Communications of the ACM
The news archive provides access to past news stories from Communications of the ACM and other sources by date.
March 2014
From ACM News
Dwarf Planet Stretches Solar System's Edge
The Solar System just got a lot more far-flung.
From ACM Careers
The Virtual Genius of Oculus Rift
To understand why Oculus Rift matters, it helps to know who John Carmack is.
From ACM News
Building the Google of Blood, One Tube at a Time
The first shipment arrives at 4 A.M.
From ACM News
The Robot Tricks to Bridge the Uncanny Valley
If A robot bleeped and squeaked with personality like R2D2 from Star Wars, would you like it better?
From ACM News
Will We Ever Travel in Wormholes?
The universe is huge.
From ACM TechNews
Tiny Transistors For Extreme Environs
University of Utah electrical engineers have fabricated the smallest transistors that can withstand the temperatures and radiation found in a nuclear reactor.
From ACM TechNews
Artificial Intelligence Challenge: Could a Robot Give Its Own Ted Talk?
The TED organization has partnered with X Prize to develop a competition to have an AI-based robot "deliver a compelling TED Talk with no human involvement."
From ACM TechNews
Newest Bug Bounty Touts $10K Rewards, Appeals for Help in Finding Flash Flaws
The Internet Bug Bounty program recently paid $10,000 each to a pair of security researchers for vulnerabilities they found in Flash.
From ACM TechNews
Software Would Make 3D Maps sing Smartphones
Researchers at the University of Minnesota and Google have developed software that can create a three-dimensional map with a smartphone.
From ACM TechNews
Computers Spot False Faces Better Than People
A computer system bested humans in recognizing real or fake expressions of pain.
From ACM TechNews
DARPA to Mine 'big Code' to Improve Software Reliability
The U.S. Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency seeks to address the software defects that underlie most system errors and security vulnerabilities.
From ACM News
The World's 50 Greatest Leaders
17. Maria Klawe
From ACM News
Mugshots Built from Dna Data
Leaving a hair at a crime scene could one day be as damning as leaving a photograph of your face.
From ACM News
This Underwater Microphone Could Find the Missing Malaysia Airlines Jet
Authorities are all but certain Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 went down in the south Indian Ocean in water that may be as deep as 23,000 feet.
From ACM Careers
College Basketball Data Aplenty for Those Who Can Afford It
When Butler fell a precious few inches short of winning a national championship in 2010, its players took the court during that season believing they were the most prepared team in the country.
From ACM TechNews
Could Diamonds Be a Computer’s Best Friend?
Researchers have demonstrated that information can flow through a diamond wire, a finding that could lead to the material's use in computing.
From ACM TechNews
Csus Students Get Federal Scholarships to Become Tech Warriors
California State University, Sacramento is offering $25,000 annual scholarships as part of the CyberCorps program.
From ACM TechNews
Quantum Rewrites the Rules of Computing
Quantum computers are rewriting the rules of how computing works, but even the people developing them say they cannot explain how they work.
From ACM News
A 'crisis' in Online Ads: One-Third of Traffic Is Bogus
Billions of dollars are flowing into online advertising. But marketers also are confronting an uncomfortable reality: rampant fraud.
From ACM News
Nasa Mars Rover's Next Stop Has Sandstone Variations
Variations in the stuff that cements grains together in sandstone have shaped the landscape surrounding NASA's Curiosity Mars rover and could be a study topic at the mission's next science waypoint.
From ACM News
Are Smart Homes Intelligent Enough To Keep Out Hackers?
How hack-resistant are the connected systems in smart homes?
From ACM News
Impostoritis: A Lifelong, but Treatable, Condition
The female president of Harvey Mudd College on how women in STEM can cope with feeling like they don’t belong.
From ACM News
The Digital nwrapping of the Egyptian Priest Neswaiu
In the 19th century and even later, there was no shortage of people eager to watch the unwrapping of an Egyptian mummy.
From ACM News
N.S.A. Breached Chinese Servers Seen as Security Threat
American officials have long considered Huawei, the Chinese telecommunications giant, a security threat, blocking it from business deals in the United States for fear that the company would create "back doors" in its equipment…
From ACM News
Tor sage in Turkey Surges During Twitter Ban
Since Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan implemented a ban on Twitter late last week, Tor usage in the country has surged—with connections nearly doubling from around 25,000 direct connects in the country to over 40,000…
From ACM TechNews
Parallel Programming May Not Be So Daunting
Researchers plan to demonstrate an analytics technique suggesting that, in a wide range of real-word scenarios, lock-free algorithms can provide wait-free performance.
From ACM Careers
Bioengineer Designs Diagnostic Microscope Costing Less Than $1
It's an invention that would make TV's secret agent MacGyver proud: a fully functional microscope that can be assembled from folded paper and a tiny bead of glass.
From ACM TechNews
Internet2 Teams Up With India's National Knowledge Network
Internet2 expects to formalize a partnership with its Indian counterpart this month.
From ACM TechNews
Nasa 'codeathon' Seeks Apps That Address Coastal Flooding
The U.S. National Aeronautics and Space Administration's third global codeathon offers four climate-themed challenges.
From ACM TechNews
When the Flu Bug Bites the Big Apple, Twitter Posts Can Tell the Tale
Researchers say tweets can predict flu trends at the local level.