Communications of the ACM
The news archive provides access to past news stories from Communications of the ACM and other sources by date.
January 2013
From ACM News
Big Blue Is Still the Big Dog of Patents
Computing giant IBM has retained its position as the company granted the most patents in the year. It’s the 20th consecutive year that IBM has done so.
From ACM News
Banks Seek Nsa Help Amid Attacks on Their Computer Systems
Major U.S. banks have turned to the National Security Agency for help protecting their computer systems after a barrage of assaults that have disrupted their Web sites, according to industry officials.
From ACM TechNews
How the Government's 2013 Tech Policy Agenda Will Impact IT
Cybersecurity is the most urgent of the critical technology issues that lawmakers and regulators will grapple with in 2013. The White House is expected to ask the private sector to voluntarily work with the government to create…
From ACM TechNews
1st Black Female Computer Science Phd Student at niv. of Michigan Reveals Lack of Role Models
Kyla McMullen became the University of Michigan's first African-American female computer science Ph.D. alumna this past year. She says that her experience was sometimes isolating because there were few people she could rely on…
From ACM TechNews
.N. Plans Internet Governance Amid Outcry to Defund IT
A petition to de-fund the United Nation's telecommunications branch recently emerged, just as the ITU was ready to finalize Internet governance plans at the World Telecommunication Information and Communication Technology Policy…
From ACM News
Robocallers Stand Out in a Troll Through Chinese Cellphone Records
The availability of electronic records of communications, from the use of cellphones to chats in online games, has given social scientists new options for studying how humans interact.
From ACM News
Cyberwar's Gray Market
Behind computer screens from France to Fort Worth, Texas, elite hackers hunt for security vulnerabilities worth thousands of dollars on a secretive unregulated marketplace.
From ACM News
Malicious Virus Shuttered Power Plant: Dhs
A computer virus attacked a turbine control system at a power company when a technician unknowingly inserted an infected USB computer drive into the network, keeping a plant off line for three weeks, according to a recent U.S…
From ACM News
NASA Mars Rover Preparing to Drill Into First Martian Rock
NASA's Mars rover Curiosity is driving toward a flat rock with pale veins that may hold clues to a wet history on the Red Planet.
From ACM TechNews
California to Give Web Courses a Big Trial
Online education startup Udacity has unveiled a partnership with San Jose State University to offer remedial and college-level algebra and introductory statistics courses, in a deal that involves classroom instructors in a massively…
From ACM TechNews
City Living: There's an App For That
U.S. citizens increasingly are developing mobile applications that rely on a wealth of publicly available municipal data. For example, Portland, Ore., has developed PDX Bus, a free open source iPhone app that delivers bus and…
From ACM News
Graphene: Patent Surge Reveals Global Race
Latest figures show a sharp rise in patents filed to claim rights over different aspects of graphene since 2007, with a further spike last year.
From ACM TechNews
It Job Market Recovering Faster Than After Dot-Com Bubble Burst
More new technology jobs have been created since the end of the past recession than during the same recovery period following the burst of the dot-com bubble and the early 1990s recession, according to a recent Dice.com report…
From ACM TechNews
Researchers Find Blocking Internet Pirating Sites Is Not Effective
Researchers recently conducted a study on the effectiveness of anti-piracy measures taken by content providers. The research indicates that strategies such as blocking sites by seizing domains names does not do much to stop…
From ACM News
Facebook on Collision Course With Google on Web Searches
After years of collecting photos and personal data from its billion-plus members, Facebook Inc. Tuesday unveiled a search tool that sifts through people's profiles—and pushes the social network deeper into Google Inc.'s home…
From ACM Opinion
Google's Kurzweil on Teaching Human Language to Computers
Famed inventor and futurist Ray Kurzweil joined Google last month to work on "some of the hardest problems in computer science," specifically machine learning and language processing.
From ACM News
Iranian Military Able to Repel Enemy Jamming, Electronic Attacks
A senior Iranian army commander lauded the achievements of the country's Armed Forces in electronic warfare, stressing that Iran's military units can maintain communications amid a full-fledged enemy electronic attack for jamming…
From ACM TechNews
Humans Generate Most of the World’s Data, but Machines Are Catching Up
IDC estimated in 2005 that all of the bytes in the digital universe amounted to 130 billion gigabytes. IDC's most recent estimate for 2012 put the total at 2.8 trillion gigabytes and it estimates that by 2020 the number will…
From ACM TechNews
Drivingstyles, Save Fuel By Driving Better
A new mobile phone application designed to characterize driving styles could promote better driving behavior. Researchers in the Technical University of Valencia have developed DrivingStyles, an app designed to detect and correct…
From ACM TechNews
Study: Women Lagging in Internet Adoption in Many Countries
Women and girls are falling behind men in terms of Internet access in many parts of the world, causing them to miss out on the economic and social benefits of being online, according to a recent Intel report.
From ACM News
When Huygens Met Titan
Eight years ago, the European Space Agency's Huygens bounced, slid, and wobbled its way to rest on the surface of Saturn's moon Titan.
From ACM News
'caesar' Conquers Code Review With Crowdsourcing
The Caesar system uses crowdsourcing to take the pain out of reviewing the voluminous code produced by hundreds of students enrolled in introductory computer science classes at MIT.
From ACM Opinion
Hp Ceo Whitman Dubs Windows 8 a Work in Progress
There are plenty of Meg Whitman doubters out there. Some say the former EBay chief executive officer doesn't have the requisite big company experience to run a $120 billion organization like Hewlett-Packard.
From ACM News
Andrew Schwartz: Brain Control For Artificial Limbs
When Jan Scheuermann grasped a chocolate bar and raised it to her mouth last year, it was a neuroscience breakthrough.
From ACM News
Oculus Rift: Deep Inside the Immersive, Disorienting Virtual Reality Gaming Experience
We just met with the team behind the Oculus Rift, which started out as a DIY project that quickly morphed into into a Kickstarter success story.
From ACM TechNews
GM and Ford Open Up Their Vehicles to App Developers
Both Ford and General Motors announded at the 2013 International CES event that they want software developers to create apps for their cars, and that they will open up their vehicles' computer systems to engineers.
From ACM TechNews
Ieee Approves Wigig, Clearing Way For Faster Wireless Networking
The IEEE Standards Association has approved WiGig, a very fast, short-range networking technology that operates in the 60-GHz band. Also known as 802.11ad, WiGig could start appearing in routers as early as the second or third…
From ACM TechNews
The Rise and Fall of Languages in 2012
The transition to many-core processors was expected to set the stage for the emergence of functional computer languages. Although 2012 did not produce a major breakthrough in functional languages, the leading candidates are…
From ACM TechNews
Cyber Security in 2013: How Vulnerable to Attack Is U.s. Now?
Last year offered many unsettling revelations for businesses, individuals, and U.S. government officials concerned about cyberattacks. There is more befuddlement than clarity on the subject, and the cultivation of cybersecurity…
From ACM TechNews
Game Not Over for Retro Games
The Keeping Emulation Environments Portable (KEEP) project uses emulators to keep classic video games such as Pac-Man and Donkey Kong alive. KEEP researchers tried to make the emulators future-proof so they would be able to run…