Communications of the ACM
The news archive provides access to past news stories from Communications of the ACM and other sources by date.
April 2009
From ACM News
Upgraded Scientific Research Web Site Gets Nih Grant
SciVee, a Web 2.0 resource dedicated to the dissemination of scientific research and science-specific research networking, has completed a number of significant upgrades to its site, enabling faster uploads, improved synchronization…
From ACM TechNews
Cloud Computing: Changing the Way We Work
Cloud computing has the potential to create irreversible changes in how computers are used around the world, says David Carrera, director of the Cloud Computing (CC) research team at Spain's Universitat Politecnica de Catalunya…
From ACM TechNews
Companion Robots Will Improve Elderly People's Quality of Life in Smart Homes
The Companionable project is working to improve the quality of life of elderly and disabled people through robots designed to operate in intelligent homes. The project, part of the European Union 7th Framework Program, combines…
From ICT Results
Semantic Design Promises To Save Time, Raise Productivity
A pioneering semantic engineering environment developed by European researchers offers a more flexible, scalable and user-orientated means of managing design data and product lifecycle information than the mostly monolithic solutions…
From ACM News
Bamboo Keyboards Expect to Bring Green Life to Computer sers
A company in China said it has developed a bamboo keyboard that is gaining popularity among eco-friendly consumers in Europe and North America. Jiangqiao Bamboo and Wood Industry Co. Ltd. said its keyboard is as durable as a…
From ACM TechNews
Researcher Leads Quest For Robots That Take Orders From the Brain
University of Washington (UW) researcher and MacArthur Foundation Fellow recipient Yoky Matsuoka specializes in the field of neurobotics, which focuses on the development of robotic devices driven by brain signals. Such devices…
From ACM TechNews
Caltech Electrical Engineer Awarded $6 Million to Develop Self-Healing Circuits
The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency has awarded California Institute of Technology professor Ali Hajimiri a four-year, $6 million grant to develop self-healing circuits for millimeter and microwave frequencies. The…
From ACM TechNews
Biological Sensors Are the Future of Personalized Medicine
Madrid recently hosted the International Symposium on Research in Grid/Nano/Bio/Medical Informatics (Bioinforsalud 2009). Organized by ACTION-Grid, Bioinforsalud 2009 gave 20 scientists from around the world an opportunity to…
From ACM TechNews
Simpler Language Allows Non-Experts to Program Wireless Sensor Networks
Researchers at the University of Michigan and Northwestern University have developed a programming language for wireless sensor networks that will enable non-computer experts to program them for research. "Most existing programming…
From ICT Results
Tools Enhance Real-World Apps: Call in the Tele-Shrink
European researchers have developed a suite of tools to add non-verbal cues to email, phone calls, chats and other channels of electronic communication. Intriguing real-world application of the work include tele-psychiatry, augmented…
From ACM TechNews
Robot Communicates sing Eye Movements Alone
A team at the Tokyo Institute of Technology is trying to enable humans and robots to communicate nonverbally. Yoichi Yamazaki and colleagues have developed an "eye robot" that can convey a wide range of nonverbal signals. A…
From ACM News
Innovative Asia-Pacific Projects Awarded Isif Funding
Eleven communities in eight Asia-Pacific countries stand to benefit from work backed by a new funding program of the Information Society Innovation Fund (ISIF). The projects are being awarded grants for their innovative approaches…
From ACM TechNews
Sensoring the World Wide Web
The World Wide Web Consortium's (W3C) Semantic Sensor Network incubator group will lay the foundation for enabling sensors and sensor networks to share information over the Internet. The Semantic Sensor Network incubator group…
From ACM TechNews
Data Reuse Not Possible Without Ontological Work, Group Asserts
Ontology Summit chairman Steve Ray says organizations need to develop an ontology to explain how different data elements interact and render this context in a computational form to enable external systems to make sense of a data…
From ACM News
Squeezed Ferroelectric Material Could Lead to 'instant On' Memory Devices
