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
Seeking Quantum-Ness: D-Wave Chip Passes Rigorous Tests
Researchers have shown the D-Wave One processor behaves in a way that agrees with a model called quantum Monte Carlo, yet disagrees with two candidate classical models.
From ACM News
Missing Malaysia Jet Adds Fuel to 'live Black Box' Debate
Regardless of what caused a Malaysia Airlines jet to disappear from the sky over the weekend, air-safety experts predict it will reignite debate over new technology designed to provide immediate clues for investigators in the…
From ACM News
Hot on the Trail of Consciousness in Brain and Machine
"Nowhere in science have so many devoted so much to create so little consensus," writes physicist, author, and TV presenter Michio Kaku of consciousness research.
From ACM News
Computer Science: The Learning Machines
Three years ago, researchers at the secretive Google X lab in Mountain View, California, extracted some 10 million still images from YouTube videos and fed them into Google Brain—a network of 1,000 computers programmed to soak…
From ACM Opinion
Are You Too Paranoid About Digital Privacy, or Not Paranoid Enough?
Let's start with one thing you hear over and over again when interviewing people about privacy: "I've got nothing to hide."
From ACM News
Federal Agencies Embrace New Technology and Strategies to Find the Enemy Within
After years of focusing on outside threats, the federal government and its contractors are turning inward, aiming a range of new technologies and counterintelligence strategies at their own employees to root out spies, terrorists…
From ACM TechNews
UCLA Engineering Team Increases Power Efficiency For Future Computer Processors
An emerging class of magnetic materials called multiferroics could help make future computing devices far more energy-efficient than current technologies.
From ACM TechNews
Successful Silicon Valley Women Star in Stanford Video Series Urging Young Women to Get Into Computing
A volunteer group of female undergraduates at Stanford University has created a series of motivational videos to encourage young women to enter computer science fields.
From ACM TechNews
Microsoft Can Make the Walls of Your Room Display Web Pages
SurroundWeb is a prototype system for displaying Web pages on multiple projectors to display information on the walls of a room.
From ACM TechNews
In Search of More Presidential Innovation Fellows
The U.S. General Services Administration is now accepting applications for the third round of the Presidential Innovation Fellows program.
From ACM TechNews
Roll-Up Digital Screens Now Closer to Reality
Researchers have developed technology that could enable affordable flexible electronics, such as roll-up displays, to become widely available.
From ACM TechNews
Detecting Software Errors sing Genetic Algorithms
Saarland University professor Andreas Zeller and his colleagues have developed software that automatically tests other programs for errors.
From ACM News
DDoS Cyber Attacks Get Bigger, Smarter, More Damaging
Crashing websites and overwhelming data centers, a new generation of cyber attacks is costing millions and straining the structure of the Internet.
From ACM Careers
Virtual Reality Startups Look Back to the Future
It's been almost 30 years since the computer scientist Jaron Lanier formed VPL Research, the first company to sell the high-tech goggles and gloves that once defined humanity's concept of where technology might soon take our…
From ACM TechNews
Google's Project Loon: The Gamble That's So Crazy It Might Work
Google recently launched Project Loon, which provides Wi-Fi connectivity to remote locations using high-altitude balloons, wind currents, and solar power.
From ACM News
The Quantified Computer Scientist: Larry Smarr on the Future of Medicine
A conversation with computer scientist Larry Smarr
From ACM News
The First Woman to Get a Ph.d. in Computer Science From MIT
Irene Greif talks to The Atlantic about her life and legacy.
From ACM News
Perjurers and Fake Reviews Train Software to Spot Lies
Lawyers and judges use skill and instinct to sense who might be lying in court.
From ACM News
Mathematical Proof Reveals How To Make The Internet More Earthquake-Proof
One of the common myths about the Internet is that it was originally designed during the Cold War to survive nuclear attack.
From ACM TechNews
Open Source Challenges a Proprietary Internet of Things
The Linux Foundation recently created the AllSeen Alliance, which combines the AllJoyn Framework with its open source network.
From ACM TechNews
Radboud Professor Invents Magnet For Fast and Cheap Data Storage
Optical data storage does not require expensive magnetic materials and works just as well as synthetic alternatives, say researchers.
From ACM TechNews
S&t Computer Engineer Patents Quantum Computing Device
A Missouri University of Science and Technology researcher has patented a quantum processor capable of parallel computing that uses no transistors.
From ACM TechNews
Social Physics
Massachusetts Institute of Technology Media Lab Human Dynamics Laboratory director Alex Pentland is working on a new theory of human social interaction.
From ACM TechNews
Designing Robots That Can Keep Secrets
Researchers are studying ways to prevent surrogate robots from unnecessarily revealing the identities of the people with whom they interact.
From ACM News
Inside the New Arms Race to Control Bandwidth on the Battlefield
An electromagnetic mystery in northern Iraq changed the course of Jesse Potter's life.
From ACM News
Cuban-Americans Hack For Information Freedom
A network of students and young professionals strive to empower youth in Cuba.
From ACM News
Cassini Nears 100th Titan Flyby with a Look Back
Ten years ago, we knew Titan as a fuzzy orange ball about the size of Mercury.
From ACM News
Since It Can't Sue s All, Getty Images Embraces Embedded Photos
For the past decade or so, the best defense Getty Images could find against the right-click button on your mouse—home of the "copy" and "save" functions—has been a team of scary lawyers.
From ACM TechNews
MIT Research Looks to Extend Moore's Law
New directed self-assembly techniques could resolve issues associated with techniques used in the conventional semiconductor manufacturing process.
From ACM TechNews
Plan to End U.s. Control of Icann Submitted to Brazil Meeting on the Future of Internet Governance
Syracuse University researchers have proposed a solution to the U.S. government's ties to the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers.