Communications of the ACM
The news archive provides access to past news stories from Communications of the ACM and other sources by date.
April 2010
From ACM News
Xo Laptops Inspire Learning In Birmingham Grade Schools
Researchers examine the educational and social effects of making XO laptops available in select classrooms, and their impact on student outcomes.
From ACM TechNews
New Computer Interface Goes Beyond Just Touch
Microsoft researchers have developed Manual Deskterity, a computer interface that combines touch input with the precision of a pen.
From ACM TechNews
The Smarter Electric Grid of the Future
The U.S. National Institute of Standards and Technology's George Arnold recently detailed his vision for what a smart electric grid would look like in 2020.
From ACM TechNews
New Force Behind Agency of Wonder
Under the helm of director Regina Dugan, the U.S. Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency's roster of concerns includes cybersecurity, advanced manufacturing, biological sensors, and rapid vaccine development.
From ACM TechNews
Steganography Discovery Could Help Data Thieves, But Also Improve Radar, Sonograms
The technology for instruments used to see through fog also could be used for optical steganography, according to a team of researchers at Princeton University.
From ACM TechNews
Innovation, by Order of the Kremlin
The Russian government is using Silicon Valley as a template for a new scientific city in order to cultivate a U.S.-like spirit of entrepreneurship through the commercialization of work performed at university laboratories.
From ACM TechNews
Online E-Expo Features More Than 100 niversity Robotics Labs
EXPO21xx's online exhibition for the robotics industry features projects from more than 100 university robotics labs from around the world.
From ACM TechNews
'mind-Reading' Brain-Scan Software Showcased in Ny
Intel is developing software that uses brain scans to determine what items people are thinking about. The software analyzes magnetic resonance imaging scans to determine which parts of the brain are being activated as a person…
From ACM News
Technology in the Classroom: China's Challenges
Even as China's technology infrastructure advances, computer teachers in Shanghai readily acknowledge the shortcomings of tech education in their classrooms.
From ACM News
Entertainment Needs Drive Innovative Mobile Phone Uses in India
A new study on how people in India use mobile computing devices suggests that entertainment may be viewed as a necessity, not merely a desire, by the media-consuming public.
From ACM News
Pentagon Turns to 'softer' Sciences
By highlighting the limits of traditional military technology, the drawn-out conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan have spurred the U.S. defense department to shake up its $12-billion science and technology research program. The…
From ACM News
Computer-Driven High Speed Trading Improves Market Liquidity
Responding to concerns about an increasingly electronic stock exchange, Terrence Hendershott studied algorithmic trading and found that computer-driven trading based on algorithmic formulas improves market liquidity.
From ACM News
Touch Floors Could Be Next Step in Computer Interfaces
Imagine entering your living room and sliding your foot purposefully over a particular stretch of floor. Your hi-fi system springs to life, pumping out the sounds of your current favourite CD.
While touchscreens are close to…From ACM News
Why Machines Do Not Understand Human Speech
From the moment people are born, they learn to make associations and to understand words depending on the context of a sentence.
This learning continues throughout life, so teaching machines to make common sense assumptions …From ACM News
Keeping Medical Data Private
Researchers at Vanderbilt University have created an algorithm designed to protect the privacy of patients while maintaining researchers' ability to analyze vast amounts of genetic and clinical data to find links between diseases…
From ACM News
Random
Researchers have devised and demonstrated the first random-number generator in which the numbers are certified random by the laws of quantum mechanics.
From ACM TechNews
ncle Sam Wants You (to Fight Hackers)
A shortfall of cybersecurity professionals is on the horizon, with Boeing's Alan Greenberg warning that the U.S. public and private sectors will collectively need roughly 60,000 such employees in the next three years.
From ACM TechNews
Google Trying Anew for a 3-D Web
Google is breathing new life into its effort to bring hardware-accelerated three-dimensional graphics to the Internet.
From ACM News
Rfid Pilot Study Examines Improvement of Inventory Accuracy at Jcpenney
New findings out of the RFID Research Center at the University of Arkansas confirm that radio-frequency identification tags on individual retail items can significantly improve inventory accuracy, even within departments or…
From ICT Results
Augmented Reality Brings Movie Magic to City Visits
Many people's first encounter with a foreign country is in the cinema. Using a combination of location-based services and augmented reality, European researchers have created a device that brings a little movie magic to visiting…
From ACM News
Sas Seeks to Improve Data Mining of Social Media
No one doubts that social media--all the stuff on Facebook, Twitter and other online forums--provides a rich lode of user sentiment that companies ought to be able to exploit. And not just to sharpen their marketing, but also…
From ACM TechNews
U.s. Steps Up Probe of Hiring in Tech
The U.S. Justice Department reportedly is investigating whether large tech companies have agreed not to recruit each other's employees in ways that violate antitrust laws and prevent computer engineers and others from changing…
From ACM TechNews
In Search of Tomorrow's Cures
University of Texas at Austin researchers are using physical models and supercomputers to create a more robust way of searching for new drugs.
From ACM TechNews
United States, Europe, Japan Agree on Data Center Efficiency Metric
U.S., European, and Japanese government agencies and industry groups are expected to announce an agreement that establishes a common metric that data centers worldwide can use to report their energy efficiency levels.
From ACM TechNews
In Profile: Missy Cummings
Professor Mary (Missy) Cummings, director of MIT's Humans and Automation Laboratory, wants to make it easier for humans to supervise automatic control systems, such as UAVs, performing cognitive tasks.
From ACM TechNews
Invisibility Cloak That Generates Virtual Images Gets Closer to Realization
Engineers from Southeast University in Nanjing, China, have developed a material that can serve as more than an invisibility cloak. The optical transformation media, or illusion media, makes an object invisible as well as generates…
From ACM TechNews
Automobile Control Research Opens Door to New Safety Features
North Carolina State University researchers have developed a computer vision program and plan to use it to drive a car.
From ACM TechNews
Intel Guru Says 3-D Internet Will Arrive Within Five Years
Intel Labs technology evangelist Sean Koehl speculates that technological advances could make realistic three-dimensional Internet applications a reality in five years.
From ACM TechNews
Robots With Better Observation
Researchers say that new three-dimensional sensing technology under development will be more similar to the human eye in the way it enables robots to observe their environment.
From ACM TechNews
Effort Will Help Libraries Put Academic Papers in Data 'cloud'
The nonprofit DuraSpace organization is developing software that would make it easier for librarians to set up off-site storage repositories in the computing cloud.