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
Protecting Users' Private Data While They Browse
The SugarCoat tool can protect users' private data while they browse the Web.
From ACM TechNews
Robot Plays Table Tennis After 90 Minutes of Training
Researchers developed a computer simulation that taught a virtual robot arm outfitted with a table tennis racket how to return virtual ping pong balls.
From ACM TechNews
Group Backed by Top Companies Moves to Combat AI Bias in Hiring
Major employers in a variety of industries have signed up with the Data & Trust Alliance in an effort to prevent bias in artificial intelligence software used for hiring.
From ACM News
Cornell University Reports More Than 900 Covid-19 Cases This Week
Many are Omicron variant cases in fully vaccinated students.
From ACM News
Amazon Shutting Down One of the Oldest Staples on the Internet
The ecommerce giant is closing down Alexa.com, an online service that the vast majority of Amazon customers are likely unaware even existed.
From ACM News
Homeland Security Offers Hackers a Bounty to Find Bugs
Such programs pay hackers to find vulnerabilities in networks
From ACM News
Reddit-trained AI Warns Researchers About...Itself
"AI will never be ethical," argued the Megatron-Turing Natural Language Generation model.
From ACM TechNews
Machines That See the World More Like Humans Do
The 3D Scene Perception via Probabilistic Programming system helps machines perceive the world in a more human-like manner.
From ACM TechNews
Google, Microsoft Have Your Mail, Mostly
Computer scientists studying email service providers found high levels of concentration.
From ACM TechNews
World's Biggest Traders Betting on Blockchain Data
The Pyth blockchain-based technology service aims to provide data for diverse cryptocurrency projects in real time.
From ACM News
Quenching the Flames: AI, Data Help Fight Global Wildfires
New technologies are being deployed to predict, monitor, and fight wildfires as their frequency and ferocity grow.
From ACM News
Telehealth Became a Lifeline for Older Americans. But It Still Has Glitches
Medicare has extended coverage of remote health care. While telehealth removed barriers to care for many during the pandemic, some say there is more to be done.
From ACM News
This Robot Looks Like a Pancake, Jumps Like a Maggot
Researchers designed a soft, legless robot that can hop and navigate obstacle courses.
From ACM TechNews
Software Flaw Sparks Global Race to Patch Bug
Companies and governments scrambled this past weekend to patch a major bug in a piece of popular Internet software that security experts warned could grant hackers access to networks.
From ACM TechNews
Research Brings Analog Computers One Step from Digital
A new processing-in-memory (PIM) circuit adds neural network flexibility to PIM computing.
From ACM TechNews
Your Face Is, or Will Be, Your Boarding Pass
Many biometric identification innovations use facial recognition.
From ACM TechNews
Robots Gathering to Help Beat Britain's Supply-Chain Shortages
Robotic logistics is helping to mitigate labor shortages and other supply-chain disruptions in the U.K.
From ACM News
The Movement to Hold AI Accountable Gains More Steam
A New York City law requires algorithms used in hiring to be "audited" for bias. It's the first in the US—and part of a larger push toward regulation.
From ACM News
How to Understand the Data Explosion
The world is set to generate an astronomical amount of digital information. To get a handle on it, start with a grain of rice.
From ACM News
Winning the War on Ransomware
The DoJ's task force is changing the landscape around hackers, but will it be enough?
From ACM News
The Head of the CIA Says It's Been Doing Mysterious Cryptocurrency Work
Naturally, rumors are spreading about the origins of Bitcoin.
From ACM TechNews
Wildfire Dataset Helps Firefighters Save Lives, Property
Scientists have built the WildfireDB dataset for simulating the spread of wildfires to help study wildfires and guide emergency response and evacuations.
From ACM TechNews
Generating a Realistic 3D World
Researchers developed the ThreeDWorld platform to simulate high-fidelity audio and visual environments.
From ACM TechNews
World's Largest Lab-Grown Steak Unveiled by Israeli Firm
Researchers at the Israeli firm MeaTech 3D said they have grown a 4-ounce steak in a lab, the largest produced thus far.
From ACM TechNews
Australia's AI Cameras Catch Over 270,000 Drivers Using Phones
Artificial intelligence-equipped cameras have spotted more than 270,000 drivers using phones while driving in New South Wales, Australia, since March 2020.
From ACM News
Protection from DDoS Attacks – And Why It Is Useless
In this piece, we'll use a plain example to illustrate the existing types of DDoS attacks, and how businesses try to fend them off.
From ACM News
DeepMind AI Helps Study Strange Electrons in Chemical Reactions
Strange fractional electrons are crucial to many chemical reactions, but traditional methods cannot model them, a problem DeepMind used machine learning to fix.
From ACM News
America Needs AI Literacy Now
Seventy percent of study participants believe AI is a single program that can perform a broad range of tasks, like autocompleting sentences.
From ACM News
Building Human-Robot Relationships Through Music and Dance
A performance called FOREST is exploring trust through creative collaboration.
From ACM News
Renewable Energy Is Great—but the Grid Can Slow It Down
Many solar and wind projects face a problem: getting the energy from where it's made to where it's needed.