Communications of the ACM
The news archive provides access to past news stories from Communications of the ACM and other sources by date.
March 2013
From ACM News
Dhs Built Domestic Surveillance Tech Into Predator Drones
The U.S. Department of Homeland Security has customized its Predator drones, originally built for overseas military operations, to carry out at-home surveillance tasks that have civil libertarians worried: identifying civilians…
From ACM News
Crowdsourcing Platforms Monitor Disease, Dissent, and Disasters
Crowdsourcing platforms developed to aid epidemiological investigations have been repurposed to catalog political strife in Syria.
From ACM TechNews
Google Glass App Identifies You By Your Fashion Sense
A new human-recognition system designed for the Google Glass platform can recognize people by the clothes they wear.
From ACM TechNews
Researchers Develop Algorithm to Maximize Friendship Acceptance By Strangers on Social Networks
A new algorithm can help strangers become 'friends' with people they do not know on social networks.
From ACM TechNews
Frozen Android Phones Give Up Data Secrets
Researchers were able to bypass the encryption system of an Android smartphone by freezing it for an hour.
From ACM Opinion
Lars Rasmussen: The Brains Behind Facebook's Future
For a man that made his career out of helping millions of people find their way around, Lars Rasmussen is frank about his own navigational shortcomings.
From ACM TechNews
Unreported Side Effects of Drugs Are Found Using Internet Search Data, Study Finds
Researchers found evidence of unreported prescription drug side effects before the U.S. Food and Drug Administration did by analyzing search engine query data.
From ACM TechNews
New Robots in the Workplace: Job Creators or Job Terminators?
New, affordable robots are being developed that can perform advanced tasks and may threaten jobs.
From ACM Opinion
The Big-Data Interview: Making Sense of the New World Order
In April 2003, British and U.S. researchers declared the Human Genome Project complete.
From ACM News
Moore's Law Is Not Just for Computers
Predicting the future of technology often seems a fool's game.
From ACM News
New Global Research Data Alliance Poised For Launch
A new global initiative is aimed at accelerating data-driven innovation worldwide.
From ACM News
Feds Crack Down on Mobile-Phone Spammers
The U.S Federal Trade Commission said today that it is cracking down on marketers that are allegedly bombarding consumers with hundreds of millions of unwanted spam messages on their cell phones in the hopes they will give away…
From ACM News
Tracking Sensors Invade the Workplace
A few years ago when Bank of America Corp. wanted to study whether face time mattered among its call-center teams, the big bank asked about 90 workers to wear badges for a few weeks with tiny sensors to record their movements…
From ACM News
Kinect Demo Shows Off Hand Recognition, Multitouch
Microsoft Research this week showed off a demo application that allows for Kinect to recognize multi-touch gestures.
From ACM TechNews
Attacks Hit, but Don't Break, New Sha-3 Candidate
Depite a recent collision attack, the SHA-3 Secure Hash Algorithm implementation is still a long way from being broken.
From ACM TechNews
Graphene Antennas Would Enable Terabit Wireless Downloads
A proposed wireless antenna made from graphene could enable terabit-per-second transfer speeds at short ranges.
From ACM TechNews
New Spec Tool to Id Most Energy-Efficient Servers
A new toolkit can help guide the selection of the most energy-efficient server to meet specific needs.
From ACM TechNews
Training Next-Gen Data Superheroes
Data science programs are gaining popularity as colleges and universities focus on preparing a new generation of data specialists to handle big data.
From ACM News
Fashion Statement: Designer Creates Line of Drone-Proof Garments to Protect Privacy
As the U.S. government draws up plans to use surveillance drones in domestic airspace, opposition to what many consider an unwarranted and significant invasion of privacy is mounting across the country, from rural Virginia to…
From ACM News
The Father of All Men Is 340,000 Years Old
Albert Perry carried a secret in his DNA: a Y chromosome so distinctive that it reveals new information about the origin of our species.
From ACM Careers
How Two Volunteers Built the Raspberry Pi’s Operating System
When you buy a Raspberry Pi, the $35 computer doesn't come with an operating system.
From ACM News
The Disappearing Interface
Where static computer screens and smartphones suck in our gaze and extract us from the world around us, many of the most interesting new tech gadgets and ideas move us back out into the open.
From ACM News
You May Now Kiss the Computer Screen
With a red embroidered veil draped over her dark hair, Punam Chowdhury held her breath last month as her fiancé said the words that would make them husband and wife.
From ACM News
Led Display Puts Bay Bridge in New Light
The Bay Bridge will never win a beauty contest against the Golden Gate, but for the next two years, it gets to set aside its inferiority complex for several hours each night while it's lit by the glow of 25,000 twinkling LED…
From ACM TechNews
Web-Connected Cars Bring Privacy Concerns
Privacy advocates fear linking cars with wireless networks may be giving automakers, software developers, and police officers access to such information.
From ACM TechNews
Pixels Guide the Way For the Visually Impaired
Using a mathematical algorithm and a video camera, researchers project pixels onto a headset to improve vision for people with retinal implants.
From ACM TechNews
Video Game Invades Classroom, Scores Education Points
GlassLab is an effort by Electronic Arts to use video games to inspire students to embrace careers in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics.
From ACM TechNews
Big Blue, Big Bang, Big Data: Telescope Funds Computing R&d
IBM wants to advance supercomputing technology in processing, optical communications, and memory by using the Square Kilometer Array radio telescope.
From ACM TechNews
Study Maps Human Metabolism in Health and Disease
An international team of researchers have produced the most complete model of the human metabolic network available.
From ACM TechNews
Eu Commission Launches 'grand Coalition' to Tackle It Shortage
A grand coalition launched by the European Commission will address the IT skills shortage in the European Union.