Communications of the ACM
The news archive provides access to past news stories from Communications of the ACM and other sources by date.
October 2012
From ACM TechNews
The Real Tron: It Security as a Shoot 'em Up
MIT researchers have developed an approach that allows IT security professionals to patrol their assigned environments as if they were playing a first-person shooter video game.
From ACM TechNews
High Schools Not Meeting STEM Demand
There are more than 42,000 public and private high schools in the United States, but just 2,100 of them offered the Advanced Placement test in computer science last year, a 25 percent drop over the past five years, according…
From ACM News
Nasa's Infrared Observatory Measures Expansion of Universe
Astronomers using NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope have announced the most precise measurement yet of the Hubble constant, or the rate at which our universe is stretching apart.
From ACM News
The Real Tron: It Security As a Shoot 'em p
Alert to a sudden threat, you race down a virtual corridor of servers, hot on the tail of malicious software.
From ACM News
Information Nation: Digital Social Experiment to Put a Human Face on Big Data
Imagine seeing life through one eyeball but then being given the ability to view the world through two or even three eyeballs at once.
From ACM Careers
Sites That Pay the Shopper For Being a Seller
Julie Medeiros thinks her taste in fashion is worth something. Turns out it is: about $50 a month.
From ACM News
Controlling Curiosity: How Do You Drive a Mars Rover?
Engineers at Nasa’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in Pasadena, California, have the ultimate iPhone app.
From ACM News
The Cosmological Supercomputer
When it comes to reconstructing the past, you might think that astrophysicists have it easy. After all, the sky is awash with evidence,
From ACM TechNews
Beyond Software: Programmers Hope to Change Macon
Three fellows with Code for America have spent nearly a year in Bibb County, Ga., writing software for various organizations.
From ACM TechNews
Digital Agenda: EU-Funded Research to Make the 'Cloud' Greener
The Eurocloud project aims to develop a 3D microchip that can drastically cut the electricity and the installation costs of servers in cloud computing data centers.
From ACM TechNews
Uc Davis Team's Piano System Animates Hands to Do-Re-Mi
University of California, Davis researchers have developed an algorithm that creates computer-generated animations of piano playing, showing finger placement and wrist movement.
From ACM TechNews
Researchers Demonstrate 3d Spy Trojan For Mobile Phones
Researchers at Indiana University Bloomington and the Naval Surface Warfare Center have developed PlaceRaider, a program that uses a phone's camera to take pictures of its surroundings and construct a 3D model of the environment…
From ACM TechNews
A Smartphone in Your Glasses
EPFL researchers are developing a prototype of a pair of augmented glasses that allow the wearer to read messages, look at an itinerary, and receive a variety of information directly on the lenses.
From ACM News
Megadroid: 300,000 Androids Clustered Together to Study Network Havoc
Anyone who builds an Android app knows that testing on real devices is important. But what if instead of testing on one device at a time, you could test 300,000?
From ACM News
New Android Malware App Turns Phone Into Surveillance Device
Mobile malware has largely been limited to Trojans buried inside a malicious app targeting sensitive data stored on the phone such as email, contact information, and SMS messages.
From ACM News
Cyber Attackers Disrupt Internet in Iran: Official
Cyber attackers have targeted Iranian infrastructure and communications companies, disrupting the Internet across the country, a state official was quoted as saying on Wednesday.
From ACM News
U.s. Bank Website Hackers Used Advanced Botnets, Diverse Tools
The hackers behind the cyber attacks on major U.S. banks have repeatedly disrupted online banking by using sophisticated and diverse tools that point to a carefully coordinated campaign, according to security researchers.
From ACM News
Leonard Kleinrock, the Tx-2 and the Seeds of the Internet
It was 4:00 in the morning, and Leonard Kleinrock was sitting inside MIT's Lincoln Laboratory on the outskirts of Boston, hunched in front of a massive computer system known as the TX-2.
From ACM News
Mimicry Beats Consciousness in Gaming's Turing Test
The Turing test might still be too hard for software to crack—but two programs have already aced video gaming's answer to this famous evaluation of machine intelligence.
From ACM News
Proposed Space Boat Could Explore Lakes on Saturn's Moon Titan
While rovers are ideal for exploring Mars, a boat is best for Titan, Saturn's largest moon.
From ACM Careers
Online Education Grows Up, and For Now, It's Free
Online education isn't particularly new. It has been around in some form since the 1990s, but what is new is the speed and scale in which online learning is growing.
From ACM News
More Mobile News Consumers Choosing Web Over Apps
Mobile apps were supposed to be the reset button for the news industry.
From ACM TechNews
Dear Everyone Teaching Programming: You're Doing It Wrong
Do-it-yourself programming sites are mostly useless because of their opaque interfaces and because programming itself is broken, according to Bret Victor, a former interface designer for Apple.
From ACM TechNews
W3c Outlines Plan to Finalize Html5
The W3C announced that it will finalize HTML5 by 2014 and HTML 5.1 by 2016.
From ACM News
Commander: Iranian Cyber Forces Easily Access Enemies' Highly Classified Info
Commander of the Islamic Revolution Guard Corps Navy Rear Admiral Ali Fadavi stressed the high capability of the country's cyberwar experts, and said the Iranian cyber forces have easily infiltrated enemies' data systems and…
From ACM TechNews
Students Explore Virtual Reality in HIVE
Students at Miami University are using the Huge Immersive Virtual Environment to explore a wide range of topics, from virtual environments to cognitive research.
From ACM TechNews
Project Aims to Crowdsource What Makes a Happy City
Cambridge University researchers will use crowdsourcing to rank the most peaceful and happy places in London.
From ACM News
Google Leapfrogs Microsoft in Market Value
For Microsoft, it was bad enough when Apple's stock market value surpassed its own in 2010. Now Google, a company that didn't even exist 15 years ago, just did the same thing.
From ACM News
U.s. Law Enforcement Is Tracking Who Calls, Texts, and Emails Whom More Often Than Ever Before
Law enforcement isn't just interested in what Americans are saying on the phone or on the Internet.
From ACM News
Apple Designs the Future
It’s impossible to look anywhere these days without noticing how profoundly Apple has influenced design and computing interfaces.