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
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.
From ACM TechNews
Addressing National Priorities and Societal Needs Symposium
The Computing Community Consortium on October 23-24 will host the "Computing Research: Addressing National Priorities and Societal Needs Symposium."
From ACM TechNews
Internet Researchers Harnessed the Power of Algorithm to Find Hate Speech
Researchers have trained an algorithm to identify hate speech by comparing what differentiates text that includes hate speech from text that does not contain hate speech.
From ACM TechNews
Johns Hopkins Scientists to Build Machine Translation System For Obscure Languages
A team of scientists has received a grant from the U.S. Office of the Director of National Intelligence to create an information retrieval and translation system for obscure languages.
From ACM TechNews
Put Humans at the Center of AI
Stanford University Artificial Intelligence Lab director Fei-Fei Li advocates for more human-centered AI and the benefits it can yield.
From ACM News
The World Once Laughed at North Korean Cyberpower. No More.
When North Korean hackers tried to steal $1 billion from the New York Federal Reserve last year, only a spelling error stopped them.
From ACM News
Twitter Is Crawling With Bots and Lacks Incentive to Expel Them
On Wednesday, the exterior of Twitter's San Francisco headquarters bore an eerie message: "Ban Russian Bots." Someone—the company doesn't know who—projected the demand onto the side of its building.
From ACM News
How Do You Build the Next-Generation Internet?
Imagine super-fast computers that can solve problems much quicker than machines today.
From ACM News
Stretchable Electronics to Top $1 Billion By 2030
A growing variety of stretchable polymers will help integrate electronics into medical implants, consumer products, and more.
From ACM TechNews
The Female Code Breakers Who Helped Defeat the Nazis
More than 10,000 female "cryptoanalysts" were enlisted by the U.S. Army and Navy to help crack Nazi codes and ensure the Allies' victory in World War II.
From ACM TechNews
Driverless Cars Learn From Humans in Greenwich Project
Tests are underway in the London borough of Greenwich in the U.K. that could expedite the development of safer driverless vehicles under the government-funded Move_UK project.
From ACM TechNews
Facebook Thinks the Most seful Digital Assistant Is the One That Can Read Minds
The head of Facebook's moonshot division says the company wants to use brain-computer interface technology to enable people to type with their minds.
From ACM TechNews
Could Virtual Reality Replace Therapy?
Psychologists are testing virtual reality systems as a therapeutic tool for phobias and disorders.
From ACM TechNews
Mathematical Modeling For Better Designs and Simulations
Dublin City University professor Patricia Moore in Ireland says she tries "to make it easier for computers to solve simulation problems as efficiently and accurately as possible."
From ACM News
Inside the Moonshot Effort to Finally Figure Out the Brain
"Here's the problem with artificial intelligence today," says David Cox.
From ACM News
Two Computer Scientists Among 2017 Macarthur 'genius' Grant Winners
Two computer scientists are recognized for pushing the boundaries of machine learning and cybersecurity.
From ACM News
Reconstructing Cassini's Plunge Into Saturn
As NASA's Cassini spacecraft made its fateful dive into the upper atmosphere of Saturn on Sept. 15, the spacecraft was live-streaming data from eight of its science instruments, along with readings from a variety of engineering…
From ACM News
How the Search For a 'death Ray' Led to Radar
You can trace the extent of our reliance on air travel to many inventions. The jet engine, perhaps, or the aeroplane itself. But sometimes inventions need other inventions to unlock their full potential.
From ACM TechNews
This Soft Robotic Gripper Can Screw in Your Light Bulbs For You
Researchers at UC San Diego have developed a robotic gripper that can pick up and manipulate objects without needing to see them in advance.
From ACM TechNews
Scientists Enlist Supercomputers, Machine Learning to Automatically Identify Brain Tumors
A team of researchers is developing a fully automatic method that combines biophysical models of tumor growth with machine-learning algorithms to analyze magnetic resonance imaging data of glioma patients.
From ACM TechNews
Computer Visualizations Bring New Perspective to Science
Researchers at Brown University say they have used data gathered from 3-D microscopy instruments to create an immersive visualization where scientists can view inside a single drop of water to examine plankton and how they function…
From ACM TechNews
Michigan to Study Flexible STEM Classrooms
Researchers at the University of Michigan are using a U.S. National Science Foundation grant to examine the difference between teaching and learning in traditional lecture halls and more flexible classrooms.
From ACM Opinion
The Scientist Who Spots Fake Videos
Hany Farid, a computer scientist at Dartmouth College in Hanover, New Hampshire, specialises in detecting manipulated images and videos. Farid, who provides his services to clients as varied as universities, media organizations…
From ACM News
O.k., Computer, Tell Me What This Smells Like
Our sense of smell is gloriously specific.
From ACM News
Half the niverse's Missing Matter Has Just Been Finally Found
The missing links between galaxies have finally been found. This is the first detection of the roughly half of the normal matter in our universe—protons, neutrons and electrons—unaccounted for by previous observations of stars…
From ACM TechNews
7 Ways to Get More Girls and Women Into STEM (and Encourage Them to Stay)
A recent forum of industry and academic experts offered proposals for encouraging girls and women to pursue science, technology, engineering, and math careers.
From ACM TechNews
Careers For Women in Technology Companies Are a Global Challenge
Gender bias in technology is a problem for women on both sides of the Atlantic, although the challenges and opportunities they face can differ due to political and cultural divergences.
From ACM TechNews
The Race to Secure Voting Tech Gets an rgent Jumpstart
There is an urgent need to secure U.S. voting systems ahead of the 2018 midterm elections, according to a report by the Atlantic Council think tank and hacking conference DefCon.
From ACM TechNews
Ada Lovelace Day Honors 'the First Computer Programmer'
Pioneering 19th-century English mathematician Ada Lovelace is honored on the second Tuesday of every October for her contributions to computer programming.
From ACM TechNews
Organization to Teach Coding to Girls in Detroit Area
The Oakland, CA-based Black Girls CODE organization, which introduces young African-American, Latino, and Native American females to computer science, is opening a chapter in Detroit.