Communications of the ACM
The news archive provides access to past news stories from Communications of the ACM and other sources by date.
February 2016
From ACM Opinion
Your Next New Best Friend Might Be a Robot
One night in late July 2014, a journalist from the Chinese newspaper Southern Weeklyinterviewed a 17-year-old Chinese girl named Xiaoice (pronounced Shao-ice).
From ACM News
Study: Long-Term Global Warming Needs External Drivers
A study by scientists at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, and Duke University in Durham, North Carolina, shows, in detail, the reason why global temperatures remain stable in the long run unless they…
From ACM News
New Ways Into the Brain's 'music Room'
Whether to enliven a commute, relax in the evening or drown out the buzz of a neighbor's recreational drone, Americans listen to music nearly four hours a day.
From ACM TechNews
Developing Accessible Apps For Secure Mobile Banking
The University of Washington's Computer Science and Engineering Department is working to provide the developing world with some basic financial instruments.
From ACM TechNews
Scientist Creates AI Algorithm to Monitor Machinery Health
Researchers have developed an algorithm which they say greatly increases accuracy in diagnosing the health of complex mechanical systems.
From ACM TechNews
Pic-Scanning AI Estimates City Air Pollution From Mass of Photos
A research team at Nanyang Technological University in Singapore has designed an application to estimate air quality by analyzing a large number of photos of a city.
From ACM News
The Research Pirates of the Dark Web
There's a battle raging over whether academic research should be free, and it’s overflowing into the dark web.
From ACM News
A Decade of ACM Efforts Contribute To Computer Science For All Initiative
Obama’s Computer Science for All initiative "represents the culmination of more than a decade of effort initiated by the ACM."
From ACM News
An Icky New Hero: Roach-Like Robots May Help in Disasters
When buildings collapse in future disasters, the hero helping rescue trapped people may be a robotic cockroach.
From ACM News
Daily Dozen: 12 Questions For Vint Cerf, “father of the Internet”
In the latest Daily Dozen, Gina Smith reconnects with Google vice president and original Internet pioneer Vint Cerf. Here’s what he had to say about Internet security, critical thinking, and too much email.
From ACM News
Nasa's James Webb Space Telescope Primary Mirror Fully Assembled
The 18th and final primary mirror segment is installed on what will be the biggest and most powerful space telescope ever launched.
From ACM News
How the British and Americans Started Listening In
It was late on 8 February 1941 when four Americans arrived at Bletchley Park.
From ACM News
Gps and the World's First 'space War'
Twenty-five years ago U.S.-led Coalition forces launched the world’s first "space war" when they drove Iraqi troops out of Kuwait.
From ACM TechNews
Researchers Index Dark Web, Find Most of It Contains Illegal Material
King's College London researchers recently conducted a study to discover how much of Tor is devoted to illegal content.
From ACM TechNews
Senior Citizens May Accept Robot Helpers, but Fear Robot Masters
Research on senior citizens indicates they would likely accept robots as helpers and entertainment providers, but worry about giving up too much control to them.
From ACM TechNews
'on-Ramping' Paves the Way For Women Scientists, Engineers to Return to Academia
Researchers interviewed 10 women who successfully transitioned into university faculty after working as corporate scientists or industry or government researchers.
From ACM TechNews
'social Ai' Lets Mario and Luigi Learn How to Save the Princess on Their Own
A new development in artificial intelligence harnesses the power of social interactions to learn more about the world.
From ACM TechNews
Smart Thermostat Puts Energy Money Saving at Household Fingertips
University of Southampton researchers have developed a prototype "smart" thermostat that lets users control their heating on a cost basis, rather than by temperature alone.
From ACM TechNews
Why We Won't Trust Robot Cars Until They Drive Just Like US
Eight separate research projects into autonomous vehicles will receive financial support from the U.K. government.
From ACM TechNews
Project Embeds Computer Science Lessons in Math Instruction For K-5 Students
The U.S. National Science Foundation is funding an initiative to integrate computing with elementary school mathematics.
From ACM News
Google Deepmind AI Navigates a Doom-Like 3D Maze Just By Looking
Google DeepMind just entered the 90s. Fresh off their success in playing the ancient game of Go, DeepMind’s latest artificial intelligence can navigate a 3D maze reminiscent of the 1993 shooter game Doom.
From ACM News
Better Brain Imaging Could Show Computers a Smarter Way to Learn
Machine learning is an extremely clever approach to computer programming.
From ACM News
Showdown in Europe Over Privacy Has .s. Firms Ducking For Cover
The free flow of data across the Atlantic, the lifeblood of modern business dealings, faces an uncertain future, despite a belated, high-level deal between European and U.S. officials this week.
From ACM News
How to Get Online in Cuba
Every afternoon, crowds of Cubans gather outside Havana's top hotels—mob boss Meyer Lansky's favorite Nacional de Cuba, Ernest Hemingway's old haunt Ambos Mundos, and the Habana Libre (the former Hilton, which served as Fidel…
From ACM TechNews
Virtual City Walkthroughs Help to Find Pedestrian Death Traps
Columbia University researchers are using home-built software to examine Google Street View images to identify locations in New York City where pedestrians are at risk.
From ACM TechNews
World's First Single-Atom Optical Switch Fabricated
Researchers from ETH Zurich Switzerland have fabricated the world's first single-atom optical switch.
From ACM TechNews
Software Adapts Speech to Ambient Noise Level
Fraunhofer Institute for Digital Media Technology researchers have developed software that significantly improves the intelligibility of speech.
From ACM TechNews
Robotic Fingers With a Gentle Touch
Researchers at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Lausanne have developed a soft robotic gripper that can bend and pick up delicate objects using electroadhesion.
From ACM TechNews
Hack-Proof Rfid Chips
Researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Texas Instruments have developed a virtually hack-proof radio-frequency identification chip.
From ACM News
Europe's Top Court Mulls Legality of Hyperlinks to Copyrighted Content
Europe's highest court is considering whether every hyperlink in a Web page should be checked for potentially linking to material that infringes copyright, before it can be used.