Communications of the ACM
The news archive provides access to past news stories from Communications of the ACM and other sources by date.
March 2016
From ACM News
Google’s AI Wins First Game in Historic Match With Go Champion
Google’s Go-playing computer system has beaten one of the world’s top players in the first game of a five-game match in Seoul.
From ACM News
Fast Facial Analysis Software Set For Release
Researchers say a new facial recognition software package is fast, computationally efficient, and robust enough for state-of-the-art results.
From ACM News
Dawn's First Year at Ceres: A Mountain Emerges
One year ago, on March 6, 2015, NASA's Dawn spacecraft slid gently into orbit around Ceres, the largest body in the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter.
From ACM TechNews
Pentagon Launching Bug Bounty Program
The Pentagon is inviting vetted hackers to the Hack the Pentagon initiative, the U.S. government's first "bug bounty" program.
From ACM News
U.s. Military Spending Millions to Make Cyborgs a Reality
The U.S. military is spending millions on an advanced implant that would allow a human brain to communicate directly with computers.
From ACM TechNews
A Better 3D Camera With Clear, Graphene Light Detectors
A University of Michigan team is developing a three-dimensional camera that should be smaller than current models while supporting higher resolutions.
From ACM TechNews
Bad Vibrations: ci Researchers Find Security Breach in 3D Printing Process
Researchers have discovered a significant risk for the three-dimensional printing process, in that the machines emit acoustic signals that contain a lot of information.
From ACM News
Crispr: Gene Editing Is Just the Beginning
Whenever a paper about CRISPR–Cas9 hits the press, the staff at Addgene quickly find out.
From ACM News
Taking Baby Steps Toward Software That Reasons Like Humans
Richard Socher appeared nervous as he waited for his artificial intelligence program to answer a simple question: "Is the tennis player wearing a cap?"
From ACM News
Versatile Instrument to Scout for Kuiper Belt Objects
At the Palomar Observatory near San Diego, astronomers are busy tinkering with a high-tech instrument that could discover a variety of objects both far from Earth and closer to home.
From ACM News
Is Digital Privacy Becoming a Partisan Issue?
In a Congress where lawmakers have trouble performing even the most basic functions of the legislative branch—funding the government or approving judicial nominees, to name two—bipartisan issues are a rarity.
From ACM TechNews
Light-Up Skin Stretches Boundaries of Robotics
Cornell ChronicleCornell University researchers have developed electroluminescent "skin," which stretches to more than six times its original size while still emitting light. The hyper-elastic light-emitting capacitor (HLEC)…
From ACM TechNews
A Road Map For Advancing Women in Tech
A new study makes eight core recommendations for boosting diversity and advancing and retaining women in the technology sector.
From ACM TechNews
'bending Current' Opens Up the Way For a New Type of Magnetic Memory
Eindhoven University of Technology researchers say they have solved the energy issue of magnetic random-access memory by using a "bending current."
From ACM TechNews
Browsing in Public
The new Eyebrowse system enables Web users to share self-selected aspects of their online activity with their friends and the general public.
From ACM TechNews
Humanoid Robots Can't Outsource Their Brains to the Cloud Due to Network Latency
Osaka University roboticist Hiroshi Ishiguro explains why offloading a humanoid robot's intelligence to a data center or a cloud computer is impractical.
From ACM News
Pentagon Hackers Are Waging America’s First Cyberwar
U.S. politicians have long threatened America's enemies with tanks, planes, submarines, and nuclear missiles. Last week defense secretary Ashton Carter leveled a new kind of threat at the Islamic State: hackers.
From ACM News
At Rsa Conference, Unlikely Allies Address Value of Digital Security
To Amit Yoran, a digital security veteran, the fight between Apple and the F.B.I. over access to an iPhone can be viewed in black-and-white terms: What law enforcement authorities want is "so misguided, they simply boggle the…
From ACM News
2016 Cra Distinguished Service and A. Nico Habermann Awardees Announced
The CRA Board of Directors is pleased to announce its selections for the 2016 CRA Awards.
From ACM News
Inventor of Email and Savior of the @ Sign, Ray Tomlinson, Is Dead at 74
The inventor of email suffered an apparent heart attack on Saturday, according to reports. He was 74 years old.
From ACM News
Quantum Computer Comes Closer to Cracking Rsa Encryption
Computer scientists say they have assembled the first five quantum bits of a quantum computer that could someday factor any number.
From ACM News
Inside the Cunning, Unprecedented Hack of Ukraine's Power Grid
It was 3:30 p.m. last December 23, and residents of the Ivano-Frankivsk region of Western Ukraine were preparing to end their workday and head home through the cold winter streets.
From ACM News
Methane Snow on Pluto's Peaks
One of Pluto's most identifiable features, Cthulhu (pronounced kuh-THU-lu) stretches nearly halfway around Pluto's equator, starting from the west of the great nitrogen ice plains known as Sputnik Planum.
From ACM TechNews
Conversing With Computers
University of Southern California researchers are developing high-speed language-processing systems that rival the speed and efficiency of human speakers.
From ACM TechNews
Aging Voting Machines Cost Local, State Governments
Many U.S. voters rely on outdated electronic voting machines at least 10 years old, which threatens massive voter disenfranchisement in the event of breakdowns.
From ACM TechNews
The Most Important Object in Computer Graphics History Is This Teapot
A teapot has the distinction of being one of the most influential objects in the history of computer graphics, dating back to 1974.
From ACM TechNews
World's Top Cryptographers on Encryption Backdoors: No Way
A panel of leading cryptographers at this week's RSA Conference agreed inserting backdoors to unscramble encrypted communications is a threat to confidentiality.
From ACM TechNews
Florida Senate Approves Making Coding a Foreign Language
Florida senators have approved a bill allowing high school students to take computer coding classes in place of foreign language requirements.
From ACM News
Chip Hacking Might Help Fbi nlock Iphones
Even if the Justice Department loses its legal showdown with Apple Inc. over access to a killer's iPhone, the government might still be able to extract the data locked away inside it, computer-security experts say.
From ACM News
Software Agents Begin to Form Personal Rapport with sers
Making friends with software.