Communications of the ACM
The news archive provides access to past news stories from Communications of the ACM and other sources by date.
March 2018
From ACM TechNews
Off-the-Shelf Smart Devices Found Easy to Hack
Researchers have determined commercially available smart devices such as baby monitors, home security cameras, doorbells, and thermostats can easily be hacked for nefarious purposes.
From ACM News
Pi Day: What Is Pi and Where Did It Come From?
Today is Pi Day, an annual celebration of the famous mathematical concept that has fascinated people for millenia. But what exactly is π (pronounced like the word "pie"), and where did the concept originate?
From ACM News
Developers Love Trendy New Languages but Earn More with Functional Programming
Developer Q&A site Stack Overflow performs an annual survey to find out more about the programmer community, and the latest set of results has just been published.
From ACM News
Behind the Broadcom Deal Block: Rising Telecom Tensions
Behind the U.S. move to block Singapore-based Broadcom's hostile bid for U.S. chip maker Qualcomm lies a new global struggle for influence over next-generation communications technology—and fears that whoever takes the lead could…
From ACM News
Google Thinks It's Close to 'Quantum Supremacy.' Here's What That Really Means.
Seventy-two may not be a large number, but in quantum computing terms, it's massive.
From ACM TechNews
AI Has a Hallucination Problem That's Proving Tough to Fix
Deep neural network software driving innovation in consumer gadgets and automated driving is vulnerable to sabotage by hallucination, experts say.
From ACM TechNews
Teaching Computers to Guide Science: New Machine Learning Method Sees the Forests and the Trees
Researchers have created a novel machine learning method that enables scientists to derive insights from highly complex systems in record time.
From ACM TechNews
The Final Frontier's Final Frontier
The Space Test Program-Houston 6 hybrid and reconfigurable space supercomputer will board the International Space Station in about a year.
From ACM News
Computing Gets Foggy
Fog computing offers a more effective way to address the challenges of distributed systems and Internet of Things devices.
From ACM News
The New .S.-China Rivalry: A Technology Race
As the United States and China look to protect their national security needs and economic interests, the fight between the two financial superpowers is increasingly focused on a single area: technology.
From ACM News
The Key to the Perfect March Madness Bracket: Evolution
Predicting the winners and losers of March Madness is such a daunting challenge that it attracts math nerds like Starfleet voyagers lining up at Comic-Con.
From ACM News
Newer Horizons: Scientist Pitch Pluto Probe as a nique Deep-Space Telescope
A maverick group of astronomers is proposing to radically reshape one of NASA's most successful missions in the modern era, the New Horizons probe that flew by Pluto in 2015 and is now continuing its voyage into the depths of…
From ACM TechNews
Research Team Explores the Melding of Concepts From Different Fields
Researchers are exploring how seemingly dissimilar concepts in scientific disciplines can be combined to become universal approaches.
From ACM TechNews
Computer Model Describes the 'Architecture of Life'
Researchers say they have used a new holistic multiscale modeling technique to demonstrate the application of tensegrity principles within living cells.
From ACM TechNews
Big Data Shows Women Engineers Downplay Coding Skills
Female engineers contributing to open source software websites are less likely than males to self-report their coding skills in job candidate profiles.
From ACM TechNews
AI Cheats at Old Atari Games by Finding nknown Bugs in the Code
A new algorithm plays Atari games and advances within them either by baiting an enemy to kill itself, or by exploiting bugs that allow the algorithm to cheat.
From ACM TechNews
New Algorithm Allows for Potential 'Brain-Reading'
A new machine learning algorithm is capable of identifying pieces of music from functional magnetic resonance imaging scans of the listener's brain.
From ACM TechNews
For Blind Gamers, Equal Access to Racing Video Games
A Columbia University student has created a new system to help the visually impaired play racing video games.
From ACM News
China Eyes 'Black Tech' to Boost Security as Parliament Meets
At a highway check point on the outskirts of Beijing, local police are this week testing out a new security tool: smart glasses that can pick up facial features and car registration plates, and match them in real-time with a …
From ACM News
AI Has a Hallucination Problem That's Proving Tough to Fix
Tech companies are rushing to infuse everything with artificial intelligence, driven by big leaps in the power of machine learning software. But the deep-neural-network software fueling the excitement has a troubling weakness…
From ACM Careers
Demand for Programmers Hits Full Boil as .S. Job Market Simmers
Ouliana Trofimenko and Annie Rihn, who work for different technology companies on the West Coast, are both on the front lines of one of the biggest challenges to U.S. economic growth right now: a scarcity of technology talent…
From ACM TechNews
Who Makes the NCAA Tournament? Researchers at Illinois Can Help
University of Illinois researchers say they have found a way to predict the selection of basketball teams for the National Collegiate Athletic Association's annual Tournament.
From ACM TechNews
Stanford Researchers Develop Technique to See Objects Hidden Around Corners
Stanford University researchers have developed laser-based imaging technology that can produce images of objects hidden from view around corners.
From ACM TechNews
Social Sensing Emerges as a Tool for Army Leaders
U.S. Army and university scientists are seeking to create social sensing as a scientific discipline.
From ACM TechNews
Fewer International Grad Students Seeking .S. Computer Science Degrees
The U.S. National Science Board says the number of international students enrolling in U.S. universities is falling for the first time in years.
From ACM News
It’s True: False News Spreads Faster and Wider. And Humans Are to Blame.
What if the scourge of false news on the internet is not the result of Russian operatives or partisan zealots or computer-controlled bots? What if the main problem is us?
From ACM News
Neuron Creation in Brain's Memory Centre Stops After Childhood
Every day, the human hippocampus, a brain region involved in learning and memory, creates hundreds of new nerve cells—or so scientists thought.
From ACM News
NASA Juno finds Jupiter's Jet-Streams Are nearthly
Data collected by NASA's Juno mission to Jupiter indicate that the atmospheric winds of the gas-giant planet run deep into its atmosphere and last longer than similar atmospheric processes found here on Earth.
From ACM News
Pentagon Kicks Off Competition for Multibillion-Dollar Cloud-Computing Contract
The U.S. Department of Defense needs to upgrade its often-antiquated technology as a matter of urgent national security, and Pentagon leaders insist the program has the attention of the agency's top leaders.
From ACM TechNews
Computer Science for All: Can Schools Pull It Off?
The nascent Computer Science for All movement aims to help U.S. K-12 schools prepare every student to thrive in a tech-driven future.