Communications of the ACM
The news archive provides access to past news stories from Communications of the ACM and other sources by date.
November 2013
From ACM News
Intense Smog Is Making Beijing's Massive Surveillance Network Practically Useless
Beijing's surveillance network, one of the most extensive and invasive in the world, has been compromised by an unexpected foe: smog.
From ACM News
Broken News: Struggling to Find Facts in the Twitter Maelstrom
As with Hurricane Sandy, the Boston Marathon bombings, and countless other major stories, news of the shooting at the Los Angeles International Airport was sometimes muddled with misinformation.
From ACM Opinion
What Is 4d Printing?
The biggest breakthroughs in how we make things lie not in the technology to manipulate materials but in the materials themselves.
From ACM Careers
How a Grad Student Trying to Build the First Botnet Brought the Internet to Its Knees
On November 3, 1988, 25 years ago Sunday, people woke up to find the Internet had changed forever.
From ACM News
Wearable Gadgets Transform How Companies Do Business
Big companies are putting wearables to work.
From ACM TechNews
'Selfish Miner' Attack Could Devastate Bitcoin, Researchers Say
Cornell University researchers say Bitcoin is vulnerable to an attack that could have a devastating impact on the virtual currency, but it can be fixed with a software update.
From ACM TechNews
The Fight Against Biometric Spoofing
The European Union has provided additional funding for the Tabula Rasa Consortium, a research group developing countermeasures against spoofed biometric identifiers.
From ACM TechNews
Computer-Aided Image Analysis Aims to Offer 'Second Opinion' in Breast Tumor Diagnosis
University of Chicago researchers are developing computer-aided diagnosis and quantitative image analysis methods for mammograms, ultrasounds, and MRIs to identify specific tumor characteristics, such as size, shape, and sharpness…
From ACM News
Will India Get to Mars? A Guide to the Dangers Ahead
With the successful launch just hours ago of its Mars Orbiter Mission (MOM), India has passed the first test in its bid to orbit the Red Planet. Next up is a nail-biting ride to Mars, which, as history shows, is fraught with…
From ACM Careers
Professor Clifford I. Nass, Expert on Human/computer Interactions, Dead at 55
Clifford I. Nass, a Stanford communication professor known for his research on the way people interact with technology, died Nov. 2 at Stanford Sierra Camp near South Lake Tahoe, after collapsing at the end of a hike.
From ACM News
How to Program Unreliable Chips
As transistors get smaller, they also become less reliable.
From ACM News
Who Has the Right to Know Where Your Phone Has Been?
You probably know, or should know, that your cellphone is tracking your location everywhere you go.
From ACM News
Of Course Gas Stations Will se Facial Recognition Tech to Serve 'Relevant' Ads
Say you're at a gas station. Say you're buying some supplies—bottled water, coffee, maybe some M&Ms—before you head back to your car.
From ACM TechNews
A Gestural Interface For Smart Watches
Researchers at the University of California, Berkeley and UC Davis are developing Chirp, a computer chip that uses ultrasound waves to detect a wide range of gestures in three dimensions, and could be implanted in wearable devices…
From ACM News
The World of Perks
Companies are offering more and more creative extras to entice and retain employees, but there can be a downside.
From ACM TechNews
Forget the Needle, Consider the Haystack: Uncovering Hidden Structures in Massive Data Collections
Princeton University computer scientists have developed a method to leverage big data using a mathematical method to determine the probability of a pattern repeating itself throughout a data subset.
From ACM TechNews
The Status of Moore's Law: It's Complicated
As computer chips grow denser, it becomes increasingly difficult to measure the progression of Moore's Law. Exacerbating this situation is the mutability of the definition of node names, especially as manufacturers prepare 14…
From ACM TechNews
Microsoft ses Kinect to Interpret Sign Language From Deaf People
Microsoft Research developers are using the Kinect technology to develop a system that can read sign language from deaf users and translate it into spoken text.
From ACM TechNews
Germany Looks at Keeping Its Internet, Email Traffic Inside Its Borders
An alliance of German phone and Internet companies wants to create a network of German email and Internet systems transmitted strictly within German borders. The proposals aim to boost the security of Germany's internal communications…
From ACM News
Genome Hacker ncovers Largest-Ever Family Tree
Using data pulled from online genealogy sites, a renowned 'genome hacker' has constructed what is likely the biggest family trees ever assembled.
From ACM News
The Dark Corners of the Internet
The way information spreads through society has been the focus of intense study in recent years.
From ACM Opinion
Fifth Amendment Prohibits Compelled Decryption, New EFF Brief Argues
Encryption is one of the most important ways to safeguard data from prying eyes.
From ACM TechNews
U.s. Teams Up With Operator of Online Courses to Plan a Global Network
Coursera and the U.S. government recently launched a partnership to create learning hubs around the world where students can go to get Internet access to free courses supplemented by weekly in-person class discussions with local…
From ACM TechNews
Future Internet Aims to Sever Links With Servers
The European Union is funding a new Internet architecture called Pursuit that is designed to eliminate the need to connect to servers and enable content to be shared more efficiently.
From ACM TechNews
sing Computers, Scientists Simulate Movement of Largest-Known Dinosaur
British and Argentinian researchers have developed computer simulations that examine how and whether the Argentinosauraus, the largest known dinosaur, could have roamed the South American landscape more than 90 million years…
From ACM TechNews
Researcher Explores Student Online Collaboration
Researchers at Pennsylvania State University and Carnegie Mellon University are using a U.S. National Science Foundation grant to study blended learning in which online and traditional components are used together in instruction…
From ACM TechNews
Can Automated Editorial Tools Help Wikipedia's Declining Volunteer Workforce?
University College Dublin researchers have developed an algorithm that assesses the quality of Wikipedia pages based on the authoritativeness of the editors involved and the longevity of the edits they have made.
From ACM News
Mars Express Flyover of the Red Planet
From the highest volcano to the deepest canyon, from impact craters to ancient river beds and lava flows, this showcase of images from ESA's Mars Express takes you on an unforgettable journey across the Red Planet.
From ACM News
NSA Infiltrates Links to Yahoo, Google Data Centers Worldwide, Snowden Documents Say
The National Security Agency has secretly broken into the main communications links that connect Yahoo and Google data centers around the world, according to documents obtained from former NSA contractor Edward Snowden and interviews…
From ACM Careers
University of Waterloo: Silicon Valley's Canadian Feeder School
Recent engineering graduate Mike McCauley is living the dream.