Communications of the ACM
The news archive provides access to past news stories from Communications of the ACM and other sources by date.
November 2011
From ACM News
Did an Illinois Water tility Come nder Cyberattack?
And why was it connected to the Internet, anyway?
From ACM TechNews
Iu Showcases Innovative Approach to Networking at Sc1 Scinet Research Sandbox
The challenge of moving massive amounts of data to supercomputing facilities for analysis was addressed by Indiana University researchers through data transfer over an experimental 100 Gbps network that exploits a link whose…
From ACM TechNews
A Computer System Allows a Machine to Recognize a Person's Emotional State
Researchers at Universidad Carlos III de Madrid and Universidad de Granada have developed a computer system that automatically recognizes the emotional state of a person that is speaking to it.
From ACM TechNews
Helping Computers Make Faster Decisions
Improvements in the standard algorithm that computers use to solve integer programs enables them to make yes/no decisions faster.
From ACM TechNews
EFF Proposes New Method to Strengthen Public Key Infrastructure
The Electronic Frontier Foundation has proposed an extension to the current Secure Sockets Layer chain of trust that aims to improve the security of HTTPS and other secure communication protocols.
From ACM News
Nuclear 'space Battery' Bests Solar in Curiosity Mars Mission
If you're going to Mars with an SUV-size robot, you'll need a really good energy supply.
From ACM News
10 Robots Inspired by Animals and Insects
All the research in the world can't beat millions of years of evolution.
From ACM News
Cyberwar Explodes in Syria
A familiar digital chime rang on the computer. Someone was calling via Skype from Syria.
From ACM News
Separating You and Me? 4.74 Degrees
The world is even smaller than you thought.
From ACM News
Why Are Humans Scared of Robots?
"If popular culture has taught us anything, it is that someday mankind must face and destroy the growing robot menace." Author and robotic engineer Daniel H Wilson's description of How to Survive a Robot Uprising seems like…
From ACM TechNews
Lab's Behavioral System Can Catch Insider Threats
Oak Ridge National Laboratory researchers have developed a tool to identify malicious insiders and stop them from sending sensitive information outside the organization.
From ACM TechNews
M Researchers Develop Tool That Saves Time, Eliminates Mistakes in Diabetes Care
Doctors will be able to make the right decisions for diabetes treatment by using the diabetes dashboard, a tool that allows them to view patient information on a single computer screen.
From ACM TechNews
Eu Chief Privacy Regulator on New Internet Rules
In an interview, European Commission vice president Viviane Reding discusses the differences between U.S. and European views on Internet privacy regulation.
From ACM TechNews
New Stanford Software Takes Folding@home's Biological Research to Supercomputers
Stanford University researchers have developed Copernicus, a distributed framework for supercomputers that is based on Folding@home, a distributed computing project that borrows computing time from home computers to simulate…
From ACM News
The Problem With Landing Humans on Mars (and How to Fix It)
When NASA’s Mars Science Laboratory—scheduled to lift-off from Cape Canaveral later this week—touches down on the Red Planet in August of 2012, the one-ton probe will be the largest and most complex piece of unmanned machinery…
From ACM News
Russian Probe Misses Mars Trip
Russia's stranded Phobos-Grunt spacecraft reportedly has lost its main opportunity to go to Mars, land on one of its moons and return to Earth with a sample. Nevertheless, efforts to revive it continue.
From ACM News
Managing the Demise of Privacy
Entrepreneurs and venture capitalists examine identity management in social media at the Privacy Identity Innovation conference.
From ACM Careers
How to Get Your Kid Into an Elite Computer Science Program
Robotics competitions, programming skills tip the scales for college applicants; being a girl helps.
From ACM News
H(ackers)2O: Attack on City Water Station Destroys Pump
Hackers gained remote access into the control system of the city water utility in Springfield, Illinois, and destroyed a pump, according to a report released by a state fusion center and obtained by a security expert.
From ACM News
Cyberwar Most Likely to Take Place Among Smaller Powers, Experts Say
Most Americans who worry about cyberwarfare are concerned that it will be directed against the United States. But the truth is that cyber conflict is far more likely to involve smaller players—and the dangers associated with…
From ACM TechNews
Obfuscated Code Contest Returns
The International Obfuscated C Code Contest recently launched a challenge for the first time in five years, asking participants to write bizarre and unnecessarily complex C programming code. The goal is to stress the importance…
From ACM TechNews
A Touchscreen You Can Really Feel
The texture of a touchscreen can be controlled to provide users with tactile feedback, according to researchers at the Ecole Polytechnique Federale de Lausanne Integrated Actuators Laboratory (LAI).
From ACM TechNews
Google's Search Algorithm Challenged
Padua University professor Massimo Marchiori is leading the development of Volunia, a new search engine that could challenge Google's search algorithm and lead to radically different search engines in the future.
From ACM TechNews
Rankings Released For Supercomputers Doing 'big Data'
This year's Graph500 competition, which measures supercomputers that handle big data scaling problems, featured 50 systems, up from nine last year. The U.S. National Nuclear Security Administration/SC Blue Gene/Q Prototype II…
From ACM TechNews
$50,000 to Solve the Most Complicated Puzzle Ever Attempted
University of California, San Diego researchers are participating in DARPA's Shredder Challenge, which involves piecing together about 10,000 pieces of different documents that have been shredded.
From ACM News
Panoramic Tool Lets sers Observe Dynamic Imagery
New imagery available through Carnegie Mellon's GigaPan Time Machine lets users move in space and time to explore the sun, a beehive, or the chlorophyll content of the oceans.
From ACM News
Mapping a World of Human Activity
With the world networked on an unprecedented scale, and the global population hitting 7 billion only weeks ago, we are living in a uniquely interconnected era, creating new opportunites and dependencies. It's the result ofthe…
From ACM News
A New Perspective on Crime Scenes
In 2009, to better record crime scenes, the New York City Police Department began using the Panoscan, a camera that creates high-resolution, 360-degree panoramic images. Each panorama takes between 3 to 30 minutes to produce…
From ACM Opinion
Google and Microsoft Talk Artificial Intelligence
Google and Microsoft don't share a stage often, being increasingly fierce competitors in areas such as Web search, mobile, and cloud computing. But the rivals can agree on some things—like the importance of artificial intelligence…
From ACM News
Intel Shows Off Its Knights Corner One Teraflops Chip
Intel has developed an accelerator chip capable of running at speeds of one teraflops, equal to one trillion calculations per second.