Communications of the ACM
The news archive provides access to past news stories from Communications of the ACM and other sources by date.
January 2019
From ACM News
AI Removes the Drudgery from Legal Due Diligence
Software can review contracts, and more, faster and more accurately than lawyers.
From ACM TechNews
'DeepSqueak' Helps Researchers Decode Rodent Chatter
Researchers have developed a software program to identify and decode rodent vocalizations.
From ACM TechNews
DNA Design That Anyone Can Do
A new computer program allows users to translate any free-form drawing into a two-dimensional, nanoscale structure made of DNA.
From ACM TechNews
Robots Aren't Yet Killing Off All Our Jobs, World Bank Says
The growth of automation so far has had a negligible impact on jobs at a global level, according to the World Bank's chief economist.
From ACM TechNews
How China Landed the Change'4 Rover on the Far Side of the Moon
The Chinese National Space Administration placed its Chang'e-4 lander and rover on the far side of the Moon.
From ACM TechNews
With Drone Deliveries on the Horizon, Europe Moves to Set Ground Rules
A group of companies are testing unmanned aviation technology to prove drones can fly delivery routes without crashing into each other, and that they can be tracked in crowded skies.
From ACM TechNews
GCHQ Challenges Girls' Schools to Save the .K. From Cyberattacks
The U.K. Government Communications Headquarters has created a competition for 12- to 13-year-old girls aimed at drawing more women into cybersecurity.
From ACM News
Can a Set of Equations Keep .S. Census Data Private?
Protecting confidentiality has been a priority for the Census Bureau for most—but not all—of its existence.
From ACM News
Artificial Intelligence Vs. the Hackers
Last year, Microsoft Corp.'s Azure security team detected suspicious activity in the cloud computing usage of a large retailer: One of the company's administrators, who usually logs on from New York, was trying to gain entry …
From ACM News
The Elite Intel Team Still Fighting Meltdown and Spectre
Throughout 2018, researchers found exploitable weaknesses related to "speculative execution" vulnerabilities.
From ACM TechNews
Martian Robot Will Explore the Red Planet With Mind of Its Own
Researchers in the U.K. have completed testing on an artificial intelligence-enabled rover that will make its own decisions about where it explores on Mars.
From ACM TechNews
Ethereum Plans to Cut Its Absurd Energy Consumption by 99%
The Ethereum Foundation, and the broader open source movement devoted to advancing the cryptocurrency bitcoin, plan to field-test an overhaul of Ethereum's code.
From ACM TechNews
Customizing Computer-Aided Design
A new technique developed by researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology "reverse-engineers" complex three-dimensional (3-D) computer-aided design models.
From ACM TechNews
Miners Dig AI but the Gold Rush Hasn't Come
Despite expectations by the mining industry that artificial intelligence would transform operations, some experts consider that promise overhyped and unrealistic.
From ACM News
The S and China Are in a Quantum Arms Race that Will Transform Warfare
In the 1970s, at the height of the Cold War, American military planners began to worry about the threat to US warplanes posed by new, radar-guided missile defenses in the USSR and other nations.
From ACM News
Curbs on A.I. Exports? Silicon Valley Fears Losing Its Edge
A common belief among tech industry insiders is that Silicon Valley has dominated the internet because much of the worldwide network was designed and built by Americans.
From ACM News
Wireless 'Pacemaker for the Brain' Could Be New Standard Treatment for Neurological Disorders
A new neurostimulator developed by engineers at UC Berkeley can listen to and stimulate electric current in the brain at the same time, potentially delivering fine-tuned treatments to patients with diseases like epilepsy and …
From ACM TechNews
New Augmented Reality Technology Could Help Firefighters Save Lives
A Silicon Valley entrepreneur's augmented reality solution could make firefighters more effective in low-visibility situations.
From ACM TechNews
Deep Learning Turns Mono Recordings Into Immersive Sound
Researchers have taught an artificial intelligence system to convert ordinary monaural sounds into nearly three-dimensional sounds.
From ACM TechNews
niversity in North Carolina Issues Degrees sing Blockchain
East Coast Polytechnic Institute University graduates can now receive and digitally store degrees with blockchain technology, which delivers secure, immediate verification.
From ACM News
Beyond CMOS Lies Hope
Seeking a successor to complementary metal oxide semiconductor technology.
From ACM News
China Becomes First Nation to Land on the Moon's Far Side
A Chinese probe has made a historic touch-down on the far side of the Moon, according to the country's state-run media. It is the first time a probe has visited the region, 60 years after an orbiter gave humans their first look…
From ACM News
Overlooked No More: Karen Sparck Jones, Who Established the Basis for Search Engines
A pioneer of computer science for work combining statistics and linguistics, and an advocate for women in the field.
From ACM News
NASA’s New Horizons Mission Releases Snowman-like Picture of ltima Thule
Ultima Thule, an icy world 4 billion miles from the sun, looks like a big snowman.
From ACM TechNews
E to Fund Bug Bounty Programs for 14 Open Source Projects
The European Union will cover the costs of bug bounty programs for 14 open source projects.
From ACM TechNews
Ohio Eyes New Connected Vehicle Test
The Ohio Department of Transportation, in collaboration with Honda, is planning a connected vehicle project in the city of Marysville.
From ACM TechNews
Hybrid Qubits Solve Key Hurdle to Quantum Computing
An international team of researchers has built a hybrid device from two different types of quantum bits to facilitate rapid initialization and readout.
From ACM TechNews
Schools in China Track Students With GPS-Enabled 'Smart' niforms
Students at 11 schools in the Chinese province of Guizhou are wearing "smart uniforms" incorporating computer chips to ensure they attend classes and behave properly.
From ACM TechNews
'Virtual Tumor' New Way to See Cancer
Researchers have constructed a three-dimensional virtual reality model of tumor samples, with each individual cell mapped.
From ACM TechNews
Researchers Putting Fish Into AR Tanks
New Jersey Institute of Technology researchers have created an augmented reality system to run experiments on the glass knifefish.