Communications of the ACM
The news archive provides access to past news stories from Communications of the ACM and other sources by date.
November 2009
From ACM TechNews
Intel Investing Millions For Supercomputer Research in Europe
Intel is collaborating with three French research institutes to invest in an exascale research center in Europe. The new Exascale Computing Research Center would be able to perform calculations about 1,000 times faster — about…
From ACM CareerNews
ACM India to Launch in January
The first major event for the ACM community in India is set for January 21, 2010 in Bangalore. The ACM India Launch Event will be a full day event featuring speakers that include current and past ACM Turing Award winners, ACM…
From ACM News
Google Offers Peek at Operating System, a Potential Challenge to Windows
MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif. — Google began lifting the veil on its planned Chrome operating system on Thursday, but it said that computers powered by the software would not be available for a year.
The new operating system, which…From ACM TechNews
Self-Policing Cloud Computing
Researchers at IBM Thomas J. Watson Research Center and IBM Research-Zurich have developed a cloud computing security system that makes elements of the cloud act as a kind of virtual bouncer. The new system is based on the theory…
From ACM TechNews
Southampton's World-Class Supercomputer Opens Windows
The University of Southampton's new supercomputer was ranked 74th on the Top500 supercomputer list and is the fastest university-owned supercomputer in England. It also is the fastest Microsoft Windows-powered computer in Europe…
From ACM TechNews
Building the Smart Home Wirelessly
Researchers at Taiwan's National Cheng Kung University (NCKU) say that radio tags, combined with mobile communication devices, could provide seamless smart home multimedia services.
From ACM TechNews
Invisibility Visualized: New Software For Rendering Cloaked Objects
Researchers at Germany's Karlsruhe Institute of Technology have developed a new visualization tool that will enable users to see what a cloaked object looks like in real life. Designed to handle complex media, the software is…
From ACM TechNews
Are Nations Paying Criminals for Botnet Attacks?
Countries that want to disrupt other nations' government, banking, and media resources can simply hire cybercriminals to launch botnet attacks, according to new report by McAfee that interviews 20 cybersecurity experts. William…
From ACM TechNews
Tai Xue-Cheng Wins Feng Kang Prize in Scientific Computing
Tai Xue-Cheng, a specialist in numerical analysis and computational mathematics at Nanyang Technological University (NTU), has been named the winner of the 8th Feng Kang Prize in Scientific Computing.
From ACM TechNews
Prace Is Ready For Implementation: Applications Ported
The Partnership for Advanced Computing in Europe (PRACE) has been researching promising petascaling techniques, as well as related work on optimization techniques and the study of software libraries and programming models suitable…
From ACM News
Tech Innovation Program Seeks Comments on Potential Future Funding Areas
The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) is asking for public comment on four white papers that outline potential areas for research funding grants under the Institute's Technology Innovation Program (TIP).
From ACM News
Global Study Reveals Role of It in Strategic Efforts to Combat Recession
A study released Friday (Nov. 20) by RONIN has found that companies across the globe taking a strategic approach to emerging from the recession are investing more in Information Technology, have more advanced technology in place…
From ICT Results
Trust Linux!
A team of researchers has implemented support for 'trusted computing' in a commercially available version of the open source operating system Linux, breaking new ground in the global drive toward more secure computing environments…
From ACM News
Technology Sector Transforms Into a Giant R&d Machine
When the world thinks of the Indian technology sector, it imagines a nation of call center workers and low level computer programmers administering databases and updating Web sites. Few observers, even in India, realize that…
From ACM News
Mobile Botnets Show Their Destructive Potential
Denial-of-services (DoS) attacks are a common tactic used by "black hats" intent on bringing down a high-profile Web site. Now Patrick Traynor of the Georgia Institute of Technology in Atlanta and colleagues have shown how a…
From ACM News
China Joins Supercomputer Elite
China has become one of a handful of nations to own one of the top five supercomputers in the world. Its Tianhe-1 computer, housed at the National Super Computer Center in Tianjin was ranked fifth on the biannual Top 500 supercomputer…
From ACM News
Supercomputers Are Still Fast, but Less Super
A decade-long trend reached its inevitable conclusion this week when a supercomputer based on chips from Advanced Micro Devices became the fastest machine on the planet. The supercomputing world was long dominated by systemsTop500…
From ACM TechNews
Securing Military Wireless Networks
The U.S. Army Research Laboratory has awarded a 10-year, $35.5 million grant to establish a new research center to develop secure, mobile wireless networks for the military. The Communication Networks Research Center is one…
From ACM News
Bcs Honors Ground-Breaking Scientists
Professor Yorick Wilks, a pioneering AI scientist who is helping develop virtual agents to keep older people company, and Dr Byron Cook, an academic who has broken new ground on program termination, have been named as winners…
From ACM News
Certification and Accreditation Process For Federal Systems Transformed
A revised draft publication on computer security guidance issued by the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) is focused on transforming the episodic information system certification and accreditation processes…
From ACM TechNews
Bendable Magnetic Interface
Microsoft Research Cambridge scientists are developing an experimental tactile interface that enables users to interact with devices by squishing, stretching, rolling, or rubbing the interface system. The new device is based…
From ACM TechNews
What's Next for Wi-Fi?
The Wi-Fi experience will undergo a dramatic transformation triggered by the recent approval of the IEEE 802.11n wireless standard. The standard facilitates a spectrum of high data rates that can be plugged into various devices…
From ACM News
Ornl, Partners Helping Scientists Deal with Data Deluge
Vast amounts of information that could hold the key to breakthroughs in environmental research will be made readily available through DataOne, a global data access and preservation network created by Oak Ridge National Laboratory…
From ACM News
Nist Demonstrates 'universal' Programmable Quantum Processor
Physicists at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) have demonstrated the first "universal" programmable quantum information processor able to run any program allowed by quantum mechanics using two quantum…
From ACM News
Researchers Develop Anti-Counterfeiting Technology For Rfid Tags
Engineering researchers at the University of Arkansas have developed a unique and robust method to prevent cloning of passive radio frequency identification (RFID) tags. The technology, based on one or more unique physical attributes…
From ACM TechNews
3D Web Will Save Hpc Industry, Intel Cto Says
Intel chief technology officer Justin Rattner believes that three-dimensional (3D) Web technologies will revive the high-performance computing (HPC) industry. Rattner said HPC demand is currently limited to small markets. However…
From ACM TechNews
Facebook Offers Poor Personal Data Protection
A study of Norwegian Internet users and social media found that people are willing to post their personal information on social media sites even when they are not aware how it will be used. The researchers found that Facebook…
From ACM TechNews
Evaluators Sought For Degree Programs in Computing
CSAB Inc. — the lead society within ABET Inc. for the accreditation of college-level programs in computer science, information systems, IT, and software engineering — is seeking evaluators for degree programs in computing.
From ACM TechNews
Hackers Create Tools For Disaster Relief
The first-ever Random Hacks of Kindness recently took place in Mountain View, Calif., bringing software developers together to focus on how technology could be used to help people get information and find each other during emergencies…
From ACM TechNews
IBM Advances on a Computer that Works Like a Human Brain
Researchers from IBM's Almaden Research Center and the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory have performed a computer simulation that matches the scale and complexity of a cat's brain, while researchers from IBM and Stanford…