Communications of the ACM
The news archive provides access to past news stories from Communications of the ACM and other sources by date.
November 2012
From ACM News
Two-Tonne Witch Computer Gets a Reboot
The world's oldest original working digital computer is going on display at The National Museum of Computing in Buckinghamshire.
From ACM News
An Amazon Engineer Had a Little Idea That Turned Into a Billion-Dollar Business
Once upon a time, Amazon was a dot-com-era technology company best known for selling books.
From ACM News
What Goes Down Must Come Back Up
For most of the past two decades, the NASA and European Topex/Poseidon, Jason-1 and Jason-2 satellites have tracked the gradual rise of the world's ocean in response to global warming.
From ACM Careers
Microsoft Hires Jeannette Wing to Head Microsoft Research International
Jeannette Wing, a leading figure in computer science research, will join Microsoft Research in January 2013 as vice president, head of Microsoft Research International.
From ACM TechNews
Toyota Testing Smart Cars That Talk to Each Other and to the Road
Toyota is testing smart cars that talk to each other and to the roads on the 700 MHz band with the goal of reducing traffic accidents.
From ACM TechNews
How Metadata Brought Down CIA Boss David Petraeus
U.S. Central Intelligence Agency director David Petraeus was brought down by metadata, which is not covered by the Stored Communications Act.
From ACM TechNews
Enhancing Breast Cancer Detection
Federal Fluminense University's Tiago Borchartt and colleagues have developed software to improve imaging with an infrared, thermal camera for the early detection of breast cancer.
From ACM News
Feel the Disruption
Apple has been a leader in digital revolution disruption, and its iPhones and iPads aren't finished marginalizing PCs or making today's household and industrial control systems obsolete.
From ACM News
Blue Waters Opts Out of Top500
The NCSA Blue Waters system is one of the fastest supercomputers in the world, but it won't appear on the TOP500 list—nor will it be taking part in the HPC Challenge awards.
From ACM News
The Hackers of Damascus
Taymour Karim didn't crack under interrogation.
From ACM TechNews
Bug Repellent For Supercomputers Proves Effective
Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory researchers have developed a highly scalable, lightweight tool that has been used to debug a program running more than one million MPI processors on the IBM Blue Gene/Q-based Sequoia supercomputer…
From ACM TechNews
The Once-Hyped Semantic Web Still Bubbles Along
The semantic Web has not reached blockbuster status, but it still has champions in the Apache Software Foundation and the World Wide Web Consortium. W3C recently announced that 11 semantic Web specifications had moved closer…
From ACM News
Say Hello, or 你好, to China’s Siri
You might not have heard of iFlyTek. The company is hardly a household name in its domestic market of China, either.
From ACM TechNews
A World Without Limits
New technologies are blurring the boundaries between the real and virtual world, but it remains uncertain as to whether they can improve peoples' lives.
From ACM TechNews
Computers Identify What Makes Abstract Art Move US
University of Trento researchers have developed a machine-vision system that can measure how color and shapes are distributed in abstract art. The system also used data to determine the emotional impact of the artistic elements…
From ACM TechNews
A Leap Forward in Brain-Controlled Computer Cursors
Stanford University researchers have developed an algorithm that improves the speed and accuracy of neural prosthetics that control computer cursors. Their work could lead to greatly improved brain-controlled prosthetic systems…
From ACM TechNews
Do We Need Cyber Cops For Cars?
The U.S. National Highway Traffic Safety Administration has yet to devise standard safety guidelines for automobile electronics systems, though industry guidelines were presented to the administration last year by the U.S. Department…
From ACM Opinion
Otellini's Legacy of Intel Profit Marred By Arm Competition
When Intel Chief Executive Paul Otellini retires in May, he'll leave a mixed record.
From ACM News
NASA Observatories Find Most Distant Galaxy Candidate
By combining the power of NASA's Hubble and Spitzer space telescopes and one of nature's own natural "zoom lenses" in space, astronomers have set a new record for finding the most distant galaxy seen in the universe.
From ACM Careers
As Boom Lures App Creators, Tough Part Is Making a Living
Shawn and Stephanie Grimes spent much of the last two years pursuing their dream of doing research and development for Apple, the world’s most successful corporation.
From ACM Opinion
Bluebrain: Noah Hutton's 10-Year Documentary About the Mission to Reverse Engineer the Human Brain
"Nothing quite like it exists yet, but we have begun building it," Henry Markram wrote in the June 2012 issue of Scientific American. He was referring to a "fantastic new scientific instrument"—a biologically realistic and detailed…
From ACM News
Almost Being There: Why the Future of Space Exploration Is Not What You Think
Mocup is a tiny, adorable remote-controlled robot built from a Lego Mindstorms set with an off-the-shelf Beagleboard computer for a brain and a webcam for an eye.
From ACM News
Will We Ever nderstand How Our Brains Work?
When it comes to the human brain, many scientists believe that we are incapable of understanding how it works because we lack the tools and intelligence to measure its mind-blowing complexity. Others are starting to question…
From ACM News
How to Steal Data from Your Neighbor in the Cloud
Cloud computing teaches people not to worry about physical equipment for hosting data and running software.
From ACM News
5 Big Tech Issues Await Obama in Second Term
Technology policy didn't get much air time in the 2012 presidential election, but the Obama administration will face serious issues over the next four years.
From ACM TechNews
The True State of Artificial Intelligence
Monash University researcher Kevin Korb recently discussed what stage artificial intelligence research has reached.
From ACM TechNews
Cray Bumps IBM From Top500 Supercomputer Top Spot
Oak Ridge National Laboratory's Titan supercomputer system, a Cray XK7, was named the world's fastest supercomputer in the latest edition of the Top500 list.
From ACM TechNews
Agency Programs Show Outlines of Future Cyber Ecosystem
Although the creation of autonomous, self-defending, and self-healing online ecosystems remains years away, several U.S. government programs are already laying the groundwork for their development.
From ACM TechNews
S Gov Galvanises Aust Cyber-Security Experts
The U.S. Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency recently awarded an $18 million contract to a consortium of research groups, including National ICT Australia , to develop software to protect critical systems from cyberattacks…
From ACM TechNews
High-Performance Computing Turns to Apps to Cut Cost and Frustration
The concept of apps could enable more companies to take advantage of high-performance computing (HPC), considering the cost of HPC hardware and software makes adoption a challenge for all but the largest manufacturers.