acm-header
Sign In

Communications of the ACM

News Archive


Archives

The news archive provides access to past news stories from Communications of the ACM and other sources by date.

November 2018


From ACM News

Amazon Picks New York City, Northern Virginia for Its HQ2 Locations

Amazon Picks New York City, Northern Virginia for Its HQ2 Locations

E-commerce giant is expected to make announcement on HQ2 cities as soon as Tuesday.


From ACM News

Social Media Companies Grapple with New Forms of Political Misinformation

Social Media Companies Grapple with New Forms of Political Misinformation

Social media companies are struggling to contain new forms of political misinformation on their platforms that bubbled up during this year's midterm elections.


From ACM TechNews

Imaging the Earth's Interior With the Summit Supercomputer

Imaging the Earth's Interior With the Summit Supercomputer

Princeton University researchers used years' worth of global earthquake data to generate a three-dimensional simulation of the Earth's interior.


From ACM TechNews

STEM Firms to Run ­.K. National Center for Computing Education

STEM Firms to Run ­.K. National Center for Computing Education

U.K. companies in the science, technology, engineering, and math sectors will work together to create and lead a U.K. National Center for Computing Education.


From ACM TechNews

A Robot Scientist Will Dream ­p New Materials

A Robot Scientist Will Dream ­p New Materials

Startup Kebotix has created software that learns material chemistry from models of molecules with known properties in order to design novel compounds.


From ACM TechNews

Flaws in Self-Encrypting SSDs Let Attackers Bypass Disk Encryption

Flaws in Self-Encrypting SSDs Let Attackers Bypass Disk Encryption

Researchers have found vulnerabilities in some solid-state drives that allow hackers to circumvent encryption and access local data without knowing the password.


From ACM TechNews

China's Xinhua Agency ­nveils AI News Presenter

China's Xinhua Agency ­nveils AI News Presenter

China's Xinhua state news agency has debuted a virtual newsreader that the agency said "can read texts as naturally as a professional news anchor."


From ACM TechNews

Fire Shows Need for Early Detection: How Tech and AI Can Help

Fire Shows Need for Early Detection: How Tech and AI Can Help

San Jose State University's Craig Clements says artificial intelligence is being explored to more rapidly localize fires and predict their propagation and behaviors.


From ACM News

­pgraded ­S Supercomputers Claim Top Two Spots on Top500 List

­pgraded ­S Supercomputers Claim Top Two Spots on Top500 List

The US now can claim the top two machines on a list of the 500 fastest supercomputers, as Sierra, an IBM machine for nuclear weapons research at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, edged out a Chinese system that last year…


From ACM News

Rough-and-Ready Quantum Memory May Link Disparate Quantum Systems

Rough-and-Ready Quantum Memory May Link Disparate Quantum Systems

I'm a simple person. To me, a computer consists of three parts: data that goes in and out, operations that modify the data, and storage that holds the data.


From ACM News

To Keep Pace With Moore's Law, Chipmakers Turn to 'Chiplets'

To Keep Pace With Moore's Law, Chipmakers Turn to 'Chiplets'

In 2016, the chip industry's clock ran out.


From ACM TechNews

Why Some Wikipedia Disputes Go ­nresolved

Why Some Wikipedia Disputes Go ­nresolved

Researchers found that factors such as excessive bickering and poorly worded arguments led to about a third of Requests for Comment by Wikipedia editors going unresolved.


From ACM TechNews

Intel CP­s Impacted by New PortSmash Side-Channel Vulnerability

Intel CP­s Impacted by New PortSmash Side-Channel Vulnerability

Researchers discovered a new vulnerability in Intel processors that can allow attackers to leak encrypted data from the internal process of a central processing unit .


From ACM TechNews

­sing Wi-Fi to 'See' Behind Closed Doors Is Easier than Anyone Thought

­sing Wi-Fi to 'See' Behind Closed Doors Is Easier than Anyone Thought

Researchers have developed a technique to see through walls using ambient Wi-Fi signals and an ordinary smartphone.


From ACM TechNews

Kids are Scared of MRI Tests. A New App Turns Them Into a Game.

Kids are Scared of MRI Tests. A New App Turns Them Into a Game.

