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 TechNews
Chipmaking: When Silicon Leaves the Valley
Researchers are pursuing new ways of making chips, as it grows increasingly difficult to fit more transistors onto a silicon wafer.
From ACM TechNews
AI Researcher Says Amoral Robots Pose a Danger to Humanity
Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute professor Selmer Bringsjord says understanding morality is increasingly important as robots become smarter and more autonomous.
From ACM TechNews
Facebook Feelings Are Contagious, Study Shows
Researchers found that positive Facebook posts encouraged positive posts and negative posts produced negative ones.
From ACM TechNews
Stanford Lab Yields New Privacy-Based Social Network
The new Omlet social network allows users complete control over their personal data.
From ACM News
Researchers Exchange Mooc Results in Learning@scale Conference
Nearly 200 attendees from both computer science and learning science met to exchange research on MOOCs at the first annual ACM Learning@Scale Conference in Atlanta.
From ACM News
How Did Life Arise? Fuel Cells May Have Answers
How life arose from the toxic and inhospitable environment of our planet billions of years ago remains a deep mystery.
From ACM News
Where in the Solar System Are We Most Likely to Find Life?
Last week, NASA announced one of its most exciting missions in recent memory: a plan to visit Europa, one of Jupiter's largest moons.
From ACM Opinion
The Search For Aliens Is Just Getting Started
Over the past 50 years, several SETI projects have scoured the cosmos but have yet to turn up anything conclusive. What do you make of this cosmic radio-silence?
From ACM TechNews
Robot Project Aims to Help Doctors Diagnose Human Stroke Victims
Researchers are developing spring-loaded muscles for the Roboy robot.
From ACM TechNews
Women of Color Nurture Minority Girls' Interest in STEM
Women represent a small fraction of those in science, technology, engineering, and math, and minority women even less, a National Science Foundation study finds.
From ACM TechNews
Diagnosing Diseases With Smart Phones
Researchers are developing a disease diagnostic system that offers results that could be read using a smartphone and an inexpensive lens attachment.
From ACM TechNews
Collecting Digital User Data Without Invading Privacy
Privada is a new a cryptographic method that makes it possible to simultaneously collect data and protect the privacy of the user.
From ACM News
Stanford Students Show Phone Record Surveillance Can Yield Vast Amounts of Information
The National Security Agency's mass surveillance of telephone metadata could yield detailed information about the private lives of individuals far beyond what the federal government claims, according to new Stanford research.
From ACM News
Soft Robotic Fish Moves Like the Real Thing
Soft robots—which don’t just have soft exteriors but are also powered by fluid flowing through flexible channels—have become a sufficiently popular research topic that they now have their own journal, Soft Robotics.
From ACM News
Taking an Age-Old Approach to i
Web and app designers need to be mindful of the changing capabilities of aging users.
From ACM News
Gps Tech Built to Find Missing Aircraft Not Always Used
Aviation experts have cited multiple possible reasons for the problems in the multi-country effort to locate the Malaysia Airlines jetliner that dropped off the grid over the South China Sea four days ago.
From ACM TechNews
Cyberattacks Could Paralyze .s., Former Defense Chief Warns
Former U.S. Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta said a large-scale cyberattack against U.S. infrastructure is "the most serious threat in the 21st century."
From ACM Opinion
Oscar-Winning Visual Effects Mastermind Behind Gravity, Talks Physics Lessons, Nasa Imagery, and Defining the Art of Cg 'weightlessness' in Space
Tim Webber is a visual effects supervisor who has worked on an array of critically acclaimed blockbusters.
From ACM TechNews
Mobile Devices of the Future Will Get Energy From Everywhere Except the Wall Socket
Scientists are advancing new wireless methods of harvesting power from the environment, people, and devices themselves.
From ACM TechNews
Iupui Researchers Use Computers to 'see' Neurons to Better Understand Brain Function
New information about the brain could help those developing therapies to treat conditions such as stroke, schizophrenia, spinal cord injury, or Alzheimer's disease.
From ACM TechNews
What the Internet of 2025 Might Look Like
The Pew Research Center has released responses from science and technology experts about what the future Internet might look like.
From ACM TechNews
It's Cool to Be a Geek, Eu Tells Women
The European Commission has created a new campaign to attract women to the information and communications technology sector.
From ACM TechNews
Women in It: The Next Generation
The University of New Hampshire InterOperability Laboratory is working to improve the image of computer science by training the next generation of STEM workers.
From ACM News
Space Diaries Reveal 6 Things on an Astronaut's Mind
While you are in space, could you keep a diary?
From ACM News
Nasa's Wise Survey Finds Thousands of New Stars, But No 'planet X'
After searching hundreds of millions of objects across our sky, NASA's Wide-Field Infrared Survey Explorer (WISE) has turned up no evidence of the hypothesized celestial body in our solar system commonly dubbed "Planet X."
From ACM News
Bouncing Robot Could Soften Future Nasa Landings
‘Tensegrity’ provides an alternative to lots of rugged equipment.
From ACM News
Cyberwar in kraine Falls Far Short of Russia's Full Powers
The tense on-the-ground standoff in Ukraine has already tipped into open hostilities online, with hackers targeting members of parliament and state agencies.
From ACM News
Nanomaterial May Be Future of Hard Drives
Most magnets shrug off tiny temperature tweaks.
From ACM TechNews
Linux Foundation to Offer Introductory Linux Mooc on Edx
The Linux Foundation plans to offer a Linux development course on edX, the massive open online course platform developed by MIT and Harvard University.
From ACM TechNews
Stanford's Folding@home Simulates Activation of Key Cancer Protein, Could Lead to Novel Drug Design
Stanford's Folding@home project has simulated Src Kinase, which plays an important role in many cancers.