Communications of the ACM
The news archive provides access to past news stories from Communications of the ACM and other sources by date.
December 2011
From ACM News
How the 'internet Of Things' Is Turning Cities Into Living Organisms
When city services can autonomously go online and digest information from the cloud, they can reach a level of performance never before seen. First up, water systems that automatically know when it will rain and react accordingly…
From ACM News
Creating Artificial Intelligence Based on the Real Thing
Ever since the early days of modern computing in the 1940s, the biological metaphor has been irresistible.
From ACM News
Underwater Drones Giving More Eyes to Police Harbor Unit as Searches Grow
With President Obama in town last week, things were busy for the New York Police Department's Harbor Unit. Federal security agents were disseminating lists of city locations that had to be swept for bombs, cleared, and guarded…
From ACM News
Microsoft's Kinect: A Robot's Low-Cost, Secret Weapon
As robots seek to mimic humans' ability to see and hear, they have a secret weapon in Microsoft's Kinect game motion-sensing controller.
From ACM News
Squishy, Soft Robots Crawl Their Way to the Cutting Edge
A new breed of robots based on spineless creatures such as starfish and caterpillars could change the way humans interact with machines.
From ACM News
Software That Listens For Lies
She looks as innocuous as Miss Marple, Agatha Christie’s famous detective.
From ACM TechNews
U.s. Tech Employment Nears Its All-Time High
The U.S. technology industry added 7,100 jobs in November, according to U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics data analyzed by the TechServe Alliance. The increase raises total tech industry employment to 4.068 million, near the high…
From ACM TechNews
Human Brain Is Limiting Global Data Growth, Say Computer Scientists
Goethe University researchers have found indications of the Weber-Fichner law in the size distribution of Internet files.
From ACM TechNews
In-Air Signature, New Authentication Technique For Mobile Phones
Researchers at Universidad Politecnica de Madrid's Group of Biometrics, Biosignals, and Security say they have developed a biometric authentication technique that provides higher security than the use of a personal identification…
From ACM TechNews
Scientists Striving to Put a Human Face on the Robot Generation
Plymouth University researchers are studying the social interaction between humans and LightFace, a robot that is capable of producing a range of naturalistic expressions using computer-generated responses that are projected…
From ACM TechNews
Supercomputers Take a Cue From Microwave Ovens
To develop more efficient supercomputers, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory researchers are studying consumer electronics such as microwave ovens, cameras, and cell phones, in which chips, batteries, and software are optimized…
From ACM TechNews
Open Source System for Robot Hardware to Speed p Robot Development
Researchers at the Eindhoven University of Technology have launched an open source system for robot hardware designed to serve as a library that robot developers can use to add their designs or improve existing robots.
From ACM News
A High-Stakes Search Continues for Silicon's Successor
In a cluttered chip-making laboratory on Stanford's campus, Max Shulaker is producing the world's smallest computer circuits by hand.
From ACM News
New Efforts to Extend Moore's Law
Continually needing to add computing power to its microprocessors, Santa Clara behemoth Intel this year announced it was venturing beyond its traditional method of cramming more and more transistors into a flat pieces of silicon…
From ACM News
Citizen Scientists
Ordinary people are taking control of their health data, making their DNA public and running their own experiments. Their big question: Why should science be limited to professionals?
From ACM News
Enhance Your Senses: High-Tech Ways to Play
Sometimes the best inventions are just for fun. At the 2011 Siggraph Asia event, a leading conference on computer graphics and techniques, researchers will be presenting emerging technologies that immerse your senses.
From ACM Careers
Facebook Auditions Kid Hackers with All-Night Codefest
"Yes! We have elegance!" says a student from the University of Waterloo. Then he pauses, and his shoulders slump.
From ACM News
Everything You Need to Know About Carrieriq
"Carrier IQ" is a company that sells software to wireless companies that reports how well networks are performing in real-time, by sending performance data from more than 141 million phones.
From ACM TechNews
Programming Language Can't Be Copyrighted: Eu Court
Yves Bot, advocate general of the European Union (EU), says programming languages such as Java and HTML should be regarded the same as language used by a novelist and thus cannot be protected by copyright.
From ACM News
Did Conficker Help Sabotage Iran Nuke Program?
A cyber warfare expert claims he has linked the Stuxnet computer virus that attacked Iran's nuclear program in 2010 to Conficker, a mysterious "worm" that surfaced in late 2008 and infected millions of PCs.
From ACM News
Dawn Soars Over Asteroid Vesta in 3D
Glide over the giant asteroid Vesta with NASA's Dawn spacecraft in a new 3D video. Dawn has been orbiting Vesta since July 15, obtaining high-resolution images of its bumpy, cratered surface and making other scientific measurements…
From ACM News
10 Unique Projects For Csedweek 2011
Last year, CSEdWeek featured more than 300 events and projects engaging students, parents, and teachers. This year, we are highlighting 10 CSEdWeek activities that we think you should know about.
From ACM Careers
Gchq Aims to Recruit Computer Hackers with Code-Cracking Web Site
Government intelligence service targets "self-taught" hackers with cryptic Web site that features no obvious branding.
From ACM News
Darpa's Almost-Impossible Challenge to Reconstruct Shredded Documents: Solved
DARPA recently laid down a challenge to computer scientists: work out how to reconstruct shredded pages of paper. The winning team has finished — two days ahead of schedule.
From ACM News
Human Brain Is Limiting Global Data Growth, Say Computer Scientists
Evidence has emerged that the brain's capacity to absorb information is limiting the amount of data humanity can produce.
From ACM TechNews
Researchers Find Some Smartphone Models More Vulnerable to Attack
The preloaded applications of some smartphones specifically designed to support the Android mobile platform could make the devices more vulnerable to hackers, according to North Carolina State University researchers.
From ACM TechNews
Will Microsoft's 'minority Report' i Leap-Frog Apple?
Although Apple has pioneered the mainstream multitouch user interface (UI), Microsoft could provide the next major UI breakthrough by combining voice, touch, and gesture-based commands, writes Mike Elgan.
From ACM News
The Search For Analysts to Make Sense of 'big Data'
Businesses keep vast troves of data about things like online shopping behavior, or millions of changes in weather patterns, or trillions of financial transactions—information that goes by the generic name of big data.
From ACM News
Following Digital Breadcrumbs to 'big Data' Gold
What do Facebook, Groupon, and biotech firm Human Genome Sciences have in common? They all rely on massive amounts of data to design their products. Terabytes and even zettabytes of information about consumers or about genetic…
From ACM News
Dna Sequencing Caught in Deluge of Data
BGI, based in China, is the world’s largest genomics research institute, with 167 DNA sequencers producing the equivalent of 2,000 human genomes a day.