A high school student in Minnesota has developed a virtual reality app that prepares children for an magnetic resonance imaging scan.


From ACM TechNews

Amazon Go Has a Real Rival in Japan

Amazon Go Has a Real Rival in Japan

A company in Japan has developed an automated system that could rival Amazon Go in terms of quickly providing consumers with products.


From ACM News

At China’s Internet Conference, a Darker Side of Tech Emerges

At China’s Internet Conference, a Darker Side of Tech Emerges

Discussion topics included counterterrorism, data breaches, and surveillance.


From ACM News

Google in China: When 'Don't Be Evil' Met the Great Firewall

Google in China: When 'Don't Be Evil' Met the Great Firewall

If you're planning on moving to China anytime soon, here's a piece of advice: Get yourself a WeChat account.


From ACM News

In the Age of A.I., Is Seeing Still Believing?

In the Age of A.I., Is Seeing Still Believing?

In 2011, Hany Farid, a photo-forensics expert, received an e-mail from a bereaved father.


From ACM News

A Robot Scientist Will Dream ­p New Materials to Advance Computing and Fight Pollution

A Robot Scientist Will Dream ­p New Materials to Advance Computing and Fight Pollution

In a laboratory that overlooks a busy shopping street in Cambridge, Massachusetts, a robot is attempting to create new materials.


From ACM TechNews

This Robot Transforms Itself to Navigate an Obstacle Course

This Robot Transforms Itself to Navigate an Obstacle Course

Researchers have created robots that can adapt to their environment based on centralized sensory processing, environmental perception, and decision-making software.


From ACM TechNews

Stanford Researchers Develop New Data Privacy Technique

Stanford Researchers Develop New Data Privacy Technique

A new system for aggregating data usage reports emphasizes maintaining personal privacy.


From ACM TechNews

Learn to Fly Sikorsky's New Helicopter in Just 45 Minutes

Learn to Fly Sikorsky's New Helicopter in Just 45 Minutes

A specially equipped Sikorsky helicopter can be controlled through a handheld tablet, and learning to pilot it can take as little as 45 minutes. 


From ACM News

ESA's Gravity-Mapper Reveals Relics of Ancient Continents ­nder Antarctic Ice

ESA's Gravity-Mapper Reveals Relics of Ancient Continents ­nder Antarctic Ice

It was five years ago this month that ESA's GOCE gravity-mapping satellite finally gave way to gravity, but its results are still yielding buried treasure—giving a new view of the remnants of lost continents hidden deep under…


From ACM News

IBM Boasts Single-Atom Two-Bit Memory

IBM Boasts Single-Atom Two-Bit Memory

This accomplishment will feed research on developing atomic-scale devices for storing digital bits, and the storage of quantum bits in the magnetic spin of atomic nuclei.


From ACM News

Will NASA's Next Mission to Venus Be a Balloon?

Will NASA's Next Mission to Venus Be a Balloon?

After decades of neglect, hellish and cloud-enveloped Venus—sometimes called Earth's evil twin—is a world ready and waiting for renewed exploration.


From ACM News

Chinese 'Gait Recognition' Tech IDs People by How They Walk

Chinese 'Gait Recognition' Tech IDs People by How They Walk

Chinese authorities have begun deploying a new surveillance tool: "gait recognition" software that uses people's body shapes and how they walk to identify them, even when their faces are hidden from cameras.


From ACM TechNews

Can a Robot Learn a Language the Way a Child Does?

Can a Robot Learn a Language the Way a Child Does?

Massachusetts Institute of Technology researchers have developed a method to train semantic parsers by mimicking the way a child learns language.


From ACM TechNews

FDA Not Doing Enough to Prevent Medical Device Hacking, HHS Report Says

FDA Not Doing Enough to Prevent Medical Device Hacking, HHS Report Says

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration is not sufficiently protecting medical devices from being hacked, according to a U.S. Department of Health and Human Services report.


From ACM TechNews

Talent Gap Widens as Firms Battle for AI, Data Skills

Talent Gap Widens as Firms Battle for AI, Data Skills

A new study predicts demand for information technology workers will outstrip supply, due to growth in digital technologies, tighter labor markets, and few workers with specialized skills.