Communications of the ACM
The news archive provides access to past news stories from Communications of the ACM and other sources by date.
April 2015
From ACM TechNews
Wear Your Social Network
Massachusetts Institute of Technology Media Lab students are making it easier for people to make connections by broadcasting their social media interests offline.
From ACM TechNews
Researchers Build Brain-Machine Interface to Control Prosthetic Hand
Researchers have demonstrated a non-invasive technique to enable a subject to directly control a prosthetic hand using only their thoughts.
From ACM TechNews
Do Girls Like Math? The Answer Matters
Although the gender imbalance in science and technology is a major issue in affluent countries such as the U.S., it is almost non-existent in many less developed countries.
From ACM TechNews
Can You Vote For the Next President on Your Smartphone? Not Just Yet.
The U.S. Election Assistance Commission has approved a measure to update the security and accessibility guidelines for voting machines.
From ACM News
Tech Titans' Latest Project: Defy Death
Seated at the head of a table for 12 with a view of the city's soaring skyline, Peter Thiel was deep in conversation with his guests, eclectic scientists whose research was considered radical, even heretical.
From ACM News
Large Hadron Collider Restarts
The Large Hadron Collider (LHC) has kicked off its second run, as protons circulated in the machine after a two-year break.
From ACM Careers
Why Shades of Asperger's Syndrome Are the Secret to Building a Great Tech Company
The individuals who have founded some of the most success tech companies are decidedly weird.
From ACM Opinion
Is 'making a Game Out of Learning' Bad For Learning?
In MIT's Education Arcade, classic game consoles line the office corridor, rafters are strung with holiday lights, and inflatable, stuffed and papier-maché creatures lurk around every corner.
From ACM News
Diagnosis By Keyboard
Analyzing people's keystrokes as they type on a computer keyboard can reveal a great deal of information about the state of their motor function, according to a new study from MIT.
From ACM News
Google Patented Building Robots with Personalities
Whether or not we are headed toward a robot revolution, Google wants us to get comfortable with the next generation of robots.
From ACM TechNews
New U.s.-Japan Collaborations Bring Big Data Approaches to Disaster Response
The U.S. National Science Foundation and the Japan Science and Technology Agency will jointly fund six collaborative big data projects to enhance disaster management.
From ACM TechNews
Surveying the Mooc Landscape
Harvard University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology have released "one of the largest investigations of massive open online courses to date."
From ACM TechNews
Roll Up Your Screen and Stow It Away?
A structure based on a synthetic hybrid molecule of peptides and DNA could be used to produce thin, transparent, flexible screens.
From ACM TechNews
Wearable Technology Can Help With Public Speaking
An intelligent user interface for smart glasses developed by a team from the University of Rochester can help people with public speaking.
From ACM TechNews
A Robot Prepared For Self-Awareness
Hector is an ambulatory robot developed at Bielefeld University endowed with a rudimentary form of consciousness.
From ACM News
Mini Enzyme Moves Gene Editing Closer to the Clinic
A tweak to a technique that edits DNA with pinpoint precision has boosted its ability to correct defective genes in people.
From ACM News
See How Diseases Spread in These Mesmerizing Graphics
You're an H1N1 influenza virus—swine flu—just hanging out in Hanoi, Vietnam. But now it's time to spread and infect.
From ACM News
Thousands of Atoms Entangled with a Single Photon
Physicists from MIT and the University of Belgrade have developed a new technique that can successfully entangle 3,000 atoms using only a single photon.
From ACM TechNews
Study Shows People Act to Protect Privacy When Told How Often Phone Apps Share Personal Information
Smartphone users will limit the information to which their smartphone apps have access, when they learn how frequently their information is shared with these apps.
From ACM TechNews
Computer Vision and Robotics Used to Survey Cardigan Bay
Aberystwyth University computer scientists assisted marine experts in mapping and recording the sea bed.
From ACM TechNews
Novel Graph Method Detects Cyberattack Patterns in Complex Computing Networks
Scientists have developed a framework allowing users to categorize cyberattacks as graph patterns.
From ACM TechNews
ab Rolls Out New Technology to Help sers Combat Mobile Malware Attacks
University of Alabama at Birmingham researchers say they have developed new techniques to prevent sophisticated malware from attacking smartphones.
From ACM News
Google’s Project Zero Aims to 'improve Security Across the Internet'
Google has assembled 'the best practically-minded security researchers' to 'significantly reduce the number of people harmed by targeted attacks.'
From ACM Opinion
Toolkits For the Mind
When the Japanese computer scientist Yukihiro Matsumoto decided to create Ruby, a programming language that has helped build Twitter, Hulu, and much of the modern Web, he was chasing an idea from a 1966 science fiction novelBabel…
From ACM News
This Air Force Tech Could've Averted the Germanwings Crash
An old aviators' joke goes like this: In the future, airline cockpit crews will consist of one pilot and a dog. The pilot is there to feed the dog, the dog is there to bite the pilot if he touches any of the controls.
From ACM News
Nasa Releases Tool Enabling Citizen Scientists to Examine Asteroid Vesta
NASA has announced the release of Vesta Trek, a free, web-based application that provides detailed visualizations of Vesta, one of the largest asteroids in our solar system.
From ACM News
U.s. Establishes Sanctions Program to Combat Cyberattacks, Cyberspying
President Obama on Wednesday signed an executive order establishing the first sanctions program to allow the administration to impose penalties on individuals overseas who engage in destructive attacks or commercial espionage…
From ACM TechNews
Stanford Crypto Expert Dan Boneh Wins $175k Computer Science Award
Stanford University professor Dan Boneh's contributions to cryptography have earned him the 2014 ACM-Infosys Foundation Award in Computing Sciences.
From ACM TechNews
Virtual Reality Is Coming to Sex, Sports, and Facebook
Technologists predict virtual reality technology will evolve to the point that it will be embedded in practically all aspects of human activity.
From ACM TechNews
Crowdsourced Tool For Depression
A new peer-to-peer networking tool enables people suffering from anxiety and depression to build online support communities and practice therapeutic methods.