saturn Moon Pass
From ACM News

Cassini Spacecraft For Saturn Moon Pass

The Cassini spacecraft is to make its lowest pass yet over the south pole of Enceladus, an active moon of Saturn which may harbour a liquid water ocean.

Nasa Probe Offers New View of Mercury: Alien World Right in Our Back Yard
From ACM News

Nasa Probe Offers New View of Mercury: Alien World Right in Our Back Yard

The overheated, underappreciated runt of the solar system is finally getting some attention.

China's Not-So-Super Computers
From ACM News

China's Not-So-Super Computers

The supercomputer in this southern boomtown is named Nebulae for the interstellar clouds of gas that give birth to stars.

Fbi Still Struggling With Supreme Court's Gps Ruling
From ACM News

Fbi Still Struggling With Supreme Court's Gps Ruling

Earlier this year, the Supreme Court said police had overstepped their legal authority by planting a GPS tracker on the car of a suspected drug dealer without getting...

Controversy Surrounds Russia's Claim that Cosmic Rays Caused Mars Mission Failure
From ACM News

Controversy Surrounds Russia's Claim that Cosmic Rays Caused Mars Mission Failure

A heartbreaking, out-of-the-gate failure of Russia's sample return mission early this year created a wide circle of disappointment.

The Spanish Link in Cracking the Enigma Code
From ACM News

The Spanish Link in Cracking the Enigma Code

A pair of rare Enigma machines used in the Spanish Civil War have been given to the head of GCHQ, Britain's communications intelligence agency.

The Snails of War
From ACM News

The Snails of War

The electric snail is here. There's an electric cockroach too.

iPad Teardown Reveals $375.10 Total Cost; Samsung Wins Big
From ACM News

iPad Teardown Reveals $375.10 Total Cost; Samsung Wins Big

The new iPad costs about $364.35 for its bill of materials, according to a teardown analysis by IHS iSuppli. 
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