Communications of the ACM
The news archive provides access to past news stories from Communications of the ACM and other sources by date.
January 2012
From ACM Careers
U.s. Losing High-Tech Jobs, R&d Dominance to Asia
U.S. companies are locating more of their research and development operations overseas, and Asian countries are rapidly increasing investments in their own science and technology economies, the National Science Board reported…
From ACM News
Project Dreamcatcher
How cutting-edge text analytics can help the Obama campaign determine voters' hopes and fears.
From ACM News
Inside the Mind of a Video Game Champ
If there is one general rule about the limitations of the human mind, it is that we are terrible at multitasking.
From ACM TechNews
Nsa Releases a Security-Enhanced Version of Android
The U.S. National Security Agency has released a security-enhanced version of Android. SE Android enforces stricter access control policies than those available in the mobile operating system by default.
From ACM News
Apple Makes Push Into Ipad Textbooks
Apple Inc. on Thursday introduced tools designed to spur the development of textbooks and other classroom materials for devices like the iPad, in the company's latest push to drive demand for its tablet and change the education…
From ACM TechNews
Pnnl's Olympus Supercomputer Advances Science, Saves Energy
The Pacific Northwest National Laboratory recently launched the 162-teraflop peak Olympus supercomputer, which is helping scientists do more complex, advanced research. Olympus uses less energy than similar supercomputers due…
From ACM TechNews
Linux Adoption Grows on Big Data, Cloud, Virtualization: Survey
New and veteran users of Linux continue to embrace the platform at the expense of Windows and Unix, according to a recent report from the Linux Foundation.
From ACM Careers
The Opposite of Evil: Google Named Best Place to Work in America
Google has a new weapon in the intense war for engineering talent in Silicon Valley: The search giant on Thursday was named by Fortune magazine as the best place to work in America.
From ACM News
SOPA Protest Rattles Congress
Some of the early supporters of two controversial online piracy bills are having second thoughts—and other undecided lawmakers are pledging opposition—in the wake of an Internet protest Wednesday by websites like Wikipedia, Reddit…
From ACM Opinion
Why The 'check Engine' Light Must Be Banned
It's pretty easy to dismiss the "check engine" light as just stupid, because, well, it is.
From ACM TechNews
Isc Looking For Programmers to Help Complete Bind 10
The Internet Systems Consortium is looking for programmers to help develop the next generation of the open source Berkeley Internet Name Domain domain name server software, and hopes to have a production version of BIND 10 ready…
From ACM TechNews
Protest on Web Uses Shutdown to Take on Two Piracy Bills
A Web-wide protest against two pieces of U.S. Internet piracy legislation that includes a one-day shutdown of Wikipedia represents a political flashpoint for a relatively young and unstructured industry.
From ACM TechNews
Surgical Robots to Provide Open-Source Platform For Medical Robotics Research
University of Washington researchers have developed Raven, a robot with wing-like arms that will be sent to seven campuses across the U.S. and form the basis of the first common research platform for developing surgical robots…
From ACM TechNews
.s. Loses High-Tech Jobs as R&d Shifts Toward Asia
The U.S. is losing high-tech jobs as American companies expand their research and development (R&D) labs in Asia, according to the U.S. National Science Board.
From ACM TechNews
Google's Marissa Mayer Says More Women Needed in Tech
Despite recent advances by women in high-tech fields, there is still much room for growth, according to a group of female tech executives speaking at the recent International Consumer Electronics Show.
From ACM TechNews
Class of 2011 Scores Higher-Paying Jobs
Engineering students secured the highest-paying jobs among 2011 graduates, according to a new survey from the National Association of Colleges and Employers.
From ACM News
Scratching Your Head Over Sopa?
As Wikipedia and other Websites go dark Wednesday in what backers are calling the largest Internet protest ever, the epic battle between Silicon Valley and Hollywood over online anti-piracy legislation continues to heat up, even…
From ACM News
Sopa: Sites Go Dark As Part of Anti-Piracy Law Protests
Thousands of Internet sites are taking part in a "blackout" protest against anti-piracy laws being discussed by U.S. lawmakers.
From ACM Opinion
It's Time to Start 3d Scanning the World
When Microsoft was developing its Kinect 3D sensor, a critical task was to calibrate its algorithms to rapidly and accurately recognize parts of the human body, especially hands, to make sure the device would work in any home…
From ACM TechNews
Choreographing Dance of Electrons Offers Promise in Pursuit of Quantum Computers
Princeton University researchers are studying ways to control the spin of electrons, a major step toward developing technology that can be used in quantum computers.
From ACM TechNews
Ethical Supercomputing
Socially conscious organizations can turn to a non-profit supercomputing grid service, Charity Engine, for extra compute cycles.
From ACM TechNews
The Quantifier
Massachusetts Institute of Technology professor Polina Golland is a principal investigator at the Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory, where she is working on new techniques for modeling brain activity.
From ACM Careers
Nyc to Open Its First Software Engineering High School
New York City is taking another step toward becoming Silicon Alley—the East Coast’s own tech hub—with the grand opening of the city's first software engineering-specialized high school.
From ACM News
A Wireless Road Around Data Traffic Jams
The vast data centers that process information for the Facebooks and Amazons of the Web work at a brisk clip. But even so, they can't always keep up.
From ACM News
Making It in America
In the past decade, the flow of goods emerging from U.S. factories has risen by about a third. Factory employment has fallen by roughly the same fraction.
From ACM News
Will Tablets Replace Laptops?
Tablets like the iPad 2 are hot … and apparently so hot that 46% of respondents believe they will eventually eliminate the need for laptop computers, according to a new poll of 1,155 American adults.
From ACM News
Humans And Machines: Beyond Touch
Computer chips and technology are invading all sorts of previously dumb devices. Phones are now smart. Cars are becoming connected computers on wheels. Call it the computerization of everything.
From ACM News
Steve Ballmer Reboots
They had his dining room waiting. Steve Ballmer, Microsoft’s chief executive and one of the richest men in the world, often eats privately at a Bellevue (Wash.) steakhouse whose name remains, at the behest of his security guards…
From ACM News
Google's Data Center Engineer Shares Secrets of 'warehouse' Computing
Luiz André Barroso doesn't see Google's data centers as data centers. He sees them as computers the size of warehouses.
From ACM TechNews
Google's 'babel Fish' Heralds Future of Translation
The Google Translate project seeks the enablement of real-time language translation by building "statistical models that are automatically training themselves and learning all the time," says Google Translate researcher Ashish…