Communications of the ACM
The news archive provides access to past news stories from Communications of the ACM and other sources by date.
December 2012
From ACM TechNews
Big Nsf Grant Funds Research Into Training Robots to Work With Humans
The U.S. National Science Foundation has awarded a $3.5 million grant to University of California, Berkeley robotics researchers Ken Goldberg and Pieter Abbeel and colleagues from four other universities to pursue research into…
From ACM TechNews
Html5 Is Now Feature-Complete; Here's What Comes Next
The World Wide Web Consortium is mapping out enhancements for future versions of its HTML5 and Canvas 2D specifications, which it recently declared "feature-complete."
From ACM Opinion
The Man Looking to Turn Samsung Into a Silicon Valley Trendsetter
Samsung Electronics is a company at the top of its game, having become the world’s leading smartphone manufacturer in the last year.
From ACM Opinion
The Woman Charged With Making Windows 8 Succeed
As the head of Windows product development at Microsoft, Julie Larson-Green is responsible for a piece of software used by some 1.3 billion people worldwide.
From ACM News
Warning, Speedsters: You Can't Fool Quantum Radar
Is it a bird, a plane, or a speeding car?
From ACM Opinion
Debunker of Doomsday: Nasa Scientist Tries to Talk Some Sense Into the World
Swirling with lunacy and paranoia, the theories warn of mayhem and cataclysm.
From ACM News
A More Human Artificial Brain
There are times when I wonder why so many scientists are spending so much time trying to recreate something as fickle and full of fogginess as the human brain.
From ACM News
Robotic Gadgets For Household Chores
Joseph Schlesinger, an engineer living near Boston, thinks robotic toys are too expensive, the result of extravagant designs, expensive components and a poor understanding of consumer tastes.
From ACM TechNews
Touchpad Steering Wheel Keeps Eyes on the Road
Intel researchers have developed a touch-sensitive steering wheel that enables drivers to call up information that is displayed on the windshield.
From ACM TechNews
Ibm: In the Next 5 Years Computers Will Learn, Mimic the Human Senses
A new generation of machines that learn, adapt, sense, and experience the world as humans do through the five basic senses is one of the technologies highlighted in IBM researchers' annual report on the five biggest technologies…
From ACM TechNews
Tor: An Anonymous, and Controversial, Way to Web-Surf
The Tor Project, which was created 10 years ago to hide the online activity of dissidents in countries that censor the Internet, has recently seen its popularity grow in the United States and Europe because of concerns over Internet…
From ACM TechNews
Computers Write the Books, to Insead Prof's Credit
INSEAD professor Philip M. Parker has patented a system that algorithmically compiles data into book form.
From ACM TechNews
Intel Offers an Image of the Workplace of the Future
Intel researchers recently offered predictions on how workers and workplaces will change over the next 10 to 20 years. "Most people work 9-to-5 jobs, are self employed or employed by one company but not both, and most have colleagues…
From ACM News
Real 'Touch' Screens and Tasteful Computers: IBM Predicts the Future
What if a computer could let us "feel" the texture of a fabric before we buy clothes online? Or gives us a whiff—or even a taste—of a meal we're thinking of preparing?
From ACM News
How Google Is Taking the Knowledge Graph Global
Earlier this month, Google shared a fascinating statistic. The number of items in the company's Knowledge Graph—its database of people, places, and things, and the connections between them—had tripled in size over its first seven…
From ACM Careers
Wallflowers of Silicon Valley Get Asked to Dance
After years of being wallflowers at Silicon Valley's hottest tech conferences and Sean Parker's after-parties, enterprise technology firms are now part of the "in" crowd.
From ACM News
Looking at the Battle of Gettysburg Through Robert E. Lee's Eyes
Anne Kelly Knowles loves places where history happened.
From ACM News
North Korea: On the Net in World's Most Secretive Nation
There's a curious quirk on every official North Korean Website: a piece of programming that must be included in each page's code.
From ACM TechNews
Verizon to Test Support For One Password For Whole Internet
Online identity and technology companies are collaborating to test whether consumers would trust a single, highly secure user-password combination for all of their online accounts.
From ACM TechNews
Kenshiro Robot Gets New Muscles and Bones
University of Tokyo researchers have developed Kenshiro, a human-like musculoskelatal robot whose underlying structure closely mimics the human form.
From ACM TechNews
New Standard/tool Address Security Dependencies
The standards organization Open Group has created a standard for modeling security dependencies. The "Dependency Modeling Standard" will enable the military and other enterprises to model their reliance on technology, services…
From ACM News
Selling Flak Jackets in the Cyberwars
When the Israeli army and Hamas trade virtual blows in cyberspace, or when hacker groups like Anonymous rise from the digital ether, or when WikiLeaks dumps a trove of classified documents, some see a lawless Internet.
From ACM News
There's So Much Data that We're Running Out of Words to Describe It
The world is producing and storing data at such a rate that the day isn't far off when we will literally no longer have a proper way of describing it.
From ACM TechNews
Mind-Controlled Robotic Arm Gets Closer Than Ever to Human Limb
U.S. researchers say they have developed a robotic arm directly controlled by brain impulses that is superior to other robotic limbs in mimicking the fluidity and control of the human arm.
From ACM TechNews
Quantum Computers Will Be Commercially Available in 20 Years: Scientist
University of New South Wales professor Andrew Dzurak predicts that commercially available quantum computing will in arrive two decades, while demonstrations of complex modeling via quantum computing will emerge within 10 years…
From ACM TechNews
Stretchable Electronics
University of Delaware researchers are developing power sources for flexible, stretchable electronics, which could find applications in biomedical, wearable, portable, and sensory devices.
From ACM TechNews
Follow the Eyes: Head-Mounted Cameras Could Help Robots Understand Social Interactions
Carnegie Mellon University robotics researchers have developed an algorithm that uses crowdsourcing to detect where people's gazes intersect. The researchers say the algorithm could be used by robots to evaluate social cues.
From ACM TechNews
Online Learning Tool Brings 'the Crowd' Into Homework Assignments
Massachusetts Institute of Technology researchers have developed Caesar, a computer system designed to provide students with feedback on their homework assignments and create more interaction between students, teachers, and alumni…
From ACM TechNews
Got Food Allergies? Now You Can Test Your Meal on the Spot Using a Cell Phone
UCLA researchers have developed iTube, a lightweight device that attaches to a cell phone to detect allergens in food samples. iTube uses the cell phone's built-in camera and a smartphone application to run a laboratory-level…
From ACM TechNews
Content Is King: Can Researchers Design an Information-Centric Internet?
The Internet needs to be transformed from a network that emphasizes where data is located to one that focuses on the nature of the data itself, according to former Palo Alto Research Center research fellow Van Jacobson.