Communications of the ACM
The news archive provides access to past news stories from Communications of the ACM and other sources by date.
November 2014
From ACM TechNews
Study Finds Search Engine Poisoning Persistent, Hard to Solve
A new study finds efforts to prevent the manipulation of search results are having little impact on online fraud.
From ACM News
Gift From Ballmer Will Expand Computer Science Faculty at Harvard
Former Microsoft chief executive Steve Ballmer will make a financial contribution to Harvard that will enable the school to expand its computer science faculty by about 50 percent.
From ACM News
Window Washing Skills Beyond a Robot's Reach
As a pair of window washers clung to a scaffold dangling outside the 68th floor of 1 World Trade Center on Wednesday, the captivating drama left some below wondering: Why were they up there at all?
From ACM News
Three Touchdowns For Rosetta's Lander
After achieving touchdown on a comet for the first time in history, scientists and engineers are busy analysing this new world and the nature of the landing.
From ACM Careers
Google's Larry Page: The Most Ambitious Ceo in the niverse
As Google's core business continues to thrive, Larry Page is making huge bets on new technology—ingestible nanoparticles, balloons that beam down broadband—that could define the future.
From ACM News
How Alibaba Is sing Bra Sizes to Predict Online Shopping Habits
Earlier this summer, a group of data crunchers looking at underwear sales at Alibaba came across a curious trend: women who bought larger bra sizes also tended to spend more (link in Chinese).
From ACM News
Google Boosts Turing Award Computing Prize to $1 Million
There's no Nobel prize for computer science, but after a grant from Google, the top award in the field now just as lucrative.
From ACM TechNews
Big-Data Project Gives Birds-Eye View of the G20
A researcher is mapping the G20 Leaders' Summit in Brisbane, Australia, in real time on Twitter and Instagram to determine how the event affects participants.
From ACM TechNews
Technology's Latest Quest: Tracking Mental Health
Several teams are working on new ways of determining what elements of behavior or mannerisms could be tracked to monitor a person's mental health.
From ACM TechNews
Robot That Moves Like an Inchworm Could Go Places Other Robots Can't
Researchers have developed a soft, worm-like robot that moves similarly to inchworms.
From ACM TechNews
'Flight Simulator' for Surgeons: Project Joins Computer Science With Medicine
University of Wisconsin-Madison investigators are developing a simulator to help medical students virtually practice surgical procedures.
From ACM TechNews
Twitter Firehose Reveals How Weather Affects Mood
Stanford University researchers have mined geotagged tweets for indications of mood and searched for correlations with the weather.
From ACM News
Joint Effort Nabs Next Wave of S Supercomputers
Once locked in an arms race with each other for the fastest supercomputers, US national laboratories are now banding together to buy their next-generation machines.
From ACM News
Human Thoughts sed to Switch on Genes
Could a futuristic society of humans with the power to control their own biological functions ever become reality?
From ACM News
Rosetta: Concerns For Comet Lander After neven Landing
The lander bounced twice, initially about 1km back out into space, before settling in the shadow of a cliff, 1km from its intended target site.
From ACM News
Weapons Directed By Robots, Not Humans, Raise Ethical Questions
On a bright fall day last year off the coast of Southern California, an Air Force B-1 bomber launched an experimental missile that may herald the future of warfare.
From ACM TechNews
Sandia Releases Interface to Help Standardize Supercomputer Power and Energy Systems
The High Performance Computing-Power API specification standardizes measurement of power- and energy-relevant features for high-performance computing systems.
From ACM TechNews
To Foil Cyberattacks, Connected Cars Need Overlapping Shields
Smart cars will need many more layers of cyberprotection than automakers believe is necessary.
From ACM TechNews
Functional Languages Rack p Best Scores For Software Quality
University of California, Davis researchers recently conducted an examination of projects hosted on GitHub and the languages used to build them.
From ACM TechNews
Dvd Tech Breakthrough Could Produce 1,000 Tb Capacity Discs
A new type of DVD technology will enable users to store 212,000 times the amount of data of a standard 4.7 GB disc.
From ACM News
Acm, Google Increase Turing Award Prize to $1 Million
Funding for the ACM A.M. Turing Award has increased to the level of other major international awards.
From ACM News
Technology's Latest Quest: Tracking Mental Health
You can now count your steps, measure your glucose levels, monitor your blood pressure and track your caloric intake from your phone or high-tech wristband.
From ACM News
Touchdown! Rosetta's Philae Probe Lands on Comet
ESA's Rosetta mission has soft-landed its Philae probe on a comet, the first time in history that such an extraordinary feat has been achieved.
From ACM News
Survey: .s. Adults Feel They Are Losing Control of Their Data
Adults living in the U.S. overwhelmingly believe that the government and private companies are violating their privacy, a new survey found.
From ACM TechNews
Next-Generation Robot Needs Your Help
Carnegie Mellon University professor Manuela Veloso believes robots can be made fully autonomous by designing them to ask for help when necessary.
From ACM TechNews
Researchers, Medical Workers Seek Tech Answers to Ebola Outbreak
Robotics researchers plan to meet with healthcare and aid workers as part of a series of workshops on how technology can help fight Ebola and other dangerous viruses.
From ACM TechNews
Wireless Devices sed By Casual Pilots Vulnerable to Hacking, Computer Scientists Find
Apps and wireless devices used by private pilots during flights may be vulnerable to various hack attacks, according to computer scientists.
From ACM TechNews
Nebias: The World's Most Advanced Bionic Hand
The NEBIAS project, a European Union effort to develop advanced prosthetic hands, is demonstrating great strides only a year after its creation.
From ACM TechNews
Obama Asks FCC to Adopt Tough Net Neutrality Rules
President Barack Obama on Monday called on the U.S. Federal Communications Commission to regulate Internet service providers as public utilities.
From ACM TechNews
a Professor Developing Wearable Device to Track Diet
University of Alabama researchers are working on the development of a sensor that can automatically track diet.