Communications of the ACM
The news archive provides access to past news stories from Communications of the ACM and other sources by date.
February 2014
From ACM Opinion
Last Call For Bad Calls
Technology will soon make officials at high-level sports events as obsolete as elevator operators, their skill set as useful as knowing how to make a wood tennis racket.
From ACM News
Intel’s Sharp-Eyed Social Scientist
Genevieve Bell runs a skunk works of some 100 social scientists and designers who travel the globe, observing how people use technology in their homes and in public.
From ACM News
The Timekeeping Tech that Keeps the Olympics Fair
"On your marks, get set, Go!" might work to start a race on the playground but in the highest-stakes world of the Olympic games, where every thousandth of a second counts, even a gunshot isn't fast enough to accurately and fairly…
From ACM News
Avalanche Science: ncovering Snow's Deadly Secrets
Dr Alec Van Herwijnen has buried microphones under the deep snow in order to listen for avalanches.
From ACM TechNews
Liquid-Cooled Supercomputers, to Trim the Power Bill
Submerging supercomputers and servers in oil or other liquids to cool them off might offer a way to reduce their massive energy consumption.
From ACM TechNews
White House Pushes Cybersecurity Framework for Critical Infrastructure
The White House has released a new cybersecurity framework designed to help critical infrastructure operators create comprehensive cybersecurity programs.
From ACM TechNews
Keeping Women in High-Tech Fields Is Big Challenge, Report Finds
A report found U.S. women in science, technology, engineering, and math fields are 45 percent more likely than their male peers to leave the industry within a year.
From ACM TechNews
Termite-Inspired Robots Build With Bricks
Researchers have developed software that determines how autonomous robots can make specific structures by following the same set of rules.
From ACM TechNews
Scents That Are Sent: Ophone Delivers Aromas
The oPhone is a device that enables odors to be sent via Bluetooth and smartphone attachments to other oPhones around the world.
From ACM TechNews
Open Data vs. the Flood: How High-Tech Is Helping Venice Deal With High Tides
The Acqualta project in Venice, aims to engage citizens in an effort to monitor flooding in the city's canals using open data and sensor technology.
From ACM TechNews
Computer Scientist Looks For Deeper Meaning in Webcam Videos
A University of Kentucky professor is researching new ways to use computers to understand images.
From ACM Careers
How Airbus Is Debugging the A350
A few times a month, Airbus Flight Test Engineer Patrick du Ché stands up from his desk, takes off his jacket and tie, walks to the coat rack in the corner of his office, and slips into a set of fire-resistant underwear, a bright…
From ACM News
Obama's Big Plan to Protect Businesses from Cyberattack
It's been a long time coming, and some experts say it isn't enough.
From ACM News
Lampsonfest: Celebrating a Computing Legend
Yesterday, at Microsoft Research New England, colleagues were to gather to pay tribute to Butler Lampson, 1992 recipient of the ACM A.M Turing Award.
From ACM TechNews
Japan Sensor Will Let Diaper Say Baby Needs Changing
Diapers could enabled to notify parents when they need to change their baby, using a disposable organic sensor developed by University of Tokyo professors.
From ACM News
Everything We Know About How the Nsa Tracks People's Physical Location
Glenn Greenwald is back reporting about the NSA, now with Pierre Omidyar's news organization FirstLook and its introductory publication, The Intercept.
From ACM News
Medicine Gets p Close and Personal
Leroy Hood, president of the Institute for Systems Biology (ISB) in Seattle, Washington, likes to talk about what he calls P4 medicine: health care that is predictive, preventive, personalized and participatory.
From ACM Careers
Inside the Google Earth Satellite Factory
Behind a long rectangular window, in a high white room tended by ghostly figures in masks and hats, a new satellite is taking shape.
From ACM TechNews
Herding Robots
Researchers say they have developed a system that combines existing robotic control programs to enable multiagent systems to collaborate in complex ways.
From ACM TechNews
Google Encourages Developers to Create Art sing Code
Google is helping to promote a global competition to find an up-and-coming software developer artist who pushes the boundaries of art using code.
From ACM Opinion
A Peek at Google's M&a Ambitions
Don Harrison became Google's head of mergers and acquisitions about a year ago.
From ACM TechNews
Groups Step Up Efforts to Develop More Female It Workers
The National Center for Women in Technology has partnered with the Million Women Mentors to boost female participation in the technology industry.
From ACM TechNews
Sochi: Our Tweeted Emotions Decrypted in Real Time
Researchers will use social media to track the emotions of people viewing the Winter Olympics in Sochi.
From ACM TechNews
It's Erwin the Friendly Robot
A doctoral student will use a friendly robot to study how the human-robot relationship would be affected if robots have human-like thought biases.
From ACM News
Herding Robots
Writing a program to control a single autonomous robot navigating an uncertain environment with an erratic communication link is hard enough; write one for multiple robots that may or may not have to work in tandem, depending…
From ACM News
Baxter and the Second Machine Age
The Industrial Revolution of the 18th century is not just the story of steam power, but steam started it all.
From ACM News
The Growing Need to Recycle Electronics
e-Cycling allows reclamation of valuable materials, and helps prevent pollution.
From ACM News
Target's Heating and Refrigeration Company Gave Hackers the Key to Customer Data
The massive Target data breach is a symbol of the need for tighter data security in big retail chains, but it's also still an evolving story in its own right.
From ACM TechNews
Experiment Adds Sense of Touch to Artificial Hand
Swiss and Italian researchers have developed a robotic hand that enables amputees to feel differences between objects.
From ACM TechNews
Ballistic Transport in Graphene Suggests New Type of Electronic Device
Researchers have found that electrical resistance in nanoribbons of epitaxial graphene changes in discrete steps following quantum mechanical principles.