Communications of the ACM
The news archive provides access to past news stories from Communications of the ACM and other sources by date.
December 2009
From ACM TechNews
Paper Screens Could Provide Depth to Computer Display
Researchers have designed an inexpensive interface system that uses a ceiling-mounted projector and an infrared camera to detect the placement of objects on a horizontal, table-top screen. A special piece of paper called a Paperlens…
From ACM TechNews
Research Developed at the School of Computing Empowers the Web of Data
Researchers at the Universidad Politecnica de Madrid's School of Computing have developed an access protocol for data resources defined in RDF(S), a set of recommendations promoted by the World Wide Web Consortium for characterizing…
From ACM TechNews
Optimism as Artificial Intelligence Pioneers Reunite
An optimistic outlook has returned to the field of artificial intelligence (AI) 45 years after the pronouncement by computer scientist John McCarthy that a thinking machine could be created within a decade. Fueling the renewed…
From ACM TechNews
FCC Plans to Formalize Internet Rules on Net Neutrality Draw Fire
Internet service providers (ISPs) are unhappy at the U.S. Federal Communications Commission's (FCC's) plan to formalize rules for net neutrality — the notion that all ISPs should treat all traffic on their networks equally —…
From ACM TechNews
Obama Warns Against Turning Away the 'best and the Brightest'
At the recent White House jobs summit, President Barack Obama addressed the need to admit foreign students into the United States. Obama said the intellectual freedom enjoyed in the United States is what draws the "best and…
From ACM TechNews
In India, Anxiety Over the Slow Pace of Innovation
Even as India has emerged as a growing hub of technological know-how and outsourcing business, there is anxiety within India that the country is not living up to its innovation potential. The Indian government and corporations…
From ICT Results
Microscopic Gyroscopes Aim For Mass Appeal
Tiny devices made possible by combining the latest advances in mechanical and electronics technology could be at the heart of next-generation personal navigation and vehicle stabilization tools.
From ACM News
Replica of Groundbreaking Computer Going to Computer History Museum
Iowa State University's full-scale, working replica of the Atanasoff-Berry Computer, a groundbreaking machine built on the Iowa State campus from 1939 to 1942, will be part of a major new exhibition at the Computer History Museum…
From ACM News
Gallium Nitride Transistor Could One Day Power Laptops, Cars
A Cornell researcher has created an extremely efficient transistor made from a material that may soon replace silicon as king of semiconductors for power applications. Junxia Shi, a graduate student in the laboratory of Lester…
From ACM News
Naval Academy to Emphasize Cybersecurity
Looking at the next great threat to the nation, U.S. Naval Academy officials told the institution's oversight board Monday (December 7) that they plan to make cybersecurity a required field of study for all midshipmen. Academy…
From ACM TechNews
Government Surveillance of Social Networks Challenged
The Electronic Frontier Foundation and the Samuelson Law, Technology, and Public Policy Clinic at the University of California, Berkeley Law School filed a lawsuit against six government agencies seeking to force the disclosure…
From ACM TechNews
Ibm: Envisioning the World's Fastest Supercomputer
IBM will release a new Power7 chip next year that could lead to the development of the world's fastest supercomputer. The IBM Blue Waters project supercomputer will be theoretically capable of achieving 10 petaflops, about 10…
From ACM News
Mathematical Models Could Track Gossip, and Terrorists
Thanks to the Internet and online social networks (OSNs) news and gossip now spread seemingly without any order. But according Ryerson University researcher Anthony Bonato, the right mathematical model would allow a user to spot…
From ACM News
How Search Engines Cope With Real-Time Data
Twitter addiction feeds the growing belief that real-time search is a necessity, but the gush of real-time data completely changes the way the Web is indexed. It also challenges search engines to identify and …
From ACM TechNews
Cray Studies Exascale Computing in Europe
Cray has announced the Exascale Research Initiative less than a month after Intel said it was setting up an exascale research center with European partners. Cray's partnership involves three European institutions, including…
From ACM TechNews
Local Governments Offer Data to Software Trackers
Local governments are trying to make government data more accessible to citizens, and some are turning over data to programmers to make it more usable. One example is Stumble Safely, a Web site that combines Washington, D.C.…
From ACM TechNews
Optical Pressure Sensors Give Robots the Human Touch
Researchers at Belgium's Ghent University have developed artificial skin that uses the detection of light as its feedback mechanism.
From ACM TechNews
Software Models Aid Genetic Study
New modeling software called Qlucore is being used by researchers at King's College to study how genes react to toxins. The gene-modeling software can sort through thousands of entries in a spreadsheet very quickly and produce…
From ICT Results
Power Lines and Tv Deliver Communications to Remote Brazil
A cheap way to deliver interactive communications to remote communities has been successfully tested in Brazil and Italy.
From ACM News
Californians and Cell Phones to Help Computer Scientists Track Air Pollution
Computer scientists at University of California, San Diego are creating a network of environmental sensors that will help identify air pollution hot spots. The system will provide up-to-the-minute information on outdoor and indoor…
From ACM News
Researchers Show Brain Waves Can 'write' on a Computer
Neuroscientists at the Mayo Clinic campus in Jacksonville, Fla., have demonstrated how brain waves can be used to type alphanumerical characters on a computer screen. By merely focusing on the "q" in a matrix of letters, for…
From ACM News
Tufts niversity Awarded 'digging Into Data Challenge' Grant
A professor at Tufts University will lead a team of international researchers to explore how humanities scholars can use data analysis to track topics about the Greco-Roman world as they appear in a million documents, spanning…
From ACM News
Intel Ceo Paul Otellini New Chair of Innovation Task Force
Paul S. Otellini, President and Chief Executive Officer of Intel Corp., has accepted the invitation of the Task Force on American Innovation to serve as its new chair. The task force, an alliance of America's most innovative…
From ACM News
A Virus-Safe Software to Reduce Carbon Footprint
At a time when the world is deliberating upon ways to cut carbon emissions, Tata Institute of Fundamental Research (TIFR) has unveiled software especially developed for an Indian university environment to help reduce carbon footprint…
From ACM News
MIT Red Balloon Team Wins DARPA Network Challenge
The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) has announced that the MIT Red Balloon Challenge Team won the $40,000 cash prize in the DARPA Network Challenge, a competition that required participants to locate 10 large…
From ACM TechNews
Cellphones Team p to Make Wi-Fi Where You Want It
Scientists at Microsoft Research India and colleagues at the University of California, Santa Barbara have developed Cool-Tether, a system that combines the Internet connections of several smartphones to create high-speed wireless…
From ACM TechNews
Photoelastictouch Combines 3D Shapes With Touchscreens
Researchers at the University of Electro-communications and the Japan Science and Technology Agency have developed a touchscreen interface that features three-dimensional (3D) elements, enabling users to squeeze the interface…
From ACM TechNews
A Vision of Computing From Microsoft's Future Thinker
Over the next 10 years, how people interact with computers will evolve drastically, with hand gesture controls becoming as common as keyboards, and file selection being determined by eye scans instead of mouse movements, predicts…
From ACM TechNews
Reconfigurable Computing Research Pushes Forward
Alan George, director of the U.S. National Science Foundation's Center for High-Performance Reconfigurable Computing (CHREC), says that challenges and objectives in three key high-performance computing areas — performance, productivity…
From ACM TechNews
Salary Survey: Chinese, Indian Engineers Expand Wish List
The 2009 EE Times Global Salary & Opinion Survey found that salary increases for engineers in India and China have climbed over the past five years, and the rate of increase has topped that of their European, Japanese, and North…