Communications of the ACM
The news archive provides access to past news stories from Communications of the ACM and other sources by date.
April 2020
From ACM TechNews
Robots Welcome to Take Over, as Pandemic Accelerates Automation
Labor and robotics experts say social-distancing directives could spur more industries to automate.
From ACM TechNews
Academics Steal Data From Air-Gapped Systems Using PC Fan Vibrations
Academics have developed a technique for stealing data from air-gapped systems by manipulating the vibrations of the fans inside computers.
From ACM TechNews
How Coronavirus Is Eroding Privacy
Governments worldwide are using digital surveillance technologies to track the spread of the coronavirus pandemic, raising concerns about the erosion of privacy.
From ACM TechNews
Critical 'Starbleed' Vulnerability in FPGA Chips Identified
Scientists have discovered a vulnerability in field-programmable gate array chips.
From ACM TechNews
Low-Cost Imaging System Poised to Provide Automatic Mosquito Tracking
Johns Hopkins University researchers have developed a low-cost imaging system to automatically track mosquitoes that carry disease.
From ACM News
Facebook-Backed Libra Cryptocurrency Project Is Scaled Back
After months of criticism, the cryptocurrency is moving ahead with significant revisions.
From ACM News
The Computer Scientist Who Can’t Stop Telling Stories
For pioneering computer scientist Donald Knuth, good coding is synonymous with beautiful expression.
From ACM News
Microsoft Research Names Recipients of Faculty Fellowships 2020
Honoring researchers in academia at the forefront of technology.
From ACM News
Algorithms in the Courtroom
The use of software to determine bail and sentencing terms has gone mainstream. How fair are these systems?
From ACM TechNews
U.S., U.K. Cyber Officials Say State-Backed Hackers Taking Advantage of Outbreak
Cybersecurity officials in the U.S. and the U.K. warn that state-backed hackers and cybercriminals are taking advantage of the coronavirus pandemic.
From ACM TechNews
Toward Computers That Teach Themselves
The artificial intelligence industry is experiencing a supervised learning revolution, as researchers teach computers to recognize patterns and learn from them.
From ACM TechNews
Companies Seek to Pool Medical Records to Create Coronavirus Patient Registry
Software and healthcare companies are seeking to create a registry of COVID-19 patients by gathering medical records from across the country.
From ACM TechNews
Machine Learning Reveals New Candidate Materials for Biocompatible Electronics
New machine learning tools can screen self-assembled peptides in an effort to develop electronic devices that are compatible with the human body.
From ACM News
The Origins of Artificial Intelligence
We will delve into the origins of artificial intelligence and how it burgeoned through the years.
From ACM News
A Guide to Healthy Skepticism of Artificial Intelligence and Coronavirus
Like many tools, artificial intelligence has a role to play, but its effect on the coronavirus outbreak is probably small.
From ACM TechNews
NASA Created a Game That Lets You Help Map the Ocean's Coral Reefs
A new game can help map the ocean's diversity of coral reefs.
From ACM TechNews
After 50 Years of Effort, Researchers Made Silicon Emit Light
Researchers at the Eindhoven University of Technology in the Netherlands say they have induced the emission of light from silicon.
From ACM TechNews
AI Techniques Used to Improve Battery Health, Safety
A new machine learning method can predict battery health with 10 times greater accuracy than the current industry standard.
From ACM TechNews
UC Berkeley's AI-Powered Robot Teaches Itself to Drive Off-Road
A new robot learning system can learn about the environment through its own experiences in the real world.
From ACM TechNews
'Unkillable' Android Malware Gives Hackers Full Remote Access to Your Phone
A researcher at cybersecurity company Kaspersky Lab found the xHelper malware uses a system of nested programs that makes it difficult to root out.
From ACM TechNews
Supercomputing Future Wind Power Rise
Cornell University researchers used supercomputers to project scenarios for expanding U.S. wind power capacity.
From ACM News
Kraus Named 2020-2021 ACM Athena Lecturer
The Bar-Ilan University professor is a world leader in Multi-agent Systems, Automated Negotiation.
From ACM News
Artificial Intelligence is Evolving All by Itself
Artificial intelligence (AI) is evolving—literally.
From ACM News
How You'll Get Apple and Google's Contact Tracing Update for Your Phone
The tech giants say everyone will get access to the framework for tracking tools, regardless of which version of iOS or Android they use. Not everyone is convinced.
From ACM News
Internet Voting is Not the Solution to the Coronavirus Election Challenge
The scientific evidence is clear: Security risks pose threat to free and fair elections
From ACM TechNews
Google, UCSF Collaborate on Machine Learning Tool to Help Prevent Harmful Prescription Errors
A new machine learning model predicts normal physician drug prescribing patterns, using a patient's electronic health records as input.
From ACM TechNews
Autonomous Robot Could Help in the Search for Signs of Life in Space
An autonomous robot could be used in the future to search for signs of life in outer space.
From ACM TechNews
Docker Servers Targeted by Kinsing Malware Campaign
Over the past few months, a malware campaign has been scanning the Internet for Docker servers running API ports exposed without a password.
From ACM News
Give Tax Time Phishing Attacks the Slip
Learning how to recognize tax-time email scams can help taxpayers and businesspeople avoid them.
From ACM News
In Memoriam: John Horton Conway 1937-2020
Conway worked on the theory of finite groups, knot theory, number theory, combinatorial game theory, coding theory, and even recreational mathematics.