Communications of the ACM
The news archive provides access to past news stories from Communications of the ACM and other sources by date.
October 2011
From ACM Opinion
Dennis Ritchie: The Shoulders Steve Jobs Stood On
The tributes to Dennis Ritchie won’t match the river of praise that spilled out over the web after the death of Steve Jobs. But they should.
From ACM Opinion
The Singularity Isn't Near
Futurists like Vernor Vinge and Ray Kurzweil have argued that the world is rapidly approaching a tipping point, where the accelerating pace of smarter and smarter machines will soon outrun all human capabilities. They call this…
From ACM News
What Did Steve Jobs Do For Computer Science?
Beyond a mind-bending array of business, societal, and technological accomplishments, there’s an often-overlooked side to Steve Jobs and Apple. The company’s contributions to computer science are sparse, particularly in recent…
From ACM TechNews
High-Skill Visa Reform Needs Action By Congress, Obama Says
Congressional action is needed to overhaul high-skill immigration policy, President Obama said during a meeting of the President's Council on Jobs and Competitiveness.
From ACM TechNews
Bridging the It Skills Gap
More than 550,000 new entrants over the next five years are required to fill information technology (IT) and telecoms professional job openings in Britain, according to a recent Technology Insights 2011 report.
From ACM TechNews
Pr2 Can Now Fetch You a Sandwich From Subway
Researchers from the University of Tokyo and Technische Universitat Munchen have given a robot common sense.
From ACM TechNews
Progress in Quantum Computing, Qubit by Qubit
Harvard University researchers have developed a method for capturing light in tiny diamond pillars embedded in silver, releasing a stream of single photons at a controllable rate, technology that could lead to the development…
From ACM News
Air Force Insists: Drone Cockpit Virus Just a 'nuisance'
The U.S. Air Force revealed new details Wednesday about the virus that’s been infecting the remote cockpits of its drone fleet—and insisted, despite reports from their own personnel, that the infection was properly and easily…
From ACM News
Mouthpieces Gather Impact Data from Football Players
Stanford researchers think the wireless mouth guards will be better than specialized helmets at measuring head injuries.
From ACM News
Popular Websites Share ser Information, Email Addresses, Stanford Study Finds
By signing onto many of the most popular sites on the Web, you may be unknowingly sharing your email address or name with other websites and data collection companies that help target online advertising, according to a study…
From ACM News
Dennis Ritchie, C Creator and nix Developer, Has Passed Away
Dennis Ritchie, creator of the C programming language and developer of UNIX, has passed away at the age of 70.
From ACM News
Design Spotlight Is Thrown on Ive
Without Steve Jobs, Apple Inc. investors and customers are asking a big question: Can it continue to turn out innovative products without its co-founder and design visionary?
From ACM News
Will Robots Steal Your Job as a Scientist?
Can robots work as scientists? At first, this seems like a silly question. Computers are pervasive in science, and if you walk into a large university lab today, there's a good chance you'll find a fully fledged robot working…
From ACM TechNews
New Computer Programme Promises to Save the Whales
University of Montreal researchers have developed software that helps regulators to evaluate the ecological and economic implications of marine mammal conservation, whale watching, and marine transportation activities in the…
From ACM TechNews
An Oracle for Object-Oriented Programmers
MIT researchers have developed Matchmaker, a system that automatically determines how objects in a large software project interact so it can inform new objects which functions they will need to perform.
From ACM TechNews
People as 'sensors': Twitter Messages Reveal Nfl's Big Plays and Fans' Excitement
Researchers at Rice University and Motorola Mobility have developed SportSense, software that monitors Twitter posts of National Football League fans to determine to their level of excitement and keep track of the big plays.
From ACM TechNews
Smartphones sed to Engage with Learners
The mCommunity project is a new multi-institution partnership that will help educators deal with long-term and general unemployment using state-of-the-art telecommunications technology.
From ACM TechNews
Physicists to Develop New Way of Electronic Computing
University of California, Riverside researchers are developing a new way of computing designed to accelerate applications that process large amounts of data, such as Internet searching, data compression, and image recognition…
From ACM News
Video Documents Three-Year Trek on Mars by NASA Rover
While NASA's Mars Exploration Rover Opportunity was traveling from Victoria crater to Endeavour crater, between September 2008 and August 2011, the rover team took an end-of-drive image on each Martian day that included a…
From ACM News
Government Aims to Build a 'Data Eye in the Sky'
More than 60 years ago, in his "Foundation" series, the science fiction novelist Isaac Asimov invented a new science—psychohistory—that combined mathematics and psychology to predict the future.
From ACM News
Paralyzed Man Uses Brain-Powered Robot Arm to Touch
Giving a high-five. Rubbing his girlfriend's hand. Such ordinary acts—but a milestone for a paralyzed man. True, a robotic arm parked next to his wheelchair did the touching, painstakingly, palm to palm.
From ACM News
Giving Prosthetics a Sense of Touch
Brain-machine interfaces have made it possible for monkeys and some humans to control robotic limbs using just their thoughts. But ideally, a person using an artificial limb or other device would not only be able to control…
From ACM News
Gadgets the Pentagon Made
The cool voice assistant that runs on the iPhone 4S? Years ago, someone thought what Apple calls Siri would be a valuable tool for the military. Come to think of it, most of the technology we use—whether to cook our food,…
From ACM News
In Supercomputing, a Turn to Energy-Saving Graphics Chips
In computing, as in so many fields, the best path to progress is often not a straight line.
From ACM News
Ibm Projects It Will Have World
IBM isn't resting on its laurels as the newly crowned second-most valuable technology company in the world.
From ACM News
IBM Bets on Data-Centric Computing
Jai Menon, chief technology officer and vice-president for technical strategy for IBM's Systems and Technology Group, holds 52 patents and is arguably most famous for his contribution to the Raid storage technology.
From ACM TechNews
Take Control of Your Phone's Sensors
Researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology's Media Lab have developed Funf, a phone-based data collection system for self-tracking applications.
From ACM TechNews
Rice Physicists Move 1 Step Closer to Quantum Computer
Rice University researchers have developed an electron superhighway that could be used to build a quantum computer.
From ACM TechNews
U.s., Russia Slowly Improve Cybersecurity Cooperation
Cooperation between the United States and Russia on cybersecurity issues is gradually improving, as indicated by increasing interaction between experts at events such as the EastWest Institute's Eighth Worldwide Security Conference…
From ACM TechNews
Ieee Conference Keynoters Lay Out Path to Exascale Computing
Three keynote speakers addressed the challenges of exascale computing at the recent IEEE Cluster 2011 conference, and described the obstacles and opportunities involved in building systems 1,000 times more powerful than today's…