Communications of the ACM
The news archive provides access to past news stories from Communications of the ACM and other sources by date.
October 2015
From ACM News
Spider Silk Sensors Could Search For Life on Mars
Ziggy Stardust would love this: Spiders could help find life on Mars.
From ACM News
Everything You Need to Know About the Vast ndersea Network that Makes the Internet Work
Russians submarines and spy ships are "ggressively operating" near the undersea cables that are the backbone of the global Internet—worrying some U.S. intelligence and military officials who fear the Russians may sabotage them…
From ACM TechNews
Photons Open the Gateway For Quantum Networks
Researchers have created a photon contact, a key development in the effort to develop quantum computer networks.
From ACM TechNews
Why Self-Driving Cars Must Be Programmed to Kill
The fact that automated cars can never be perfectly safe raises ethical issues, such as how they should be programmed to act in the event of an unavoidable collision.
From ACM TechNews
Dive of the Robobee
The RoboBee is smaller than a paperclip, and can flap its tiny wings 120 times per second.
From ACM News
Seven Key Facts About Cassini's Oct. 28 'plume Dive'
NASA's Cassini spacecraft will sample the ocean of Saturn's moon Enceladus on Wednesday, Oct. 28, when it flies through the moon's plume of icy spray.
From ACM News
It's Not Just Vw: A Robust Market For Reprogramming Vehicles
Lawmakers want to know more about Volkswagen's massive cheat—how the automaker used software to crank up the power on a vehicle, and then hide the fact.
From ACM News
Google Turning Its Lucrative Web Search Over to AI Machines
When Google-parent Alphabet Inc. reported eye-popping earnings last week its executives couldn’t stop talking up the company's investments in machine learning and artificial intelligence.
From ACM TechNews
ab Research Studies Cyberattacks Through the Lens of Eeg and Eye Tracking
Researchers from the University of Alabama at Birmingham recently presented a study about users' susceptibility to, and ability to detect, certain cyberattacks.
From ACM TechNews
How Emojis Find Their Way to Phones
The Unicode Consortium, founded in the late 1980s to create a standardized code for text characters, is attracting interest as the arbiter of new emojis.
From ACM TechNews
Researchers at Johns Hopkins Study Crickets' Aerial Acrobatics in Hopes of Building Better Robots
Johns Hopkins University researchers say they have spent more than eight months studying spider crickets in order to develop a new generation of jumping robots.
From ACM TechNews
New w Model Helps Zero in on Harmful Genetic Mutations
University of Washington (UW) researchers have developed a model they say can predict which genetic mutations significantly change how genes splice.
From ACM TechNews
Image Too Good to Be True? DARPA Program Targets Image Doctoring
The U.S. Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency wants to develop an easy-to-use toolset to detect altered images.
From ACM TechNews
What It Will Take to Make Computer Science Education Available in All Schools
Marie desJardins of the University of Maryland, Baltimore County, sees a great need to expand computer science education in the K-12 grades.
From ACM TechNews
How Your Device Knows Your Life Through Images
Researchers have designed an artificial neural network to identify scenes in photographs taken by people using wearable cameras or mobile phones.
From ACM News
Drivers Push Tesla's Autopilot Beyond Its Abilities
Enthusiastic Tesla owners cheered last Wednesday when the company enabled the use of an automated driving system, called Autopilot, in its Model S all-electric sedans.
From ACM Opinion
We Don't Need Humans on Mars
The two mobile robots Spirit and Opportunity were launched from Earth in 2003 and arrived on opposite sides of Mars in 2004. A suite of cameras, instruments, and tools allows them to traverse the landscape for several kilometers…
From ACM News
ltrathin Microlenses Could Boost Space Science and Tech
Researchers have created the first ultrathin, flat lens able to focus light just as well as its curved counterparts, potentially enabling big breakthroughs in camera and microscope technology.
From ACM TechNews
Settling the Controversy Over Photo of Lee Harvey Oswald
Dartmouth College researchers have used three-dimensional modeling to confirm the authenticity of a photo of Lee Harvey Oswald holding a rifle.
From ACM TechNews
Researchers Aim to Make Privacy Second Nature For Software Developers
A New York University researcher and colleagues are working to make user privacy an integral part of the software development process.
From ACM TechNews
Quality Boost For ser-Generated Sound
New algorithms could help people better understand sound quality on phones, video recorders, and dictaphones.
From ACM TechNews
Introducing Marty, Stanford's Self-Driving, Electric, Drifting Delorean
A team of Stanford University engineers have built an autonomous, drifting DeLorean powered by electricity to research the physical limits of self-driving systems.
From ACM TechNews
Sorry, Einstein. Quantum Study Suggests 'spooky Action' Is Real.
Delft University of Technology scientists report validating quantum theory's fundamental claim of the phenomenon of spooky action.
From ACM News
Nasa-Noaa's Suomi Npp Satellite Sees Record-Breaking Hurricane Patricia
On October 23, a Hurricane Warning was in effect from San Blas to Punta San Telmo.
From ACM News
Nsa Advisory Sparks Concern of Secret Advance shering in Cryptoapocalypse
In August, National Security Agency officials advised US agencies and businesses to prepare for a not-too-distant time when the cryptography protecting virtually all sensitive government and business communications is rendered…
From ACM News
Sorry, Einstein. Quantum Study Suggests 'spooky Action' Is Real.
In a landmark study, scientists at the Delft University of Technology in the Netherlands reported they have conducted an experiment they say proves one of the most fundamental claims of quantum theory—that objects separated by…
From ACM News
Paralyzed Man's Arm Wired to Receive Brain Signals
Scientists at Case Western Reserve University in Ohio say they’ve used electronics to get around a paralyzed man's spinal injury, permitting him to use an implant in his brain to move his arm and hand.
From ACM News
The Bionic Warrior
It was August 15, 2012, when Jeremy Maddamma left Afghanistan on a stretcher.
From ACM TechNews
Nih-Built Toolset Helps Researchers Share and Compare Data
What started as an effort to build a database on traumatic brain injury at the U.S. National Institutes of Health has grown into something more significant.
From ACM TechNews
Microsoft Predicts Practical Quantum Computers Within 10 Years
Microsoft researchers say a working quantum computer, capable of outperforming traditional computers by orders of magnitude, could be available within 10 years.