Communications of the ACM
The news archive provides access to past news stories from Communications of the ACM and other sources by date.
October 2009
From ACM TechNews
Free-Flying Cyborg Insects Steered From a Distance
Engineers at the University of California, Berkeley, have connected electrodes and radio antennas to the nervous systems of beetles and then were able to control their movements from afar. The team implanted electrodes into…
From ACM TechNews
Program Aims to Boost Interest in Technical Careers
Michigan State University (MSU) is creating a program that will better prepare high school students for careers in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM). The program will help students develop the knowledge…
From ACM TechNews
Geoffrey Fox, Director of Futuregrid
The FutureGrid Program is a U.S. National Science Foundation-funded project to determine the best ways to connect supercomputers together, headed by Indiana University professor Geoffrey Fox. Fox says that FutureGrid is a component…
From ACM TechNews
It Sector to Create 5.8 Million New Jobs By 2013
The global information technology (IT) sector will create 5.8 million new jobs and 75,000 new businesses over the next four years, according to a new Microsoft study conducted by IDC. The 52 countries that lead the way in IT…
From ACM TechNews
DARPA Director Visits niversities in Bid to Re-Energize Partnerships
Regina E. Dugan, the new director of the Pentagon's Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), is visiting universities across the United States in an attempt to mend alliances that were strained under the Bush administration…
From ACM TechNews
Nsf: Federal Role in Academic R&d Funding Has Diminished
A report from the U.S. National Science Foundation (NSF) concludes that the federal government's role in the underwriting of science and engineering research and development (R&D) has waned. NSF's survey found that the government's…
From ACM TechNews
Scientist Receives NSF Grant to Improve Computer Tools
Carnegie Mellon NewsCarnegie Mellon University's Ole Mengshoel has received a two-year, $498,000 U.S. National Science Foundation grant to develop new computer tools that improve and integrate the way information is displayed…
From ACM TechNews
New ICANN Agreement Runs Into Criticism
There has been some concern that the new agreement between ICANN and the U.S. Department of Commerce will not provide enough accountability. Under the new agreement, called an Affirmation of Commitments, review panels will now…
From ACM News
Cybersecurity On Exhibit: Defending The .s. Online
A panel of officials says the United States is far behind in addressing cyber-security threats. "Taking down the grid for months comes as close to a nuclear attack with many weapons on the United States as anything could," says…
From ACM News
Betting Exchange Proposed as Means to Valuing Toxic Assets
Alan Holland, a researcher at the Cork Constraint Computation Centre at University College Cork, Ireland, advocates using an online prediction market to value toxic assets that the Irish government acquired from six banks. The…
From ACM News
Robotic Assistant Lessens Pain of Surgery for Spina Bifida Patients
For the first time, a surgical robot has been used to perform minimally invasive reconstructive surgery on five children whose bladder was dysfunctional because they were born with spina bifida, an incomplete formation of the…
From ACM News
Researchers to Develop Algorithms for 'Commonsense Knowledge' Bases
Two researchers at the University of Illinois at Chicago were recently awarded a three-year, $500,000 grant from the U.S. National Science Foundation to develop algorithms for use in building commonsense knowledge bases that…
From ACM News
Threat of next world war may be in cyberspace: N
"Cyber war!" flashes on the screen at an Internet security conference. The next world war could take place in cyberspace, the UN telecommunications agency chief warned Tuesday as experts called for action to stamp out cyber attacks…
From ACM News
Nobel Awarded For Advances in Harnessing Light
The mastery of light through technology was the theme of this year’s Nobel Prize in Physics as the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences honored breakthroughs in fiber optics and digital photography.
Half of the $1.4 million prize…From ACM TechNews
Itu Sets 'green Ict' Agenda
Information and communications technology (ICT) needs to play a bigger part in helping reduce global greenhouse gas emissions, says Malcolm Johnson, director of the International Telecommunications Union's (ITU's) Standardization…
From ACM TechNews
Computer Detects Abuse Before Doctors
Ben Reis at Children's Hospital Boston and Harvard Medical School led a research team that developed software that could spot warning signs of domestic abuse.
From ACM TechNews
Researchers Sharpen Photos By Capturing Multiple Low-Quality Images
Massachusetts Institute of Technology researchers Sam Hasinoff, Fredo Durand, and William Freeman, along with University of Toronto researcher Kiriakos Kutulakos, have designed a mathematical model for a digital camera that calculates…
From ACM TechNews
Rim and Nserc Invest in Queen's Expertise
Software engineering techniques for very large data systems will be the focus of research at Queen's University in Canada, which has received a $5 million investment from Research In Motion (RIM) and the Natural Sciences and…
From ACM News
Protocols Will Test Effects of Rfid on Medical Devices
Radio frequency identification (RFID) systems have found their way into medical environments to track patients, equipment assets and staff members. However, there is currently no published standardized, repeatable methodology…
From ICT Results
Cooperative Design Shaves Chip-Making Costs
A European-sponsored programme that gives universities inexpensive access to state-of-the-art microchip design tools and fabrication techniques, and helps even small businesses fabricate novel microchips, is helping Europe remain…
From ACM TechNews
Sdsc Part 'futuregrid' Computer Network Project
The U.S. National Science Foundation has selected the San Diego Supercomputing Center (SDSC) to be part of a team to construct and operate an experimental high-performance testbed so that researchers can devise and test new parallel…
From ACM TechNews
Virginia Tech's Improved Robotic Hand Captures Top Award
A team of five undergraduates from the Virginia Tech College of Engineering have placed first in a competition run by the American Society of Mechanical Engineers for RAPHaEL 2, a robotic hand that runs on compressed air. Rather…
From ACM TechNews
nix at 40: Hanging on Despite Strong Linux, Windows Challenges
After four decades, the Unix platform is still very important to enterprise information technology and has many years of usefulness left to it, even though Linux and Windows Server have outpaced Unix in terms of sales volume. …
From ACM TechNews
After Losing sers in Catalogs, Libraries Find Better Search Software
People are worried that library catalogs are in danger of marginalization because they present information online in a clunky, non-intuitive way that often frustrates searchers. To combat this trend, a growing number of universities…
From ACM TechNews
Aid Agencies Turn to Open-Source Software
Wesleyan University and Trinity College students have developed Collabbit, software that acts as a virtual emergency response center. Collabbit serves as a central repository for information, using RSS or text messages to send…
From ACM TechNews
New Digital Security Program Doesn't Protect as Promised
The Vanish security system has been broken by a team of researchers from the University of Texas at Austin, Princeton University, and the University of Michigan.
From ACM TechNews
The Reality of Robot Surrogates
Telepresence technology has a long way to go before people can perform everyday duties with robotic avatars. Present-day telepresence interfaces consist of joysticks, wireless Internet links, video cameras, and audio through…
From ICT Results
Filming Photons, One Million Times a Second
European researchers have created a CMOS semiconductor camera capable of filming individual photons one million times a second. The breakthrough will have an impact on advanced areas of science and makes Europe a world leader…
From ACM Careers
Iits Strike Partnerships With Global niversities
Some of the Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs) are launching projects along with global universities to offer students and faculty more opportunities for collaborative research and development with foreign academic partners…
From ACM TechNews
Robots in Education
Robots are increasingly becoming ubiquitous in education. The Google Lunar X Prize, a $30 million contest to design a robot capable of traveling to the moon, is being envisioned for children by the X Prize Foundation, Google…