Communications of the ACM
The news archive provides access to past news stories from Communications of the ACM and other sources by date.
October 2016
From ACM Careers
Even with Rising Wages, Robot Revolution Skips Restaurants
Clamshell grills are making burger flipping obsolete at McDonald’s, Johnny Rockets and other burger chains. Digital kiosks, tabletop tablets and mobile phones are taking orders at eateries like Panera,
From ACM News
Google Builds a Robotic Hive-Mind Kindergarten
How many robots does it take to open a door?
From ACM TechNews
Eu Project Successfully Deploys Robots Following Italy Earthquake
Following a huge earthquake in Italy on Aug. 24, the European Union's TRADR project deployed unmanned ground vehicles and unmanned aerial vehicles to the region.
From ACM TechNews
Infosys Foundation sa, Acm, and Csta Announce Awards For Teaching Excellence in CS
ACM, the Computer Science Teachers Association, and Infosys Foundation announced the rollout of the Awards for Teaching Excellence in Computer Science.
From ACM TechNews
Making Construction Sites Safer
Researchers from Ruhr University Bochum in Germany want to make construction sites safer with interactive virtual reality training courses.
From ACM TechNews
Physicists Create World's First Time Crystal
University of Maryland researchers say they have created the world's first time crystal, which could lead to quantum memory systems.
From ACM TechNews
3D-Printed Robots With Shock-Absorbing Skins
Researchers have developed a new technique for three-dimensionally printing soft materials.
From ACM TechNews
Google Translate Gets a Deep-Learning pgrade
Google has launched a Google Translate upgrade utilizing enhanced deep-learning techniques to produce more accurate translations.
From ACM News
Can We Open the Black Box of Ai?
Dean Pomerleau can still remember his first tussle with the black-box problem.
From ACM News
Surprise Comes Out of Black-Hole Studies: Error-Correcting Codes
Attempts to reconcile quantum information and gravity have yielded new types of error-correcting codes for proposed quantum computers.
From ACM News
At the Bleeding Edge of AI: Quantum Grocery Picking and Transfer Learning
Don't laugh, but there may come a time when quantum computers are sorting out your grocery deliveries, and if Paul Clarke, CTO of the online food store Ocado is right, it could be sooner than you think.
From ACM TechNews
Professor's Research Lights p Scientific, Media Interest
University of Wyoming computer science professor Jeff Clune is the director of the Evolving Artificial Intelligence Lab, which conducts research on deep learning and harnesses discoveries about evolutionary biology to develop…
From ACM TechNews
a Receives $1.9m Nsf Award to Test Computer-Assisted Surgical Training
University of Arizona researchers are using a $1.9-million grant from the U.S. National Science Foundation to develop a computerized surgical training tool that provides haptic and augmented reality guidance for laparoscopic…
From ACM TechNews
SC Demos How Wearable Technology Can Improve Cancer Treatment
USC researchers participating in the Cancer Moonshot exhibit led by U.S. Vice President Joe Biden, demonstrating a project that aims to provide doctors with real-time patient data from wearable technology.
From ACM News
The Computer Voting Revolution Is Already Crappy, Buggy, and Obsolete
Six days after Memphis voters went to the polls last October to elect a mayor and other city officials, a local computer programmer named Bennie Smith sat on his couch after work to catch up on e-mail.
From ACM News
Why Apple Can Be Forced to Turn Logs of Your Imessage Contacts Over to Police
When a user sends someone a message through Apple's iMessage feature, Apple encrypts that message between Apple devices so that only the sender and recipient can read its contents.
From ACM News
How to Steal an AI
In the burgeoning field of computer science known as machine learning, engineers often refer to the artificial intelligences they create as "black box" systems: Once a machine learning engine has been trained from a collection…
From ACM News
The Human Remembering Machine
They called it the Hubble Telescope of the mind.
From ACM Opinion
The Problem With Google's 'star Trek' Computer
Google is hoping to develop its Assistant, a Siri-like technology to be included on the company's new smartphones and other products, into something like the computer on "Star Trek."
From ACM News
Nasa's Curiosity Rover Begins Next Mars Chapter
After collecting drilled rock powder in arguably the most scenic landscape yet visited by a Mars rover, NASA's Curiosity mobile laboratory is driving toward uphill destinations as part of its two-year mission extension that commenced…
From ACM TechNews
How to Steal the Mind of an AI
Machine-learning models can be reverse engineered, and basic safeguards are little help in ameliorating attacks, according to a paper presented at the 25th Annual Usenix Security Symposium.
From ACM TechNews
Drone Learns 'to See' in Zero-Gravity
A small drone has learned how to determine distances using only one camera during an experiment aboard the International Space Station.
From ACM TechNews
A Combination of Machine Learning and Game Theory Helps Fight Elephant Poaching in ganda
Technology that integrates machine learning and game theory, called Protection Assistant for Wildlife Security (PAWS), is being tested in Uganda as a way to fight elephant poachers. PAWS helps researchers advise rangers on what…
From ACM TechNews
Contract Expiration to End .s. Authority Over Internet Ip Addresses
Saturday, Oct. 1, 2016, officially marked the end of the U.S. government's control over the Internet's most basic functions with the expiration of its contract with the nonprofit Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers…
From ACM TechNews
White House to Bolster STEM Education, Close Skills Gap
The Obama administration has launched a new advanced placement computer science course as part of an interdisciplinary approach to improve STEM education for underrepresented students and address a shortage of skilled workers…
From ACM TechNews
Researchers Make Progress Toward Computer Video Recognition
Google researchers are working to advance video-recognition technology, which Rajat Monga on Google's Brain team says is due to progress in deep-learning models.
From Communications of the ACM
Optical Fibers Getting Full
Exploring ways to push more data through a fiber one-tenth the thickness of the average human hair.
From Communications of the ACM
Battling Algorithmic Bias
How do we ensure algorithms treat us fairly?
From Communications of the ACM
Bringing Holography to Light
While 3D technologies that make headlines are not truly holographic, holographic techniques are furthering advances in important applications such as biomedical imaging.