Communications of the ACM
The news archive provides access to past news stories from Communications of the ACM and other sources by date.
March 2019
From ACM News
How Would a 'Smart Wall' Work at the .S.-Mexico Border?
"Virtual walls" or "smart walls" along the southwest U.S. border are being billed as an alternative to the proposed concrete and steel barriers that have divided public opinion.
From ACM News
How Pope Francis Could Shape the Future of Robotics
At the Vatican's Pontifical Academy for Life workshop, Pope Francis presented a letter warning of developing technologies without first considering societal costs.
From ACM News
Machines Could Fuel Comeback of Textile Industry in South
Automated sewing and other machine innovations could enable a resurgence of the textile industry in the southern U.S.
From ACM News
How Cutting-Edge Technology Helps Basketball Players Shoot
As a freshman last season at Michigan, Isaiah Livers shot 36 percent from 3-point range. Decent, but not great.
From ACM News
Elisa Bertino Named ACM Athena Lecturer
The researcher's achievements include significant advances to mobile security.
From ACM News
A Prehistoric Puzzle in the Kuiper Belt
The farthest object ever explored is slowly revealing its secrets, as scientists piece together the puzzles of Ultima Thule—the Kuiper Belt object NASA's New Horizons spacecraft flew past on New Year's Day, four billion miles…
From ACM News
Russia Wants to Cut Itself Off from the Global Internet. Here's What that Really Means.
In the next two weeks, Russia is planning to attempt something no other country has tried before. It's going to test whether it can disconnect from the rest of the world electronically while keeping the internet running for its…
From ACM TechNews
Ford to Build Factory in Michigan for Autonomous Vehicles
Ford Motor plans to construct its first autonomous vehicles at a $50-million production center in Michigan.
From ACM TechNews
Automated Order Takers May Reshape Future of Drive-Through Restaurants
Artificial intelligence companies are developing voice assistants to improve order-taking at drive-through restaurants.
From ACM TechNews
Parents of Girls, Low-Income Students Less Likely to rge Kids to Study Computers
Parents of female and lower-income students are less likely to encourage their children to major in computer science than parents of male students and those in higher-income households.
From ACM TechNews
Inside GAO's Plan to Make Congress More Tech-Savvy
The U.S. Government Accountability Office has set up a Science and Technology Assessment and Analytics group to help make lawmakers more knowledgeable of emerging technologies.
From ACM TechNews
Robot Precisely Moves Objects It's Never Seen Before
Researchers have developed a system that allows robots to do many different pick-and-place tasks, without having ever seen the objects with which they are interacting.
From ACM News
They Didn't Buy the DLC: Feature that Could've Prevented 737 Crashes Was Sold As an Option
The crashed Lion Air 737 MAX and the Ethiopian Airlines 737 MAX aircraft had more in common than aircraft design and the apparently malfunctioning flight system that led to their demises.
From ACM TechNews
Apple Watch Detects Irregular Heartbeat in Large .S. Study
Researchers found the Apple Watch could detect irregular pulse rates, which might indicate a need for further monitoring to catch atrial fibrillation.
From ACM TechNews
The Future of Sports Is Interactive, Immersive, Intense
Sports viewing is expected to become more accessible, interactive, and personalized, through technologies like virtual reality.
From ACM TechNews
Google Lookout ses AI to Describe Surroundings for Visually Impaired
A new Google app uses artificial intelligence to help visually impaired users better perceive their surroundings by providing verbal feedback via smartphones.
From ACM TechNews
Massachusetts School Recognized for Diversity in Computer Science
Saugus High School in Massachusetts has earned the first College Board Advanced Placement Computer Science Female Diversity Award.
From ACM News
Painting On Perovskites at Room Temperature
Hybrid organic-inorganic perovskite semiconductors are suited to many electro-optical applications.
From ACM News
Moshe Vardi on Social Implications of Technology and Our Responsibility As Academics
Rice University computer science professor Moshe Y. Vardi talks about the impact of technologies on society, and how this challenges what computer science should be concerned about.
From ACM News
Fewer than 200 People Watched the New Zealand Massacre Live. A Hateful Group Helped It Reach Millions
As the New Zealand gunman live-streamed the massacre onto Facebook, fewer than 200 people watched. The social network said its moderators removed it sometime after a user first reported it as troubling, 29 minutes after the stream…
From ACM News
Despite .S. Pressure, Germany Refuses to Exclude Huawei's 5G Technology
The race to build the next generation of super-fast mobile-data networks has begun in Germany, which started auctioning off its spectrum licenses for 5G on Tuesday.
From ACM TechNews
Racing Against China, .S. Reveals Details of $500 Million Supercomputer
The U.S. Department of Energy has disclosed the details of its newest $500-million supercomputer.
From ACM TechNews
U.S. Trails Europe in Technology, Data-Science Skills Ranking
Europe accounts for more than 80% of nations in the top 25% of countries across the technology, business, and data science domains, according to a Coursera index of technology skills.
From ACM TechNews
The Computer Scientist Who Wants to Put a Name to Every Face in Civil War Photographs
A researcher has combined crowdsourcing and facial recognition to produce online software that can help users identify unknown subjects in Civil War-era photos.
From ACM TechNews
Prisoners in England to Be Taught to Code
The U.K. government will fund a program in which "carefully vetted" prisoners will be taught software coding.
From ACM TechNews
.S. Regulators Want Public's View on Cars with No Steering Wheel, Brake Pedals
A U.S. regulator is asking for public comments on whether autonomous cars lacking steering wheels and brake pedals should be allowed on the nation’s streets.
From ACM TechNews
The Best Image-Recognition AIs are Fooled by Slightly Rotated Images
Artificial intelligence is much worse at identifying objects by sight than many people realize.
From ACM News
How Social Media's Business Model Helped the New Zealand Massacre Go Viral
The ability of Internet users to spread a video of Friday's slaughter in New Zealand marked a triumph—however appalling—of human ingenuity over computerized systems designed to block troubling images of violence and hate.
From Communications of the ACM
The Fine Line Between Coercion and Care
Employers monitoring their workforce must balance productivity and security considerations with employee privacy and welfare concerns.
From ACM News
A 'Halo Drive' Could Accelerate Interstellar Spacecraft to Close to the Speed of Light
Back in 2016, the physicist Stephen Hawking and the billionaire Yuri Milner unveiled a plan to travel to the stars. The so-called Breakthrough Starshot project is a $100 million program to develop and demonstrate the technologies…