Communications of the ACM
The news archive provides access to past news stories from Communications of the ACM and other sources by date.
October 2014
From ACM News
Materials Trick Might Help Move Computers Beyond Silicon
After decades of repeated reinvention, the silicon transistor is starting to show its age, and the industry is hunting for alternatives.
From ACM TechNews
Indiana niversity Investing $7 Million For New Complexity Institute
Indiana University recently announced the establishment of the Indiana University Network Science Institute, a $7-million initiative to examine complex networks.
From ACM TechNews
Wellesley College Researchers Seek the Truth via Twitter Trails
Researchers at Wellesley College in Massachusetts have developed a tool that examines how true and false stories propagate on Twitter.
From ACM TechNews
Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation Awards Data Science Grant to Carnegie Mellon Researcher
The Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation has named Carnegie Mellon University professor Carl Kingsford a Moore Investigator in Data-Driven Discovery.
From ACM News
From Brain To Computer: Helping 'locked-In' Patient Get His Thoughts Out
In 2009, a man named Barry Beck suffered a series of strokes, which caused extensive damage to his right occipital lobe and to the brain stem.
From ACM Opinion
Vimeo Tech Chief Takes on 'terrifying' Online Video Challenges
Think online video is old hat? Think again.
From ACM News
Future Scenarios Show How Easily Ebola Could Explode
Just how bad will the Ebola outbreak in West Africa get?
From ACM News
The Scent of a Comet: Rotten Eggs and Pee
Eau de Comet isn't, we now know, the most seductive scent floating around in our galaxy. The Rosetta probe's Rosetta Orbiter Sensor for Ion and Neutral Analysis (ROSINA) has been using its two mass spectrometers to detect the…
From ACM TechNews
Data Mining Reveals How News Coverage Varies Around the World
Researchers have analyzed news agendas in different parts of the world to see how the coverage reflects actual international events.
From ACM TechNews
sing Cash and Pressure, China Builds Its Chip Industry
China wants to transform its chip industry into a world leader by 2030 and become less reliant on foreign-sourced technology.
From ACM TechNews
Google Teams p With Oxford Academics to Bring Human-Like Robots Closer to Reality
Google is collaborating with Oxford University researchers to help machines better understand users, and to improve visual-recognition systems using deep learning.
From ACM News
Rosetta's Comet Scrambling Its Jets
This image of comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko, taken by Rosetta's Optical, Spectroscopic, and Infrared Remote Imaging System (OSIRIS) on Sept. 20, from a distance of 4.5 miles (7.2 kilometers), shows jets of dust and gas streaming…
From ACM TechNews
Is the City of the Future Finally Here?
A presentation during the Argonne OutLoud series considered how computer technologies can help mitigate challenges associated with increased urbanization.
From ACM TechNews
Ghosts in the Machine Language
Four of this year's most dangerous software exploits were examples of vulnerabilities that lay undiscovered in widely utilized code for years.
From ACM TechNews
Precise and Programmable Biological Circuits
ETH Zurich researchers say several new components for biological circuits are important for constructing precisely functioning and programmable bio-computers.
From ACM TechNews
Quantum Internet Could Cross Seas By Container Ship
Container ships could be used to create a kind of international quantum Internet.
From ACM Careers
The Slide Rule: A Computing Device That Put a Man on the Moon
From Communications of the ACM
Researchers Simplify Parallel Programming
Parallel computing has become increasingly important as chipmakers put more and more processor cores on individual chips.
From ACM News
A Quantum World Arising from Many Ordinary Ones
The bizarre behaviour of the quantum world—with objects existing in two places simultaneously and light behaving as either waves or particles—could result from interactions between many "parallel" everyday worlds, a new theory…
From ACM Careers
sing Drones to Make Peace, Not War
Amin Rigi says drones should be used to save lives, not spy or kill.
From ACM News
Scientists Consider Repurposing Robots For Ebola
Robotics scientists nationwide are pondering an intriguing possibility: Might robotic technologies deployed in rescue and disaster situations be quickly repurposed to help contain the Ebola epidemic?
From ACM News
Electronics in the Operating Room
Electronic devices increasingly are being incorporated into surgical procedures on a functional level.
From ACM TechNews
Researchers Take Big-Data Approach to Estimate Range of Electric Vehicles
North Carolina State University researchers say they have developed a more accurate way to determine how far electric vehicles can go before needing a recharge.
From ACM TechNews
Irish Researchers Develop New Tool to Protect Earth From Space Debris
In collaboration with the European Space Agency, researchers at Trinity College in Dublin have designed a risk assessment tool for the re-entry of spacecraft debris.
From ACM TechNews
Painting By the Numbers: Data Visualization
There is rising interest in digital visualization, which serves as a communication tool in areas ranging from hip hop to scientific collaboration.
From ACM TechNews
How Technology Is Helping Fight Ebola
A wide variety of technologies, from apps and software to big data and robots, are being employed to help fight the Ebola outbreak in West Africa.
From ACM TechNews
Virtual Reality Could Let Astronauts 'go to the Beach'
The Virtual Space Station is a virtual reality system that could provide an escape for astronauts on long space missions.
From ACM News
How Movie-Makers Read Your Mind
Why is there such interest in finding new ways to gauge audience reactions?
From ACM News
Phone Hackers Dial and Redial to Steal Billions
Bob Foreman's architecture firm ran up a $166,000 phone bill in a single weekend last March.
From ACM News
Oldest-Known Human Genome Sequenced
A 45,000-year-old leg bone from Siberia has yielded the oldest genome sequence for Homo sapiens on record—revealing a mysterious population that may once have spanned northern Asia.