Communications of the ACM
The news archive provides access to past news stories from Communications of the ACM and other sources by date.
April 2011
From ACM News
Busting the Botnets
They're the scourge of the Internet—networks containing thousands or even millions of virus-infected, remote-controlled PCs. These so-called "botnets" send out spam and launch attacks on websites and computer systems.
From ACM TechNews
Low-Cost Wireless Sensor Networks Open New Horizons For the Internet of Things
The Eureka ITEA software Cluster ESNA project has developed a flexible framework for wireless sensor-network applications by enhancing communications between different types of smart devices.
From ACM News
Why Cisco's Flip Flopped in the Camera Business
Cisco is shutting down a business unit that it bought for over half-a-billion dollars: the Flip camcorder division. That's a shame, considering how high the Flip was flying a few short years ago. It's also a waste, considering…
From ACM TechNews
.s. Lagging in sing Technology, Study Shows
The World Economic Forum's annual study on national computing and communications technology use found that the United States ranked fifth out of 138 countries for the second consecutive year, trailing Sweden, Singapore, Finland…
From ACM TechNews
Introducing C++11
The latest version of the C++ programming language, C++11, recently passed review by the International Organization of Standardization, and the official standard will be approved in the fall.
From ACM TechNews
Robot Could Guide Humans Through Areas of Low Visibility
Sheffield Hallam University researchers are helping to develop a robot that can guide humans in areas of low visibility. The robot, which will be slightly larger than a laptop, could be used by firefighters and by the blind…
From ACM News
Ibm's Watson Not As Smart As You Think
As smart as IBM's Watson supercomputer may have seemed while defeating two former Jeopardy champions, it wouldn't be able to hold a conversation with or speak intelligently to the attendees at its own conference, according…
From ACM TechNews
Hmi ses Human Eye to Control Robot-Mounted Cameras
A new human-machine interface enables users to control cameras mounted on a remote robot with their eye movements. The system combines advanced eye-tracking technology with fast piezoelectric actuators connected to an artificial…
From ACM TechNews
Speedier Nanotube Circuits
Stanford University researchers recently expanded on an earlier study involving the development of faster nanotube circuits, which could lead to their use in complex integrated circuits.
From ACM TechNews
Bye-Bye Electrons? Circuit Made From Flowing Atoms
Kevin Wright and colleagues at NIST chilled 100,000 sodium atoms then used lasers to shape the blob of atoms into a torus and give it enough energy to circulate as a single, coherent quantum object around a ring.
From ACM News
Cameras Read License Plates, Helping City's Police
When Luis Zeledon was captured by detectives, it was probably safe to say that he had not intended to be found. He was hiding in someone else’s apartment in Queens, taking refuge inside a closet.
From ACM News
Online Photos: Are They New Digital Fingerprints?
For Mike Smith, Facebook is a fort for communicating freely with friends online. Within the confines of that giant yet access-restricted network, the music-software engineer from San Francisco believes he can control what's…
From ACM News
Dialing with Your Thoughts
Researchers in California have created a way to place a call on a cell phone using just your thoughts. Their new brain-computer interface is almost 100 percent accurate for most people after only a brief training period.
From ACM News
Mathematical Model Simulating Rat Whiskers Provides Insight Into Sense of Touch
Researchers at Northwestern University have developed a mathematical model that will allow them to simulate how rats use their whiskers to sense objects around them. The model enables further research that may provide insight…
From ACM News
Universities, Industry Clash on Need For Open-Source Fpgas
Would open-source field-programmable gate arrays simplify academic research on reconfigurable computing? Researchers say yes, but industry disagrees.
From ACM News
Intel, on the Outside, Takes Aim at Smartphones
With an "Intel Inside" sticker affixed to their PCs, computer buyers in the 1990s could hardly avoid knowing whose microchip was making their machines work. The campaign made Intel one of the most recognizable brands and cemented…
From ACM TechNews
Artificial Intelligence For Improving Data Processing
Carlos III University of Madrid recently hosted a group of AI experts to discuss the technology's latest advances. Five researchers discussed issues including combinational problem-solving algorithms, reasoning robots, vision…
From ACM TechNews
Scientists Find Way to Map Brain's Complexity
University College London researchers are developing a computer model of the brain by mapping the connections and functions of nerve cells. The study is part of an a new field called connectomics, which aims to map the brain's…
From ACM TechNews
Facebook Opens Up Its Hardware Secrets
Facebook plans to open the designs and specifications of its new super-efficient data center. The company wants to encourage software-style openness for hardware, and release enough information about the data center and servers…
From ACM TechNews
Technique For Letting Brain Talk to Computers Now Tunes in Speech
Washington University in St. Louis researchers are studying a brain computing interface they developed that can be used to analyze the frequency of brain wave activity, enabling them to make finer distinctions about what the…
From ACM TechNews
High-Performance Computing Cluster Will Aid Research
Temple University has a new high-performance computer cluster comprised of more than 100 nodes that will significantly enhance the high-speed computing capabilities of researchers across its campuses.
From ACM TechNews
Students Turn Cell Phone Into Mobile Microscope
Students at the University of California, Davis, and the University of Central Florida have developed a way to turn smartphones into virtual microscopes that can detect malaria from a digital picture of a patient's blood sample…
From ACM News
Expert Gives Tips on Safeguarding Against Data Theft
Nick Feamster, assistant professor at Georgia Tech's College of Computing and researcher at the Georgia Tech Information Security Center offers his expertise on the Epsilon data breach and what users and custodians can do to…
From ACM News
Technique for Letting Brain Talk to Computers Now Tunes in Speech
The act of mind reading is something usually reserved for science-fiction movies but researchers in America have used a technique, usually associated with identifying epilepsy, for the first time to show that a computer can…
From ACM News
Internet Probe Can Track You Down to Within 690 Metres
Online adverts could soon start stalking you. A new way of working out where you are by looking at your internet connection could pin down your current location to within a few hundred metres.
From ACM News
Augmented Reality Interface Exploits Human Nervous System
The most important function of the brain is figuring out what to ignore: Research suggests that we can process only about one percent of the visual information we take in at any given moment. That's one reason why, as augmented…
From ACM News
New Search Technology Is Enhanced With Videos
The line between cyberspace and the physical world is blurring with a new search technology being demonstrated by Autonomy, a British software publisher.
From ACM News
U.s. Can Conduct Offsite Searches of Computers Seized at Borders, Court Rules
Laptop computers and other digital devices carried into the U.S. may be seized from travelers without a warrant and sent to a secondary site for forensic inspection, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit ruled last…
From ACM TechNews
Supercomputers Let p on Speed
Smarter rather than faster design appears to be coming into vogue as a gauge of a supercomputer's success. A federal report urges a more balanced portfolio of U.S. supercomputing development, and cautions against an overemphasis …
From ACM TechNews
A Glimpse of the Archives of the Future
The National Archives and Records Administration enlisted the Texas Advanced Computing Center to find innovative and scalable solutions to large-scale electronic records collections.