Communications of the ACM
The news archive provides access to past news stories from Communications of the ACM and other sources by date.
December 2021
From ACM TechNews
'Intelligent' Cutters for Trees to Ease Malaysia Palm Oil Labor Crunch
Malaysian precision farming solutions provider IRGA has developed a palm oil harvesting tool that could help the industry manage a chronic labor shortage.
From ACM TechNews
Trucks Catch Up in Self-Driving Vehicle Race
Some investors expect trucks to overtake cars in becoming fully autonomous and profitable, as trucks face fewer regulatory and technological barriers to deployment.
From ACM TechNews
Train-Cleaning Robots Protect Staff, Prevent Delays
Scientists at Scotland's Heriot-Watt University and University of Edinburgh have developed train-cleaning robots to shield staff against infections and prevent delays.
From ACM News
Confidential Computing Conquers Hacks
Protecting data while it is in use, rather than at rest or in flight.
From ACM News
The 'Most Serious' Security Breach Ever is Unfolding Right Now. Here's What You Need to Know
Much of the Internet, from Amazon's cloud to connected TVs, is riddled with the log4j vulnerability, and has been for years.
From ACM News
The Future of Robot Nannies
A machine can't love our children, but our children might love them.
From ACM News
What Does It Mean for AI to Understand?
It's simple enough for AI to seem to comprehend data, but devising a true test of a machine's knowledge has proved difficult.
From ACM TechNews
South Korea to Test AI-Powered Facial Recognition to Track COVID-19 Cases
South Korea in January plans launch a pilot project to track the movements of persons infected with COVID-19 and anyone with whom they had close contact
From ACM TechNews
Milestone in Quantum Computing With Error Correction
Scientists have integrated high-fidelity operations on encoded quantum data with a scalable framework for repeated data stabilization.
From ACM TechNews
DHL Doubles Robots as Humans Alone Can't Handle Holiday Crunch
DHL's supply-chain unit has doubled the number of robots it uses in the U.S. to about 1,500 ahead of the holidays, in addition to hiring 15,000 seasonal workers.
From ACM TechNews
Gunfire or Plastic Bag Popping? Trained Computer Knows the Difference
Florida Atlantic University researchers found that gunshot sound detector systems misclassified 75% of plastic bag popping sounds as gunshot sounds.
From ACM TechNews
ML Speeds Up Vehicle Routing
A new machine learning approach could speed up vehicle routing algorithms, which tend to slow down when applied to large urban datasets.
From ACM News
Killer Robots Aren't Science Fiction. A Push to Ban Them Is Growing
A U.N. conference made little headway on limiting development and use of killer robots, prompting stepped-up calls to outlaw such weapons with a new treaty.
From ACM News
AWS Goes Down for Second Time in Two Weeks, Taking Netflix With It - Again
The outage totally shut down internet connectivity in two regions of the USA
From ACM News
TikTok to Adjust Its Algorithm to Avoid Negative Reinforcement
The app says it is working to diversify the content it pushes to individual users in order to protect their mental well-being.
From ACM TechNews
How to Scare an Invasive Fish? A Menacing Robot Predator.
University of Western Australia scientists have created a robot fish to terrify the invasive mosquitofish species by mimicking its most feared predator.
From ACM TechNews
ML Flags Remedies That Might Do More Harm Than Good
Scientists designed a machine learning model to identify medical treatments that could pose greater potential danger than alternatives.
From ACM TechNews
Employers Seeking Those Skilled in Python, Java, Linux, SQL
Dice's Tech Jobs Report suggests employers are eager to hire people "who understand the core concepts of software development and project management."
From ACM TechNews
Robotic Hand Can Crush Beer Cans, Hold Eggs Without Breaking Them
Researchers at South Korea's Ajou University have built a highly dexterous robotic hand that can handle eggs gently, pour drinks, and crush aluminum cans.
From ACM News
We Invited an AI to Debate its Own Ethics
What it said was startling.
From ACM News
Waymo Says Driver Had Control of SUV That Hit a Pedestrian
California's Department of Motor Vehicles said Thursday that it has been contacted by Waymo and that the company will file a crash report within 10 days, as required.
From ACM News
See Little Robots Get Swole in This Virtual 'Gym'
The bizarre robots look like cobbled-together Tetris pieces. A new system "evolves" them to run, climb, and throw stuff better.
From ACM News
University Launches First Full Class in Virtual Reality
From ACM TechNews
Engineers Teach AI to Navigate Ocean with Minimal Energy
Artificial intelligence technology is being used to enable autonomous drones exploring the deep ocean to navigate using currents instead of fighting them.
From ACM TechNews
Human-Like Brain Helps Robot Out of Maze
A neuromorphic robot can navigate mazes using a human brain-like model.
From ACM TechNews
Tiny ML Design Alleviates Bottleneck in Memory Usage on IoT Devices
Researchers come up with a machine learning method to reduce the amount of memory required for Internet of Things devices.
From ACM TechNews
Computing Scenarios for Defusing Polarized Politics
Researchers used agent-based modeling to explore political polarization in the U.S. and possible preventive approaches.
From ACM News
Xerox to Announce Multiyear Cloud Deal With Oracle
Xerox will use Oracle's cloud-computing infrastructure and software as a digital backbone for a swathe of ventures being developed in its business incubator.
From ACM News
What Is Web3 and Why Should You Care?
The next Internet revolution is upon us—here's why it matters.
From ACM TechNews
'Black Box' to Chronicle Ravages of Climate Change
Australia is building "Earth's Black Box," a reportedly indestructible steel structure containing a real-time archive of climate change news and research.