Communications of the ACM
The news archive provides access to past news stories from Communications of the ACM and other sources by date.
February 2013
From ACM TechNews
Does Gestural Computing Break Fitts' Law?
In an interview, Francisco Inchauste, a senior user experience designer for Universal Mind, discusses whether Fitts' Law is still relevant in a post-graphical user interface (GUI) world. Fitts' Law, the foundational principle…
From ACM TechNews
Researchers Create 'building Block' of Quantum Networks
A group of U.S. researchers have constructed a proof-of-concept device that could clear a path for on-chip optical quantum networks by combining a single nitrogen-vacancy center in diamond with an optical resonator and an optical…
From ACM TechNews
New Modeling Approach Transforms Imaging Technologies
Purdue University researchers have developed model-based iterative reconstruction (MBIR), an approach that can improve the performance of technologies using a system of models to extract specific information from huge collections…
From ACM TechNews
Study Uses Grins and Frowns to Predict Online Game Hits
Researchers at Academia Sinica's Institute of Information Science have developed a method for predicting an online game's success by studying gamers' initial emotional response. The researchers analyzed the movements of gamers'…
From ACM TechNews
Android Paternity Test App Developed By c Irvine Computer Scientists
University of California, Irvine researchers have developed GenoDroid, a genomic application that conducts real-time paternity tests and could be used in personalized medicine. GenoDroid relies on encryption techniques to preserve…
From ACM News
Will We Ever Simulate the Human Brain?
For years, Henry Markram has claimed that he can simulate the human brain in a computer within a decade. On 23 January 2013, the European Commission told him to prove it.
From ACM News
Rat-Size Ancestor Said to Link Man and Beast
Humankind's common ancestor with other mammals may have been a roughly rat-size animal that weighed no more than a half a pound, had a long furry tail and lived on insects.
From ACM News
Self-Driving Cars More Jetsons Than Reality for Google Designers
Google Inc. sees self-driving cars being available to consumers in three to five years. Regulators and the insurance industry aren't so sure it can happen that quickly.
From ACM Careers
NASA's 'Crazy' Robot Lab
It's three in the afternoon, and in their NASA lab in Silicon Valley, California, two engineers are playing with a toy designed for toddlers.
From ACM TechNews
sing Twitter to Predict the Influence of Lifestyle on Health
University of Rochester researchers have used Twitter to model how factors such as social status, exposure to pollution, and interpersonal interaction can influence health. The technology enables researchers to passively monitor…
From ACM TechNews
Faster Video Streaming
Researchers at the Fraunhofer Institute for Telecommunications' Heinrich Hertz Institute (HHI) are developing new types of data transfer that enable networks to handle huge amounts of data. "We are combining the new LTE mobile…
From ACM TechNews
Internet Blackout in the U.s. a Near Impossibility
An Internet blackout in the United States is all but impossible due to its variety of Internet service providers and access channels, says Renesys, which rated countries based on their risk of Internet disconnection. The countries…
From ACM TechNews
White House Seeks Tech Innovation Fellows
The White House's Presidential Innovation Fellows program, launched last May, is broadening its efforts to recruit key private sector employees to work for a limited time on high-impact federal IT projects. The program needs…
From ACM News
Amateur Effort Finds New Largest Prime Number
The Great Internet Mersenne Prime Search (GIMPS) project has scored its 14th consecutive victory, discovering the largest prime number so far.
From ACM TechNews
Researchers Push the Boundaries of Virtual Reality
University of Texas at Dallas (UT Dallas) researchers have developed virtual reality technology that creates an environment that interacts with users' sense of sight, hearing, and touch. They are developing a multimedia system…
From ACM Careers
Which iPhone App May Get You Into Stanford? The One You Make
Standing out from the crowd of applicants vying to get into Stanford University's Computer Science undergraduate program is no easy task.
From ACM Opinion
Invisible Fences
When European farmers arrived in North America, they claimed it with fences.
From ACM News
A Tiny Computer Attracts a Million Tinkerers
Raspberry Pi may sound like the name of a math-based dessert. But it is actually one of the hottest and cheapest little computers in the world right now.
From ACM Opinion
nseen, All-Out Cyber War on the .s. Has Begun
There's a war going on, and it's raging here at home—not in the streets or the fields, but on the Internet.
From ACM News
These Machines Will Be Able to Detect Smells Your Own Nose Cannot
Admittedly, it's a little hard to imagine smell scientists, but research published last week has those who study the sense of smell taking sides.
From ACM News
Smartphone Sensors Reveal Security Secrets
Data captured by smartphone sensors could help criminals guess codes used to lock the gadgets, say security researchers.
From ACM TechNews
Force-Feedback For Smartphones Tilts Game-Playing Field
Researchers in Germany are working on force-feedback technology with gamers in mind. Called muscle propelled force feedback, the system does not have any motors, which means the device can be miniaturized as an add-on for smartphones…
From ACM TechNews
Doctoral Student Designs Microphones That Monitor Road Traffic
Ecole Polytechnique Federale de Lausanne doctoral student Patrick Marmaroli has created an automatic road traffic sensor based on dual microphones that pick up the sound of tires on pavement to assess traffic volume as well as…
From ACM TechNews
MIT Researchers Improve Quantum-Dot Performance
Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) researchers have developed a process that produces quantum dots that are uniform in size and shape, give off bright emissions, discharge a very narrow peak of emissions, and eliminate…
From ACM TechNews
Security Protocol For Online Banking, Facebook Has 'serious Weaknesses'
Royal Holloway, University of LondonA man-in-the-middle attack against the Transport Layer Security (TLS) protocol can be used to intercept sensitive personal data. A flaw in the way the protocol terminates TLS sessions leaks…
From ACM Opinion
Phreaks and Geeks
One of the most heartfelt—and unexpected—remembrances of Aaron Swartz, who committed suicide last month at the age of 26, came from Yale professor Edward Tufte.
From ACM News
Broad Powers Seen For Obama in Cyberstrikes
A secret legal review on the use of America's growing arsenal of cyberweapons has concluded that President Obama has the broad power to order a pre-emptive strike if the United States detects credible evidence of a major digital…
From ACM News
Drone Boosters Say Farmers, Not Cops, Are the Biggest .s. Robot Market
When the flying robots that loiter in Afghanistan's and Yemen's airspace come home, they won't just be headed for the local police station.
From ACM TechNews
How to Build a Nanotube Computer
IBM researchers have assembled 10,000 carbon nanotube transistors on a silicon chip, which they say is a breakthrough that could lead to a new way of producing smaller, faster, and more efficient computers. Previous IBM research…
From ACM TechNews
Mind-Meld Brain Power Is Best For Steering Spaceships
University of Essex researchers have developed a simulator in which pairs of brain-computer interface (BCI) users had to steer a craft toward the exact center of a planet by thinking about one of eight directions. Brain signals…