Communications of the ACM
The news archive provides access to past news stories from Communications of the ACM and other sources by date.
May 2013
From ACM News
Litterbugs Beware: Turning Found Dna Into Portraits
Heather Dewey-Hagborg was sitting in a therapy session a while ago and noticed a painting on the wall. The glass on the frame was cracked, and lodged in the crack was a single hair. She couldn't take her eyes off it.
From ACM News
Landlords Double as Energy Brokers
The trophy high-rises on Madison, Park, and Fifth Avenues in Manhattan have long commanded the top prices in the country for commercial real estate, with yearly leases approaching $150 a square foot.
From ACM News
nique School For Coders: Tuition-Free – ntil You're Hired
A new school for programmers stands behind the ability of its students to find jobs — if you can't find one within a year, tuition is free.
From ACM News
The Evolution of the Web, in a Blink
The Web browser you're probably using to read this article is a small marvel of engineering.
From ACM News
Neuroprosthetics: Once More, With Feeling
Sitting motionless in her wheelchair, paralysed from the neck down by a stroke, Cathy Hutchinson seems to take no notice of the cable rising from the top of her head through her curly dark hair.
From ACM TechNews
Child Care and STEM Fields Are Called Barriers to Women at 2-Year Colleges
Gender stereotypes that discourage women from pursuing STEM careers are among the most formidable barriers holding them back in community colleges.
From ACM TechNews
App Helps Blind Photographers Take the Perfect Snap
Researchers are developing a smartphone application that helps visually impaired users take pictures.
From ACM TechNews
Why Even Google Will Embrace Cellphone Chips in the Data Center
A recent research paper suggests Google can achieve significant cost savings by using specific processors for particular software tasks.
From ACM TechNews
Amherst Prof Devises First Head-to-Head Speed Test With Conventional Computing, and the Quantum Computer Wins
An Amherst College researcher recently tested the speed of a quantum computing system against conventional computing methods.
From ACM TechNews
Intelligent Robots Will Overtake Humans By 2100, Experts Say
Some computer scientists believe the singularity at which artificial intelligence can match and overtake human intelligence could take place in only 16 years.
From ACM News
A Hack-Proof Internet Exists, Thanks to Quantum Physics
Leave it to the quantum physicists at Los Alamos National Labs to have run for the past two years something that sounded like science fiction: a quantum Internet that promises perfectly secure online communications.
From ACM TechNews
Linux Leads in Open Source Quality, but Risky Defects Lurk
Linux topped open source software in quality in a study of the defects that occur in the software development process.
From ACM TechNews
Networks in 2020: More Traffic, Less Energy
New technologies will enable networks to use much less energy by 2020, even though they will be carrying much more traffic.
From ACM Careers
Inside the Drone Economy
Last month the Association for Unmanned Vehicle Systems International, the unmanned systems industry's largest trade organization, released its first economic study detailing just how an expected $82 billion in economic impacts…
From ACM News
Better Origami sing Nature and Maths
Paper folding isn’t just an art, it can help fit everything on spacecraft from solar panels to telescope mirrors.
From ACM News
Researchers at Parc Give S a Glimpse of the Future
It was a high-tech speed-dating session, Silicon Valley-style: I would sit in the storied memorabilia-laden Room 2306 in the bowels of PARC, the former Xerox research and development center in Palo Alto that gave us the "ball''…
From ACM News
What to Expect When Elevators and Toys Start Phoning Home
Your next elevator pitch might actually come from data derived from your elevator.
From ACM News
U.s. Cyberwar Strategy Stokes Fear of Blowback
Even as the U.S. government confronts rival powers over widespread Internet espionage, it has become the biggest buyer in a burgeoning gray market where hackers and security firms sell tools for breaking into computers.
From ACM Opinion
Syrian Electronic Army Hacks Israel's Main Infrastructure Control System
The Syrian Electronic Army launched a successful cyberattack on the main infrastructure system of Haifa, one of the most important ports in Israel, disrupting the operation of the servers in charge of urban management systems…
From ACM News
A Quantum Computer Aces Its Test
The long-sought quantum computer, a machine potentially far ahead of today's best supercomputers, is almost as hard to define as it is to build.
From ACM News
Big Data from Cheap Phones
At a computer in her office at the Harvard School of Public Health in Boston, epidemiologist Caroline Buckee points to a dot on a map of Kenya's western highlands, representing one of the nation's thousands of cell-phone towers…
From ACM News
China's Cyberspies Outwit Model For Bond's Q
Among defense contractors, QinetiQ North America is known for spy-world connections and an eye-popping product line.
From ACM TechNews
U.K. Eyes Apprenticeships to Grow IT Talent
The U.K. information technology sector is trying out apprenticeships as a means of training more young people for jobs in the industry.
From ACM TechNews
Building a Digital Life Form: Openworm, Open Source
The OpenWorm Project is working to create the first computer model of the Caenorhabditis elegans nematode worm.
From ACM TechNews
Reading, Writing and Computer Coding--the Basics of the Future
To get more students interested in writing software code, advocates are working to eliminate the idea that computer science is too hard.
From ACM TechNews
In Vivo Flexible Large Scale Integrated Circuits
Researchers say they have developed in vivo silicon-based flexible large-scale integrated (LSI) circuits for biomedical wireless communications.
From ACM Opinion
Apple: An End to Skeuomorphic Design?
Why do most smartphones make a clicking noise, like a camera shutter closing, when you take a picture with them? Why do the virtual pages of a book on a tablet appear to turn as you swipe across the screen?
From ACM Careers
Netflix, Reed Hastings Survive Missteps to Join Silicon Valley's Elite
On a normal weeknight, Netflix accounts for almost a third of all Internet traffic entering North American homes. That's more than YouTube, Hulu, Amazon.com, HBO Go, iTunes, and BitTorrent combined.
From ACM Opinion
Stephen Wolfram on Personal Analytics
Don't be surprised if Stephen Wolfram, the renowned complexity theorist, software company CEO, and night owl, wants to schedule a work call with you at 9 p.m. In fact, after a decade of logging every phone call he makes, Wolfram…
From ACM News
Gaze-Based Inattention Management
How do you reduce distractions to office workers, while satisfying their need to stay current?