Communications of the ACM
The news archive provides access to past news stories from Communications of the ACM and other sources by date.
October 2017
From ACM TechNews
'low Cost Android' to Study the Brain
Researchers working on the European Union-funded MoCoTi project say they have designed the prototype of an android that learns how to actuate its own limbs.
From ACM TechNews
For $1,000, Anyone Can Purchase Online Ads to Track Your Location and App se
Researchers suggest it could cost only about $1,000 for someone to buy and target online ads in order to monitor the location of others, as well as their application use.
From ACM TechNews
Alphago Zero Shows Machines Can Become Superhuman Without Any Help
DeepMind's upgrade to the AlphaGo algorithm, AlphaGo Zero, beat its predecessor in a 100-game Go match, acquiring skills by playing millions of games against itself.
From ACM TechNews
sing Artificial Intelligence to Improve Early Breast Cancer Detection
Researchers are working to apply artificial intelligence to improving the detection and diagnosis of breast cancer.
From ACM TechNews
What Cmu's Snake Robot Team Learned While Searching For Mexican Earthquake Survivors
Researchers used their snake robots in search-and-rescue missions in Mexico City shortly after a major earthquake struck the region in September.
From ACM News
The Shape of Work to Come
Last year, entrepreneur Sebastian Thrun set out to augment his sales force with artificial intelligence.
From ACM TechNews
AI Algorithms Are Starting to Teach AI Algorithms
Artificial intelligence researchers and companies are applying machine learning to automate the more complicated aspects of AI algorithm development.
From ACM TechNews
.s. Mass Killings Occurring at 'uniform' Rate
Mass murders in the U.S. occur at a stable, once-every-two-weeks rate, according to a recent University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign study.
From ACM TechNews
New Method to Detect Spin Current in Quantum Materials nlocks Potential For Alternative Electronics
Researchers have developed a new method that precisely measures the mysterious behavior and magnetic properties of electrons flowing across the surface of quantum materials.
From ACM TechNews
Wpi Computer Scientists se Mixed Reality to Visualize Complex Biological Networks
Researchers are developing new mixed-reality methods for visualizing complex biological networks so they can find the most salient information and linkages.
From ACM News
Paving the Way For Women, Minorities Into STEM
Harvey Mudd College president Maria Klawe on her career-long advocacy for greater diversity in technology education.
From ACM News
Mapping the Great Barrier Reef with Cameras, Drones and Nasa Tech
Richard Vevers, a British underwater photographer, was horrified when he returned in 2015 to a colourful reef in American Samoa he had shot a year earlier. It had turned pure white.
From ACM News
It Takes Just $1,000 to Track Someone's Location with Mobile Ads
When you consider the nagging privacy risks of online advertising, you may find comfort in the thought of a vast, abstract company like Pepsi or Nike viewing you as just one data point among millions.
From ACM News
Fresh Findings From Cassini
NASA's Cassini spacecraft ended its journey on Sept. 15 with an intentional plunge into the atmosphere of Saturn, but analysis continues on the mountain of data the spacecraft sent during its long life.
From ACM TechNews
There's a Huge Opportunity in Robotics For Early-Career Computer Scientists and Serious Software Engineers
University of Washington professor Maya Cakmak discusses the role of programming by demonstration in her work on human-machine interaction.
From ACM TechNews
Liquid Metal Brings Soft Robotics a Step Closer
Researchers in the U.K. say they have applied electrical charges to manipulate liquid metal into two-dimensional shapes such as letters and a heart.
From ACM TechNews
Serious Flaw in Wpa2 Protocol Lets Attackers Intercept Passwords and Much More
Researchers have discovered a severe flaw in the WPA2 protocol that enables hackers within range of a vulnerable device or access point to intercept passwords and other sensitive data.
From ACM TechNews
Researchers Create Digital Objects From Incomplete 3D Data
Researchers in Germany say they have developed a computational method for reconstructing a digital object from incomplete images.
From ACM TechNews
Study Finds Auto-Fix Tool Gets More Programmers to pgrade Code
Researchers at North Carolina State University have found that auto-fix tools are effective ways to get programmers to make relevant upgrades.
From ACM TechNews
Now There's an Iq Test For Siri and Friends
Researchers used an intelligence test they developed to rank intelligent assistants such as Google Assistant and Siri on the same scale used for humans.
From ACM Careers
China's Xi Calls For More Technology Development
President Xi Jinping called Wednesday for the ruling Communist Party to lead development of Chinese technology industries, an area fraught with trade tensions and complaints that Beijing encourages theft of foreign know-how.
…From ACM Careers
Welcoming Our New Robot Overlords
When David Stinson finished high school, in Grand Rapids, Michigan, in 1977, the first thing he did was get a job building houses.
From ACM News
Justices to Decide on Forcing Technology Firms to Provide Data Held Abroad
The Supreme Court on Monday agreed to decide whether federal prosecutors can force technology companies to turn over data stored outside the United States.
From ACM TechNews
Esnet's Science Dmz Design Could Help Transfer, Protect Medical Research Data
Researchers say the Energy Sciences Network's Science DMZ architecture for rapidly and securely transferring large datasets could be adapted to fulfill the needs of the medical research community.
From ACM TechNews
Scientists Can Read a Bird's Brain and Predict Its Next Song
Researchers have built a brain-to-tweet interface that predicts the song a finch is going to sing a fraction of a second before it does so.
From ACM TechNews
Scientists se Machine Learning to Translate 'hidden' Information That Reveals Chemistry in Action
Researchers say they have taught computers to decipher previously inaccessible information from x-ray data and apply it to decoding three-dimensional nanoscale structures.
From ACM News
The State of Wireless Charging
Apple's recent wireless charging announcements highlight how far the tech has come—and how far it needs to go.
From ACM News
Nasa Missions Catch First Light from a Gravitational-Wave Event
For the first time, NASA scientists have detected light tied to a gravitational-wave event, thanks to two merging neutron stars in the galaxy NGC 4993, located about 130 million light-years from Earth in the constellation Hydra…
From ACM News
Astronomers Are Finally Mapping the 'dark Side' of the Milky Way
Think of the Milky Way—or search for pictures of it online—and you'll see images of a standard spiral galaxy viewed face-on, a sprawling pinwheel of starlight and dust containing hundreds of billions of stars. These images, however…
From ACM TechNews
Driverless Cars Could Let You Choose Who Survives in a Crash
Researchers have developed a dial that will switch a smart car's setting from "full altruist" to "full egoist," with the middle setting being impartial.