Communications of the ACM
The news archive provides access to past news stories from Communications of the ACM and other sources by date.
May 2009
From ACM TechNews
The Future of Gadget Interaction
Many innovative technologies funded by the European Commission (EC) were spotlighted at the Science Beyond Fiction conference in Prague. The EC announced in April that it would boost its investment in user-device interaction…
From ACM TechNews
Research Gives Clues For Self-Cleaning Materials, Water-Striding Robots
Scientists at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln (UNL) and Japan's RIKEN institute recently completed research that could lead to self-cleaning walls, counter tops, and fabrics, or micro-robots capable of walking on water. The…
From ACM TechNews
World Will Change Icann's Future, Ceo Says
In an interview with the San Francisco Chronicle, ICANN president Paul Twomey agreed with European Union commissioner Viviane Reding, who recently called on President Obama to sever ICANN's ties with the U.S. Department of Commerce…
From ACM Careers
Students Excel in New-Age Crime Technology
Hacking has become an attractive subject for many students. The first day of the Security and Identity Management (SIM) conference in Ahmedabad saw paper presentations from students of various national universities in fields…
From ACM News
Stanford's Startup Culture Stronger Than Ever
Stanford University's 100-year tradition of entrepreneurialism, which has spawned such tech giants as Hewlett-Packard, Cisco, Google, Sun, and Yahoo!, has been recognized as a catalyst to Silicon Valley's emergence as the globe's…
From ACM TechNews
Flexible Displays May Be Stretched Over Curved Surfaces
A team of University of Tokyo researchers led by professor Takao Someya has engineered a stretchable display by linking organic light-emitting diodes (OLEDs) and organic transistors with a printable elastic conductor. "Printing…
From ACM TechNews
Students Build Hand-Gestural Pc Interface
Controlling applications with hand gestures is a more natural way to communicate with computers, according to a team of engineering students at Northeastern University. With a PC interface developed by the team, users move a…
From ACM TechNews
'smart Cameras' to Help Monitor Elderly People Who Live Alone
Yale University researchers Eugenio Culurciello and Andreas Savvides are developing smart camera technology to help monitor older adults who live alone. "Approximately one third of individuals who are 65 and older fall each…
From ACM TechNews
Cadets Trade the Trenches For Firewalls
Throughout the U.S. military there is heightened awareness that the threat of a computer attack is just as urgent as a physical attack, and that military units must be trained to counter it. In April, cadets at West Point and…
From ACM TechNews
Mobile Apps Open Source Middleware
The MUSIC Consortium has released a preliminary version of a language tool and middleware environment for developing next-generation mobile applications and services. The MUSIC platform would facilitate the development of applications…
From ACM TechNews
EC Wants Software Makers Held Liable for Code
The European Commission is proposing that the European Union's consumer protections for physical products also cover software. Commissioners Viviane Reding and Meglena Kuneva say making software companies responsible for the…
From ACM News
Color E-Paper That Rivals the Real Thing
A new approach electronic-paper developed by Philips offers fresh hope for color e-paper displays that are so bright and clear that even traditional liquid crystal displays (LCDs) will pale in comparison. Kars-Michiel Lenssen…
From ACM News
Hackers Attack c Berkeley Databases
The University of California, Berkeley, began notifying students, alumni and others on Friday (May 8) that their personal information may have been stolen after hackers attacked restricted computer databases in the campus's health…
From ACM TechNews
Virtual Cocoon Could Simulate Five Senses
Research teams from York University and Warwick University, along with experts from the universities of Bangor, Bedford, and Brighton, are working to create new virtual reality systems. The researchers are currently working…
From ACM TechNews
Professor Wants Exemption to Study Video Game Anti-Piracy Software
University of Michigan professor Alex Halderman wants to research whether the anti-piracy software built into computer games makes computers more vulnerable to hackers. He would have to break the law to do that. Halderman will…
From ACM News
A Nimbus Rises in the World of Cloud Computing
Cloud computing is a hot topic in the technology world these days, called by television and business magazines the way of the future. While it's difficult to predict the future, a cloud computing infrastructure project developed…
From ACM TechNews
Examining Social Networking to Find People Behind Terrorist Attacks
Inderscience PublishersSocial Design Group's Yoshiharu Maeno and University of Tokyo professor Yukio Ohsawa have developed a new approach to analyzing social networks that could help find the covert connections between the people…
From ACM TechNews
How to Make (robot) Friends and Influence People
A team from the Interactive Robots and Media Lab at the United Arab Emirates University has created a robot with its own Facebook page in an effort to enable the robot to build stronger connections with humans. The robot isView…
From ACM TechNews
Make Brighter, Full-Color Electronic Readers? Brilliant!
An international collaboration that includes the University of Cincinnati has announced the development of Electrofluidic Display Technology (EFD), which they say is the first technology to electrically switch the appearance…
From ACM TechNews
The Next Age of Discovery
Teams of computer scientists, conservationists, and scholars are rushing to digitally save and preserve the world's literary treasures. Advanced technology is enabling researchers to scan ancient texts that were previously unreadable…
From ACM TechNews
When Virtual Reality Feels Real
Researchers in the European Union-funded Presenccia project are conducting experiments to understand why humans interpret and respond to virtual stimuli and to learn how to make those virtual experiences more real and intense…
From ACM TechNews
New York Times Graphics Director Selected For Siggraph Keynote
The New York Times graphics director Steve Duenes, a leader in transforming complex data into understandable graphic journalism, will be the keynote speaker for ACM's SIGGRAPH 2009, the 36th International Conference and Exhibition…
From ACM TechNews
Software Development Gender Gap Pondered
A panel of women developers at the recent RailsConf 2009 conference in Las Vegas held a session entitled "Women in Rails" to discuss the issues that cause software development to be a male-dominated profession. The panelists…
From ACM TechNews
Shedding Light on the Catacombs of Rome
Researchers have completed a three-year project to create the first comprehensive, three-dimensional (3D) image of the Catacombs in Rome. The project used laser scanners to create moving images of the entire underground system…
From ACM TechNews
Researchers Step Toward Faster Chips
Scientists and engineers from the University of Florida, Stanford University, and the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory have created a basic type of semiconductor from graphene, a single atom-thick layer of graphite. The…
From ACM TechNews
Researchers Take Over Dangerous Botnet
University of California-Santa Barbara (UCSB) researchers temporarily commandeered an infamous botnet known for stealing financial data and found that the threat it represents is even greater than had been originally assumed.…
From ACM News
Warp Speed? Two Physicists Report on Method That Could Make It Happen
With the new movie "Star Trek" opening in theaters across the nation, one thing moviegoers will undoubtedly see is the Starship Enterprise racing across the galaxy at the speed of light. But can traveling at warp speed ever become…
From ACM News
Videoconferencing Technology Possible For Cell Phones, Pdas
A new low-bandwidth, high-frame-rate videoconferencing technology that creates the appearance of three-dimensionality and a strong sense of co-presence without the use of expensive motion-tracking devices or multi-camera arrays…
From ACM News
In Cellphone, India Reveals an Essence
Sometimes a technology comes along and crystallizes a cultural moment. Not since the automobile and the American in the 1950s, perhaps, have a technology and a people wedded as happily as Indians and their cellphones. And neither…
From ACM News
The Rise and Rise of E-Readers
Amazon's launch of its first dedicated e-reader for newspapers, magazines, and textbooks points to a future when digital and analog publishing begins to merge. With increased graphics resolution and a 9.7-inch diagonal screen…