Communications of the ACM
The news archive provides access to past news stories from Communications of the ACM and other sources by date.
December 2014
From ACM News
Detecting Gases Wirelessly and Cheaply
MIT chemists have devised a new way to wirelessly detect hazardous gases and environmental pollutants, using a simple sensor that can be read by a smartphone.
From ACM News
Saturn's Moons: What a Difference a Decade Makes
Almost immediately after NASA's twin Voyager spacecraft made their brief visits to Saturn in the early 1980s, scientists were hungry for more.
From ACM TechNews
Uncrackable Encryption Could Secure More Than Weapons
A scientist working on a novel approach to encrypting nuclear weapons says the concept also could offer security in areas such as communications and the IT supply chain.
From ACM TechNews
Bridging Sensory Gap Between Artificial and Real Skin
An international team of researchers have developed a polymer designed to mimic the elastic and high-resolution sensory capabilities of real skin.
From ACM TechNews
Fujitsu Develops Compact Rfid For Wearables, Metal
Fujitsu says its new radio frequency identification tag technology can work on surfaces such as metal, which can otherwise impede radio waves.
From ACM TechNews
Toshiba Android Will Take You For a Trip Down the ncanny Valley
Researchers have developed Aiko Chihiro, a lifelike communication android.
From ACM News
STEM Cells: The Black Box of Reprogramming
Eggs and sperm do it when they combine to make an embryo.
From ACM News
Apps Change the Face of Computing
As computing evolves and becomes increasingly mobile, apps are fundamentally changing actions…and interactions.
From ACM News
Rosetta Fuels Debate on Origin of Earth's Oceans
ESA's Rosetta spacecraft has found the water vapour from its target comet to be significantly different to that found on Earth.
From ACM Opinion
Tech's Lost Chapter: An Oral History of Boston's Rise and Fall
In the popular telling, the dawn of personal computing begins in the summer of 1976, when Steve Wozniak showed off the Apple I at a meeting of the Homebrew Computer Club in Silicon Valley.
From ACM News
Print Thyself
In February of 2012, a medical team at the University of Michigan's C. S. Mott Children's Hospital, in Ann Arbor, carried out an unusual operation on a three-month-old boy.
From ACM TechNews
How 'hour of Code' Sparked a Movement That Could Teach 100 Million People to Code
This week is Computer Science Education Week and Code.org hopes unprecedented numbers of students and ordinary people take part in its Hour of Code event.
From ACM News
The Sun and Jupiter Could Reveal Space-Time Ripples
Ripples in space-time could squeeze and stretch the sun and Jupiter, forming a gigantic gravitational-wave detector in our own celestial backyard.
From ACM TechNews
Tiny Motions Bring Digital Doubles to Life
New technology is helping animators convert moving dots into detailed body shapes that move like real humans.
From ACM TechNews
Researchers Develop Clothes That Can Monitor and Transmit Biomedical Info on Wearers
Smart textiles developed at Laval University in Canada could benefit people suffering from chronic diseases and the elderly, as well as first responders.
From ACM TechNews
Poseidon: Information Technology For People With Down’s Syndrome
The POSEIDON project will use information technology to help people with Down's syndrome achieve a greater level of independence in their lives.
From ACM TechNews
Football Robot Promises to Get Rid of the Boring Bits
BBC NewsPolytechnic University of Catalonia researchers have developed software that can identify the important parts of a soccer match and edit them together to make a short summary of the game. The program looks for moments…
From ACM News
Artificial Skin That Senses, and Stretches, Like the Real Thing
Some high-tech prosthetic limbs can be controlled by their owners, using nerves, muscles, or even the brain. However, there's no way for the wearer to tell if an object is scalding hot, or about to slip out of the appendage's…
From ACM TechNews
New Research Will Help Robots Know Their Limits
Three U.K. universities are teaming up to ensure future autonomous robots and systems will be safer, and capable of making decisions based on laws and ethics.
From ACM News
That’s Traffic; p Next, Weather
Smartphone apps emerge to support better weather forecasting.
From ACM News
Nasa's Curiosity Rover Finds Clues to How Water Helped Shape Martian Landscape
Observations by NASA's Curiosity Rover indicate Mars' Mount Sharp was built by sediments deposited in a large lake bed over tens of millions of years.
From ACM News
Titan's Giant Dunes Track Ancient Climate
Long sand dunes that ripple across Saturn's moon Titan may have been there for thousands of years, results from NASA's Cassini spacecraft suggest.
From ACM TechNews
Engineer Applies Robot Control Theory to Improve Prosthetic Legs
University of Texas at Dallas researchers have applied robot control theory to enable powered prosthetics to help amputees walk.
From ACM TechNews
U. Michigan Fronts Effort to Push Https Net Security
A University of Michigan research team is leading a project to provide free, automated, open, and ubiquitous website HTTPS Transport Layer Security encryption.
From ACM News
'nanobuds' Could Turn Almost Any Surface Into a Touch Sensor
Transparent films containing carbon nanobuds—molecular tubes of carbon with ball-like appendages—could turn just about any surface, regardless of its shape, into a touch sensor.
From ACM TechNews
Google Says Bye Bye, Captchas, Well, Mostly
Google recently announced it has starting phasing out its CAPTCHAs in favor of using its reCAPTCHA service.
From ACM News
On Pluto’s Doorstep, NASA's New Horizons Spacecraft Awakens for Encounter
After a voyage of nearly nine years and three billion miles—the farthest any space mission has ever traveled to reach its primary target—NASA's New Horizons spacecraft came out of hibernation Saturday for its long-awaited 2015…
From ACM News
Who Owns the Biggest Biotech Discovery of the Century?
Last month in Silicon Valley, biologists Jennifer Doudna and Emmanuelle Charpentier showed up in black gowns to receive the $3 million Breakthrough Prize, a glitzy award put on by Internet billionaires including Mark Zuckerberg…
From ACM Opinion
Baer's Odyssey: Meet the Serial Inventor Who Built the World's First Game Console
Even if you're a devoted fan of video games, there's a decent chance you're not familiar with the name Ralph H. Baer.
From ACM News
Dawn Snaps Its Best-Yet Image of Dwarf Planet Ceres
The Dawn spacecraft has delivered a glimpse of Ceres, the largest body in the main asteroid belt, in a new image taken 740,000 miles (1.2 million kilometers) from the dwarf planet.