Communications of the ACM
The news archive provides access to past news stories from Communications of the ACM and other sources by date.
March 2015
From ACM News
k Mapped Out By Genetic Ancestry
Researchers have found genetic signatures among Britons that betray their historical roots in particular locales of the United Kingdom, leading to the finest-scale map of genetic variation yet created.
From ACM News
Stealing Data from Computers sing Heat
Air-gapped systems, which are isolated from the Internet and are not connected to other systems that are connected to the Internet, are used in situations that demand high security because they make siphoning data from them difficult…
From ACM News
Doing Astronomy with Neutrinos
The IceCube detector, located at the South Pole, monitors a cubic kilometer of ice for the flashes of light produced as energetic particles traverse the ice.
From ACM Opinion
The War Over Who Steve Jobs Was
On October 16, 2011, the early evening weather on the Stanford University campus in Palo Alto, California, was almost unspeakably gorgeous—mild as a warm bath, a cloudless sky above, a full moon beaming benevolently on the 300…
From ACM TechNews
High-Resolution 3D Scans Built From Drone Photos
Drones offer an inexpensive way to capture three-dimensional scans of buildings, terrain, and other objects.
From ACM TechNews
Satellite Imagery Can Aid Development Projects
New software can identify houses in rural villages from satellite images, potentially saving time that would otherwise be spent sending teams from village to village.
From ACM TechNews
Atlas of Thoughts
Aarhus University researchers are using computer games to help them tackle some of the fundamental problems of quantum computing.
From ACM TechNews
'smart Bandage' Detects Bedsores Before They Are Visible to Doctors
A new smart bandage uses electrical currents to detect tissue damage from pressure ulcers before they are visible and while recovery is still possible.
From ACM TechNews
Robot Model for Infant Learning Shows Bodily Posture May Affect Memory and Learning
Researchers have used robot models of infants to study how "objects of cognition," such as words or memories of physical objects, are connected to the position of the body.
From ACM TechNews
Deanonymizing Tor sers With Raptor Attacks
Researchers have demonstrated the effectiveness of a suite of traffic analysis attacks that deanonymize Tor users.
From ACM Careers
'space Lawyers' Help Startups Navigate the Final Legal Frontier
When Sagi Kfir meets people and tells them he is a "space attorney," they usually think he has a strange way of saying he is in real estate.
From ACM TechNews
Could Analog Computing Accelerate Complex Computer Simulations?
The U.S. Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency is exploring ways analog approaches to speed up computation of the mathematics in scientific computing.
From ACM News
The Simple, Elegant Algorithm That Makes Google Maps Possible
Programming pioneer Edsger W. Dijkstra's namesake algorithm remains one of the cleverest things in computer science.
From ACM News
How the Dark Web Spurs a Spying 'arms Race'
It's a technological arms race, pure and simple.
From ACM News
Rosetta Is Tailing a Warming Comet
The European Space Agency’s Rosetta spacecraft caught up with Comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko last August, then dropped a lander onto the comet in November. Now Rosetta will follow the rubber-duck-shaped comet as it swings closer…
From ACM News
What Your Tweets Say About You
How much can your tweets reveal about you? Judging by the last nine hundred and seventy-two words that I used on Twitter, I'm about average when it comes to feeling upbeat and being personable, and I'm less likely than most people…
From ACM TechNews
Your Desktop Computer Is Wasting a Surprising Amount of Energy While You're Not sing It
The California Energy Commission has released a set of draft standards aimed at increasing the energy efficiency of desktop computers and monitors.
From ACM TechNews
.s. Must Step p Capacity For Cyberattacks, Chief Argues
The director of the U.S. National Security Agency and the U.S. Cyber Command advocated development of cyberweapons as a means of deterring cyberattacks.
From ACM TechNews
Will Smart Machines Make S Stupid? AI Experts Weigh In
Experts on artificial intelligence discussed the future of the field this week at the South by Southwest festival in Austin, TX.
From ACM TechNews
Ted 2015: Google Boss Wants Self-Drive Cars 'for Son'
The director of Google's self-driving car project says he wants self-driving cars to be standard on roads within five years.
From ACM TechNews
Data Mining Reveals When a Yellow Taxi Is Cheaper Than ber
A researcher compared Uber's prices with those of New York City's Yellow Cabs.
From ACM News
Apple's Haptic Touch Makes Way for Tomorrow's Touchable Is
If you're into magic tricks, stop by an Apple Store and park yourself in front of a new 13-inch MacBook Pro. Click around on the trackpad for a while. Voila!
From ACM News
Shrill? To N.c.a.a. Tournament Referees, It's Symphonic
Susan Mueller, a flutist and the chairwoman of the Nevada-Las Vegas music department, examined the referee's whistle in her hand.
From ACM News
Edward Snowden Would Like to Explain Himself to a Jury, but He Can't
Edward Snowden wants to come home.
From ACM TechNews
Supercomputers Help Solve Puzzle-Like Bond For Biofuels
Researchers used the Extreme Science and Discovery Environment to discover the nature of the adhesion complex of cellulosomal proteins.
From ACM TechNews
Cyborg Beetle Research Allows Free-Flight Study of Insects
University of California, Berkeley researchers are studying cyborg insects to learn more about a muscle used by beetles for finely graded turns.
From ACM TechNews
Mitsubishi Quiets Car Noise With Machine Learning
Mitsubishi Electric says its new noise suppression technology can improve the quality of hands-free phone communication in cars.
From ACM TechNews
Computer-Stored Encryption Keys Are Not Safe From Side-Channel Attacks
Tel Aviv University researchers have found a way to ex-filtrate complex encryption data using side-channel technology.
From ACM News
Will Smart Machines Make S Stupid? AI Experts Weigh In
Society stands at a crossroads of artificial intelligence: We can design computers that sharpen our wits or we can let our machines turn us into ignoramuses.
From ACM News
Germany Moves Away From .s.-Dominated Iot Standards Groups
Germany's main telco, tech and manufacturing companies have formed an alliance to make sure that when devices do start speaking to each other over the Internet in the so-called Internet of Things market—they'll be speaking German…