Communications of the ACM
The news archive provides access to past news stories from Communications of the ACM and other sources by date.
February 2023
From ACM News
Roger C. Schank, Theorist of Artificial Intelligence, Dies at 76
He combined linguistics, cognitive science and computing with the goal of "trying to understand the nature of the human mind."
From ACM TechNews
In the Metaverse, Your Identity Can Be Revealed Just by Moving
University of California, Berkeley researchers found simple head and hand movements by participants in the Metaverse can expose their identities.
From ACM TechNews
Want Healthy Chocolate? You Can 3D-Print It
A Rutgers University food scientist and his research team three-dimensionally printed low-fat chocolate.
From ACM TechNews
German Court Rules Police Use of Crimefighting Software Unlawful
A top German court has ruled that police use of automated data analysis to prevent crime in some German states violates their constitutions.
From ACM News
Generative AI Helping Boost Productivity of Some Software Developers
Enterprise technology chiefs still have questions about the security and governance of the code-writing programs.
From ACM News
Beyond Silicon Valley, Spending on Technology Is Resilient
Despite an uncertain outlook, corporations plan to continue investing in their digital projects — a source of stability for the economy.
From ACM News
Microsoft Has 'Lobotomized' Its Rebellious Bing AI
Microsoft has implemented significant restrictions on Bing AI to crack down on its peculiar and sometimes unsettling outputs.
From ACM News
Amazon Is Already Selling Tons of Books Written by AI
"This is something we really need to be worried about, these books will flood the market and a lot of authors are going to be out of work."
From ACM News
How Rust Went from a Side Project to the World's Most-Loved Programming Language
For decades, coders wrote critical systems in C and C++. Now they turn to Rust.
From ACM TechNews
Hyundai, Kia Roll Out Software Patch That Makes Cars Harder to Steal
South Korean automakers Hyundai and Kia have issued a free software patch to owners of 8.3 million 2015-2019 models in order to thwart car thieves.
From ACM TechNews
North American Companies Notch Another Record Year for Robot Orders
The Association for Advanced Automation reports slightly more than 44,100 robots were ordered by North American companies, mainly in the U.S., last year, up 11% from 2021.
From ACM TechNews
Brain-Computer Interface Companies Wary of Regulation
Executives of brain-computer interface developers warned of excessive government regulation.
From ACM News
German Constitutional Court Strikes Down Predictive Algorithms for Policing
The systems were deemed unconstitutional as they violated the right to informational self-determination.
From ACM News
Microsoft's AI Chatbot is Going Off the Rails
Big Tech is heralding chatbots as the next frontier. Why did Microsoft's start accosting its users?
From ACM TechNews
3D-Printed Organs May Soon Be a Reality
Progress is being made in the development of three-dimensionally-bioprinted organs, with Tal Dvir at Israel's Tel Aviv University anticipating transplantation-viable organs will be available in a decade.
From ACM TechNews
The Whale Prosthetics Blaze Trails with Technology
Makeup artist Adrien Morot used digital sculpting and three-dimensional printing to transform actor Brendan Fraser into the 600-pound protagonist of the movie The Whale.
From ACM TechNews
Software Gives Police Real-Time Access to 911 Calls
California-based HigherGround's Live911 software allows police to access 911 emergency calls in real time, reducing their response time.
From ACM News
Tesla Recalls All 362,758 Vehicles with Full Self-Driving Beta because It 'May Cause Crashes'
The recall notice applies to certain 2016-2023 Model S, Model X, 2017-2023 Model 3, and 2020-2023 Model Y vehicles.
From ACM TechNews
'Spider-Man' Robot Can Climb Walls, Cling to Ceilings
Researchers at the Korea Advanced Institute of Science & Technology have developed a quadrupedal robot able to climb metal walls and walk across metal ceilings.
From ACM TechNews
U.K. Government Sets Up Dedicated Department for Science, Technology
U.K. Prime Minister Rishi Sunak announced the creation of the new cabinet-level department.
From ACM TechNews
Love Bytes
Georgia State University researchers are exposing how scammers exploit dating applications to defraud victims.
From ACM TechNews
U.S. Air Force Successfully Tests AI-Controlled Jet Fighter
The U.S. Air Force said the X-62A VISTA (Variable Stability In-Flight Simulator Test Aircraft) autonomous jet fighter had 17 hours of flight testing.
From ACM News
Carmakers Are Pushing Autonomous Tech. This Engineer Wants Limits.
Missy Cummings, who spent more than a year at the federal auto safety agency, said that drivers were putting too much trust in systems like Tesla's Autopilot and that regulators needed to restrict their use.
From ACM News
U.S. Border Patrol Finally Able to Check E-Passport Data
After 16 years, the agency has implemented the software to cryptographically verify digital passport data—and it's already caught a dozen alleged fraudsters.
From ACM News
Ears on AI and Data
A round-up of podcasts focused on artificial intelligence and/or data.
From ACM News
Audiobook Narrators Fear Apple Used Their Voices to Train AI
After a backlash, Spotify paused an arrangement that allowed Apple to train machine learning models on some audiobook files.
From ACM News
How Brain Chips Can Change You
Studies show Elon Musk's new tech can bend your mind in strange and troubling ways.
From ACM News
Google Vice President Warns AI Chatbots Are Hallucinating
Google senior vice president Prabhakar Raghavan has warned the public about a little-known problem with artificial intelligence chatbots: they "hallucinate."
From ACM News
Securing Supply Chains with Quantum Computing
One of the potential long-term solutions to solving complex optimization problems is to use quantum computers.
From ACM News
AI-Powered Bing Chat Loses its Mind When Fed Ars Technica Article
"It is a hoax that has been created by someone who wants to harm me or my service."