Low-power, high-efficiency electronic memory could be the long-term result of collaborative research led by Cornell University scientist Darrell Schlom (pictured). "Adding new functionality to transistors can lead to improved…
From ACM News
Cloud Computing Tapped For Data-Intensive Research on Oceans, Galaxies
The University of Washington will apply cloud computing to analyze climate simulation results and astronomical images. The university has won three recent awards from the National Science Foundation related to cloud computing…
From ACM News
Quantum Theory May Explain Wishful Thinking
Humans don't always make the most rational decisions. Even when logic and reasoning point in one direction, sometimes we chose the opposite route, motivated by personal bias or simply "wishful thinking." Now scientists have shown…
From ACM News
Argonne Works to Reduce Supercomputer's Electricity Requirement
Cooling a supercomputer consumes more electricity than is required to run the machine, even machines as powerful as the IBM Blue Gene/P — called Intrepid — at the U.S. Department of Energy's (DOE) Argonne National Laboratory.…
From ACM TechNews
Engineering Professor Explores Underwater Wireless Communications
Northeastern University professor Milica Stojanovic says the discovery of the Titanic in 1985 underscored the need for underwater wireless communications technology. "When the Titanic sank, people knew approximately where it…
From ACM News
Wearable Sensors Monitor Gait, May Help Prevent Falls
When an older person is injured in a fall, the cost is significant, both in quality of life and medical expense. being developed by
Researchers at the University of Virginia are developing wireless body sensor networks that…From ACM TechNews
Smartphone Apps Capture 40% of ser Face Time
Up to 90 percent of smartphone users say they want computer-like functions, and close to 40 percent of aggregate face time is based on mobile Internet, games, multimedia, and map applications, according to a dissertation by Helsinki…
From ACM TechNews
Natural 'barcodes' Help US Recognize Faces
Humans recognize faces by organizing facial features such as eyebrows, eyes, and lips into horizontal lines of information, say Dr. Steven Dakin of the University College London (UCL) Institute of Ophthalmology and professor…
From ACM TechNews
The Stranger Side of Chi 2009
ACM's CHI 2009, the 27th Computer-Human Interaction Conference, spotlighted many new inventions and concepts, some of which were decidedly unusual. These included a wearable system that tracks eye movements to facilitate computer…
From ICT Results
Researchers Add Emotional Context to Electronic Communication
Information and communications technology (ICT) is all about communication but it has never provided the semantic richness offered by the non-verbal cues that typically pepper face-to-face conversation. That is about to change…
From ACM News
Tech Mainstays Promote Machines That Fix Themselves
Technology companies are embracing self-healing technology, a computing strategy that could have a major impact on the data center and the desktop. IBM uses self-healing technologies in WebSphere, DB2, the Lotus Foundations product…
From ACM TechNews
Could Quantum Mathematics Shake Up Google?
Pedro Carpena, a physicist at the University of Malaga in Spain, has used a mathematical technique for studying disorder in quantum systems to extract keywords from a book. Carpena's research suggests that the random matrix…
From ACM TechNews
Ishii Develops 'hands-On' ser Interfaces
Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) Media Lab researcher Hiroshi Ishii is developing tactile user interfaces that are designed to integrate computer use with a person's daily life. Ishii's Tangible Media Group is researching…
From ACM TechNews
W3C Investigates Possible e-Gov Standards
The World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) has initiated the process for developing standards that governments could employ to tap Web 2.0 and social networking technologies. The W3C eGovernment Interest Group (eGov IG) is working…
From ACM News
Robotic Gardeners: MIT Droids Tend Plants
A class of undergraduates at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology has created a set of robots that can water, harvest and pollinate cherry tomato plants. The small, $3,000 robots, which move through the garden on a base…
From ACM TechNews
Technology Merges Images, Data and Knowledge to Produce Smarter Searches
University of Texas at DallasUniversity of Texas at Dallas researchers are working to improve the results of searches that request multiple pieces of information, such as searching for an apartment that is near different locations…