Communications of the ACM
The news archive provides access to past news stories from Communications of the ACM and other sources by date.
December 2017
From ACM TechNews
Improving Traffic--By Tailgating Less
Researchers have shown that there would be fewer traffic jams if drivers would stop tailgating.
From ACM TechNews
AI Insights Could Help Reduce Injuries in Construction Industry
Researchers are using artificial intelligence to gain new insights into ways to help reduce wear-and-tear injuries and boost the productivity of construction workers.
From ACM TechNews
How Do You Spot a Russian Bot? Answer Goes Beyond Kremlin Watching
Researchers have isolated the characteristics of bots on Twitter by studying bot activity related to Russian political discussions.
From ACM News
Crispr in 2018: Coming to a Human Near You
Ever since scientists first used CRISPR-Cas9 to edit living human cells in 2013, they've been saying that the possibilities for using it to treat disease are virtually endless.
From ACM News
'oumuamua Probably Isn't a Spaceship, But It Could Have Passengers
Last Wednesday, at 3:45 pm, scientists from the Breakthrough Listen project trained the Green Bank Telescope in West Virginia on 'Oumuamua—the mysterious, oblong space-rock which last month became the first known object to enter…
From ACM News
The Rise of Spintronics
A technology that could supplant standard silicon transistors as Moore's Law approaches its physical limits is based on devices that work by manipulating the spin of electrons.
From ACM News
Evolutionary Programming Converts Darwinism Into Algorithms
Evolutionary computation strategies include a multitude of biologically inspired algorithms for optimizing problems, often those with too many variables to compare all possible scenarios.
From ACM TechNews
Single-Photon Detector Can Count to Four
Researchers have demonstrated that a widely used method of detecting single photons can also count the presence of at least four photons at a time.
From ACM TechNews
Your Smartphone's Next Trick? Fighting Cybercrime
Researchers have identified smartphones by examining a single photo taken by the device, opening up the possibility of using smartphones to deter cybercrime.
From ACM TechNews
Wpi and conn Researchers Create an App to Predict and Intervene in sers' Overeating
SlipBuddy is a smartphone application designed to help users manage their overeating by tracking eating patterns, providing interventions, and helping change behavior.
From ACM News
Could Bitcoin Technology Help Science?
The much-hyped technology behind Bitcoin, known as blockchain, has intoxicated investors around the world and is now making tentative inroads into science, spurred by broad promises that it can transform key elements of the research…
From ACM News
AI Tutoring: Genius on My Shoulder
Students are being given access to an incredibly smart digital friend with unlimited patience, programmed to sense the best way to impart knowledge.
From ACM News
Artificial Intelligence, Nasa Data sed to Discover Eighth Planet Circling Distant Star
Our solar system now is tied for most number of planets around a single star, with the recent discovery of an eighth planet circling Kepler-90, a Sun-like star 2,545 light years from Earth. The planet was discovered in data from…
From ACM TechNews
Error-Free Into the Quantum Computer Age
Researchers at Swansea University in Wales, U.K., led an international team in demonstrating that conventional ion-trap technologies are suitable for building large-scale quantum computers.
From ACM TechNews
Aus Students Develop Device to Reduce Car Mishaps
Researchers have designed and developed a smart system to lower the rate of car accidents.
From ACM TechNews
The Hard Math Behind Bitcoin's Global Warming Problem
A recent report calculated that the global electricity consumption of bitcoin mining would exceed that of the U.S. by July 2019, and of the entire world by November 2020.
From ACM TechNews
Researchers se Wwii Code-Breaking Techniques to Interpret Brain Data
Researchers have applied cryptanalysis methods dating from the second World War to decode motor neuron activity and interpret brain data in monkeys.
From ACM TechNews
Engineers Program Tiny Robots to Move, Think Like Insects
Researchers are studying a new type of programming that mimics an insect's brain functions.
From ACM Careers
Stealth Turns 40: Looking Back at the First Flight of Have Blue
On December 1, 1977, a truly strange bird took flight for the first time in the skies over a desolate corner of Nevada.
From ACM News
The Evolution of Trust in a Digital Economy
To participate in today's global economy, ordinary people must accept an asymmetrical bargain: their lives are transparent to states, banks and corporations, whereas the behavior and inner workings of the powerful actors are …
From ACM News
Sierras Lost Water Weight, Grew Taller During Drought
Loss of water from the rocks of California's Sierra Nevada caused the mountain range to rise nearly an inch (24 millimeters) in height during the drought years from October 2011 to October 2015, a new NASA study finds.
From ACM TechNews
How to Find the Truth on Twitter
Researchers have developed a framework to evaluate whether an event reported on Twitter is a likely witness account.
From ACM TechNews
Artificial Intelligence Is Killing the Uncanny Valley and Our Grasp on Reality
As deep-learning artificial intelligence technologies advance, the "Uncanny Valley"--the unease people feel toward realistic computer-generated humans--is beginning to abate.
From ACM TechNews
Social Media Trends Can Predict Tipping Points in Vaccine Scares
Researchers at the University of Waterloo in Canada found analyzing trends on Twitter and Google helped predict vaccine scares.
From ACM TechNews
People Don't Trust Driverless Cars. Researchers Are Trying to Change That
Industrial and academic researchers are attempting to overcome consumers' distrust of autonomous vehicles.
From ACM TechNews
Is Peer Review Fair When It Is Not Blinded?
Researchers found that when reviewers know who did the work on a paper and where, it shaped their judgment.
From ACM News
How the Loss of Net Neutrality Could Change the Internet
The repeal of net neutrality ushers in a new chapter of the internet that could eventually transform the way Americans communicate, shop and consume information online.
From ACM News
Unprecedented Malware Targets Industrial Safety Systems in the Middle East
Since Stuxnet first targeted and destroyed uranium enrichment centrifuges in Iran last decade, the cybersecurity world has waited for the next step in that digital arms race: Another piece of malicious software designed specifically…
From ACM News
Bright Areas on Ceres Suggest Geologic Activity
If you could fly aboard NASA's Dawn spacecraft, the surface of dwarf planet Ceres would generally look quite dark, but with notable exceptions.
From ACM TechNews
New Nist Forensic Tests Help Ensure High-Quality Copies of Digital Evidence
The U.S. National Institute of Standards and Technology has developed a set of software tools designed to ensure digital evidence holds up in court.