Communications of the ACM
The news archive provides access to past news stories from Communications of the ACM and other sources by date.
February 2018
From ACM News
The Increasing Familiarity of Cryptocurrencies
More and more businesses are accepting cryptocurrencies as payment; here's why.
From ACM News
Deluge of Astronomical Data Will Soon Hit South Africa
Data scientists in South Africa are readying themselves for a flood of information that is due to crash over them when the country's biggest radio telescope doubles the scale of its operations in March.
From ACM News
The Olympics' Never-Ending Struggle to Keep Track of Time
At precisely three minutes and thirty seconds before two o'clock on the afternoon of Friday, April 10, 1896, on a bridge in the Greek town of Marathon, an army officer named Papadiamantopoulos fired a revolver into the air and…
From ACM Opinion
Blockchain Explained: It Builds Trust When You Need It Most
These days, we're having a harder and harder time trusting each other.
From ACM TechNews
N Calls for Smashing Stereotypes
United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres has cited the need to support and invest in women and girls who want to pursue careers in scientific research.
From ACM TechNews
Improving Drone Performance in Headwinds
Researchers have found that angling the rotor blades of a quad-rotor unmanned aerial vehicle can reduce pitching when attempting to fly into headwinds.
From ACM TechNews
The Robots Will See You Now
Researchers used advanced real-time tracking software and robotics to design and test the first closed-loop control system featuring a bioinspired robotic replica interacting in three dimensions with live zebrafish.
From ACM TechNews
Come Meet ZJ's Robot Dog 'Jueying'
Jueying is a quadruped robot dog that can run up a steep slope, walk on thick snow, and regain its balance after receiving a heavy blow.
From ACM News
Mr. Robot
Geoffrey Hinton spent 30 years hammering away at an idea most other scientists dismissed as nonsense. Then, one day in 2012, he was proven right.
From ACM News
How Quantum Dots Supercharge Farming, Medicine and Solar, Too
What if you could grow vegetables in half the time? What if a surgeon could see cancerous cells throughout an entire operation? What if solar panels could become significantly cheaper and easier to make?
From ACM News
Early Facebook, Google Employees Form Coalition to Fight What They Built
The cohort is creating a union of concerned experts called the Center for Humane Technology.
From ACM News
China: Police sing Facial-Recognition Sunglasses
The Chinese government is equipping its police with real-time facial-recognition sunglasses to instantly locate criminals in crowds.
From ACM TechNews
Center for Machine Intelligence Launched to Help Build a Smarter and Safer Society
The University of Southampton in the U.K. recently launched the Center for Machine Intelligence.
From ACM TechNews
Social Robot Developed at NSW Set to Revolutionize Workplace Experience
Researchers have developed a social robot to promote creativity and collaboration in the workplace.
From ACM TechNews
Where's the Bear?
Researchers are using machine learning to identify and classify wildlife caught on camera.
From ACM TechNews
Online Sites Fight Back Against Blocked Ads
Researchers recently examined the anti-ad blocking environment and what can be done to improve it.
From ACM TechNews
Researchers Take Terahertz Data Links Around the Bend
A recent study demonstrated terahertz frequency data links can bounce around a room without losing too much data, which could make terahertz wireless data networks more feasible.
From ACM News
How Nuclear Weapons Research Revealed New Climate Threats
After atmospheric scientist Ivana Cvijanovic began pushing a computerized climate simulation to its limits, she noticed a disturbing result: as Arctic sea ice nearly disappeared, massive high-pressure systems built up thousands…
From ACM News
Winter Olympics’ Security on Alert, but Hackers Have a Head Start
More than 300 Olympics-related computer systems have already been hit, with many of them compromised.
From ACM News
Mind the Gap: This Researcher Steals Data With Noise, Light, and Magnets
The field of cybersecurity is obsessed with preventing and detecting breaches, finding every possible strategy to keep hackers from infiltrating your digital inner sanctum.
From ACM News
NASA Tests Atomic Clock For Deep Space Navigation
In deep space, accurate timekeeping is vital to navigation, but many spacecraft lack precise timepieces on board.
From ACM TechNews
App Translates Lectures Into Text
Researchers at the University at Buffalo have developed Lecture Buddy, a smartphone application that translates lectures into text using a continuous speech recognition program.
From ACM TechNews
Clemson Researchers Blaze New Ground in Wireless Energy Generation For Future Electronic Gadgets
Researchers at Clemson University have developed the ultra-simple tirboelectric nanogenerator (U-TENG) designed to take mechanical motion and transform it into electricity.
From ACM TechNews
Drones That Smash Into Obstacles Can Be a Good and seful Thing
Researchers at the University of Pennsylvania are working on small aerial drones that purposefully collide with obstacles and then move on to perform various functions.
From ACM TechNews
Controlling Quantum Interactions In a Single Material
An international team led by Northwestern University professor James Rondinelli has demonstrated the coexistence of multiple quantum interactions in a single material, and a means of controlling them via an electric field.
From ACM News
EFF Founder and Internet Activist John Perry Barlow Has Died
John Perry Barlow has one of those resumes that seems too surreal to be true: poet turned Grateful Dead lyricist; lifelong activist; columnist for Communications of the ACM; co-founder of the Electronic Frontier Foundation—arguably…
From ACM News
Inside North Korea's Hacker Army
In most respects, Jong Hyok looks like any other middle-aged male tech worker you might see on the skyscraper-shadowed streets of Seoul's Gangnam district: smartphone in hand, dark-blue winter coat over a casual, open-collared…
From ACM News
Can Computers Learn Like Humans?
The world of artificial intelligence has exploded in recent years. Computers armed with AI do everything from drive cars to pick movies you'll probably like.
From ACM TechNews
Army Researchers Develop New Algorithms to Train Robots
Researchers at the U.S. Army Research Laboratory and the University of Texas at Austin have developed new methods for robots or computer programs to learn how to perform tasks by interacting with a human instructor.
From ACM News
AI Just Learned How to Boost the Brain's Memory
When it comes to black boxes, there is none more black than the human brain. Our gray matter is so complex, scientists lament, that it can't quite understand itself.