Communications of the ACM
The news archive provides access to past news stories from Communications of the ACM and other sources by date.
March 2010
From ACM TechNews
Researchers Use Light From Leds to Send Data Wirelessly
Fraunhofer Institute for Telecommunications researchers have experimented with using visible light from commercial light-emitting diodes (LEDs) to transmit data wirelessly at speeds of up to 230 Mbit per second.
From ACM TechNews
Analytical Eye: Viewing Through the Data Jungle
Visualization techniques can help improve the understanding of the large volumes of data people accumulate, according to researchers at the Fraunhofer Institute for Computer Graphics Research.
From ACM TechNews
IBM Will Research Mobile Access For the Elderly, Illiterate
Researchers at IBM Research India, India's National Institute of Design, and the University of Tokyo's Research Center for Advanced Science and Technology are investigating a common, open source user interface for mobile devices…
From ACM TechNews
Nsf Seeks New Approach to Helping Minority Students in Science
U.S. National Science Foundation (NSF) programs that assist specific racial and ethnic groups would be consolidated under a new proposal from the agency.
From ACM TechNews
Safety Issues Loom as Humanoid Invasion Approaches
As robot technology advances, and their use puts them in closer contact with humans, safety has become a top priority for some researchers.
From ACM News
Crdf Applauds Introduction of Science-Based Diplomacy Legislation
The U.S. Civilian Research & Development Foundation (CRDF) applauds the introduction of legislation to enhance and expand the role of science in American foreign policy.
From ACM News
Effort to Widen .S. Internet Access Sets p Battle
The Federal Communications Commission is proposing an ambitious 10-year plan that will reimagine the nation's media and technology priorities by establishing high-speed Internet as the country's dominant communication network…
From ACM News
Netflix Ditches Beat-Our-Recommendation-System Contest Due to Privacy Questions
Netflix's grassroots competition to best its recommendation algorithm was a big popularity booster for the company—but thanks to concerns over privacy (backed up by one troubling example), the company has decided to kill the…
From ACM TechNews
How to Build a Superluminal Computer
Vienna University of Technology physicists Volkmar Putz and Karl Svozil have devised a way to process information that exceeds the speed of light.
From ACM TechNews
International Deal Struck in Race to Build Quantum Computer
Researchers at the University of Waterloo's Institute for Quantum Computing and Singapore's Centre for Quantum Technologies have agreed to collaborate to build the world's first quantum computer.
From ACM TechNews
Mobile Phones Learn to Lip Read
Karlsruhe Institute of Technology professor Tanja Shultz demonstrated a prototype device for communicating without speaking at the recent CeBIT conference.
From ACM TechNews
Haptimap Project Aims to Make Maps Accessible Through Touch, Hearing and Vision
A European consortium plans to develop toolkits and concepts for improving the multimodal perceptualizations (visualizations involving senses other than sight) of mobile devices.
From ACM TechNews
Group Seeks to Open Source Data-Center Design
The recently announced Open Source Data Center Initiative is looking to apply open source principles to the design and construction of data centers.
From ACM TechNews
Race Matters
Black college instructors play a significant role in encouraging black science students to persist as science majors, according to a study by Cornell University doctoral student Joshua A. Price.
From ACM News
Instant Ads Set the Pace on the Web
Advertisers have been able to direct online messages based on demographics, income and even location, but one element has been largely missing until recently: immediacy. Advertisers booked slots in advance, and could not make…
From ICT Results
Software's Take on the Light Bulb Joke
How many men does it take to change a light bulb? Putting the punchline aside a moment, consider that it takes even more to pack a shipping crate. Now a European project has developed tools to optimize the packing of boxes of…
From ACM News
Computer Algorithm 'reads' Memories
Computer algorithms developed at University College London (UCL) can predict which of three short films a person is thinking about, just by looking at their brain activity.
From ACM News
Toyota Applies the Brakes
In the wake of a massive public-relations nightmare involving brake problems in its cars, Toyota is investigating two more reports this week of unintended acceleration in its vehicles. Both cases involved Priuses: one in Harrison…
From ACM News
Educating Elite Hackers
It started with Michael Coppola taking things apart at the age of five: the remote control, his mother's house lamps, the family's VCR. He was curious about how things worked. By the time he was in fourth grade, he moved on to…
From ACM TechNews
Trademark Issues Could Derail New gTLDs at ICANN Meeting
The introduction of new generic top-level domains (gTLDs) could be hindered by a variety of factors, including trademark protection, costs, and cybersecurity threats, according to participants at the ICANN Board meeting in Nairobi…
From ACM TechNews
Predicting the Fate of Stem Cells
Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute professor Badri Roysam and University of Wisconsin, Milwaukee professor Andrew Cohen are using computer vision technology to predict how stem cells will divide.
From ACM News
Conquering the Chaos in Modern, Multiprocessor Computers
A group of computer scientists have found a way to tame multiprocessor computers, which behave in wildly unpredictable ways even as they become widespread in the industry.
From ACM News
Jpl Program Cleans Mars Mission Code
Jet Propulsion Laboratory uses formal verification at every step of software development, and is applying some of those techniques to the flight code for next year's Mars Science Laboratory robotic exploration mission.
From ACM News
Emotional Computer Tutor Improves Girls' Math Scores
Students in Massachusetts will help fine-tune a computer-based, emotionally perceptive mathematics tutoring software developed by University of Massachusetts Amherst computer scientist Beverly Woolf, Ivon Arroyo and colleagues…
From ACM News
Institute Says It Can Mass-Produce Graphene
Scientists have leaped over a major hurdle in efforts to begin commercial production of graphene, a form of carbon that could rival silicon in its potential for revolutionizing electronics devices ranging from supercomputers…
From ACM News
Research Streamlines Data Processing To Solve Problems More Efficiently
Researchers at North Carolina State University have developed a new analytical method that opens the door to faster processing of large amounts of information, with applications in fields as diverse as the military, medical diagnostics…
From ACM TechNews
New 'hearing' Maps Are Real Conversation Starters
Cardiff University researchers have developed software that creates audibility maps of proposed room designs that show hotspots where conversations would be inaudible if the room was noisy.
From ACM TechNews
Japan Baby-Robot Teaches Parenting Skills
Tsukuba University engineering students have developed Yotaro, a baby humanoid robot designed to teach young people about parenting.
From ACM News
Speech Technology on Cell Phones Getting Better but Still Not Perfect
"Cat got your tongue?" my wife asked as we bumped along the freeway one recent afternoon. "I wonder where that phrase comes from?" she added a moment later.
Now here was an opportunity for a husband to be useful. I knew I could…From ACM TechNews
Academics and software engineers from the universities of Edinburgh, Manchester, and Southampton have established the Software Sustainability Institute with research communities to develop ways to keep their software current.