Communications of the ACM
The news archive provides access to past news stories from Communications of the ACM and other sources by date.
February 2017
From ACM News
Long-Awaited Mathematics Proof Could Help Scan Earth's Innards
Mathematicians say that they have solved a major, decades-old problem in geometry: how to reconstruct the inner structure of a mystery object 'X' from knowing only how fast waves travel between any two points on its boundar
From ACM News
We Finally Have a Computer that Can Survive the Surface of Venus
Venus is one of the most inhospitable places in the solar system.
From ACM News
Nasa, Uci Reveal New Details of Greenland Ice Loss
Less than a year after the first research flight kicked off NASA's Oceans Melting Greenland campaign last March, data from the new program are providing a dramatic increase in knowledge of how Greenland's ice sheet is melting…
From ACM News
A Healthy Approach?
A new wave of consumer-centric connected fitness and health-related devices is changing healthcare.
From ACM TechNews
Stanford's Women in Data Science Conference Reaches Worldwide Audience
The second annual Women in Data Science conference, held last week at Stanford University in California by the Institute for Computational and Mathematical Engineering, attracted a global audience.
From ACM TechNews
Pioneering Chip Extends Sensors' Battery Life
Engineers have developed an inexpensive, ultra-low-power computer chip that can extend the battery life of sensors.
From ACM TechNews
Being Black in Tech Can Cost You $10k a Year
African-American technology workers receive an average $10,000 less annually than whites in New York and San Francisco, according to a survey from the Hired online job marketplace.
From ACM TechNews
Internet 'playground' Trials New Tech to Deliver Smart Cities
Researchers at the University of Bristol in the U.K. are working on the Initiate project, which aims to set up an "Internet playground" to test new kinds of Internet infrastructure on a national scale.
From ACM TechNews
Kingston niversity to Explore How Drones, Smart Wristbands, and Cameras Could Transform Future of Concert Security
Researchers will investigate how networked drones, smart wristbands, and body-mounted video cameras could enhance concert security.
From ACM Opinion
The AI Threat Isn't Skynet. It's the End of the Middle Class
In February 1975, a group of geneticists gathered in a tiny town on the central coast of California to decide if their work would bring about the end of the world.
From ACM News
This Technology Could Finally Make Brain Implants Practical
In labs testing how brain implants could help people with physical disabilities, tales of success can be bittersweet.
From ACM News
Trick of Tweet: Data Tool Pinpoints Words Seen as Credible
Sixty-two percent of Americans get their news from social media, according to a 2016 poll by Pew Research Center.
From ACM News
Blind People 'see' Microscope Images Using Touch-Feedback Device
From ACM News
Why the Earth's Magnetic Poles Could Be About to Swap Places, and How It Would Affect us
The Earth's magnetic field surrounds our planet like an invisible force field, protecting life from harmful solar radiation by deflecting charged particles away.
From ACM News
Information Paradox and Black Holes in Plasmas
Black holes are a problem for physics, and the physics community has never fully warmed to the idea of them.
From ACM TechNews
Terahertz Wireless Could Make Spaceborne Satellite Links as Fast as Fiber-Optic Links
Researchers in Japan have developed a terahertz transmitter that can transmit digital data at a rate exceeding 100 Gbps over a single channel using the 300-GHz band.
From ACM TechNews
Mathematically Optimizing Traffic Lights in Road Intersections
A team of researchers is addressing the challenge of computing optimal traffic light settings for city road intersections by applying traffic flow conservation laws on networks.
From ACM TechNews
Stanford Research Shows That Anyone Can Become an Internet Troll
Researchers have investigated whether Internet trolls are innately sociopathic or combative individuals, or if situational factors can influence ordinary people to act like trolls.
From ACM TechNews
Voice-Checking Device Stops Hackers Hijacking Your Siri or Alexa
A wearable device under development at the University of Michigan provides continuous authentication for voice assistants such as Apple's Siri or Amazon's Alexa.
From ACM TechNews
Chinese Firms Racing to the Front of the AI Revolution
Chinese companies are outpacing U.S. firms in the development of artificial intelligence technologies, according to reports from the U.S. government and others.
From ACM News
NASA's Curiosity Rover Sharpens Paradox of Ancient Mars
Mars scientists are wrestling with a problem.
From ACM News
Google Brain Super-Resolution Image Tech Makes 'zoom, Enhance!' Real
Google Brain has devised some new software that can create detailed images from tiny, pixelated source images. Google's software, in short, basically means the "zoom in... now enhance!" TV trope is actually possible.
From ACM News
Poker-Playing AI Beats Top Human Players
Developers at Carnegie Mellon University create an artificial intelligence that learns, wins.
From ACM News
How Plants Evolved Into Carnivores
Any insect unlucky enough to land on the mouth-like leaves of an Australian pitcher plant will meet a grisly end.
From ACM News
150-Year Journey to Alpha Centauri Proposed
Interstellar travel, a timeworn staple of science fiction, can already be science fact if one has cash to spare
From ACM TechNews
Su Professors Receive Air Force Grant to Research Complex Datasets
Syracuse University researchers have received a grant from the U.S. Air Force Office of Scientific Research to build a distributed graphics processing unit-accelerated platform that can process large datasets.
From ACM TechNews
Blind People 'see' Microscope Images Using Touch-Feedback Device
Purdue University researchers have developed a system that uses a haptic device to let people interpret visual information using their hands.
From ACM TechNews
Turbocharging Science
The National Center for Atmospheric Research has commenced operations of the new Cheyenne supercomputer, one of the world's most powerful and energy-efficient systems.
From ACM News
New Algorithms May Revolutionize Drug Discoveries—and Our Understanding of Life
From ACM News
Rolf Noskwith Obituary
A member of the Bletchley Park team breaking the German navy’s Enigma ciphers during the second World War.