Communications of the ACM
The news archive provides access to past news stories from Communications of the ACM and other sources by date.
May 2014
From ACM TechNews
Wireless Camera Network Offers New Possibilities For Security Systems
The Solar Wi-Fi Energy Efficient Tracking camera system is a prototype device for a solar-powered wireless network of smart cameras.
From ACM News
The Age of Quantum Computing Has (almost) Arrived
Google owns a lot of computers—perhaps a million servers stitched together into the fastest, most powerful artificial intelligence on the planet.
From ACM Opinion
Should .s. Hackers Fix Cybersecurity Holes or Exploit Them?
There's a debate going on about whether the U.S. government—specifically, the NSA and United States Cyber Command—should stockpile Internet vulnerabilities or disclose and fix them.
From ACM News
Pluto-Bound Probe Faces Crisis
Nearly 4.3 billion kilometres from Earth, and most of the way to Pluto, NASA's New Horizons spacecraft is in danger of missing out on half of its mission.
From ACM News
Construction to Begin on 2016 NASA Mars Lander
NASA and its international partners now have the go-ahead to begin construction on a new Mars lander, after it completed a successful Mission Critical Design Review on Friday.
From ACM TechNews
Fcc Chair: An Internet Fast Lane Would Be 'commercially Unreasonable'
Federal Communications Commission chairman Tom Wheeler says the FCC could take action to block the emergence of Internet fast lanes, or "paid prioritization."
From ACM TechNews
IBM and Fujifilm Show Super Dense Storage Tape For Big Data Work
Researchers at IBM and Fujifilm are developing a magnetic tape prototype that can store 85.9 billion bits of data per square inch.
From ACM TechNews
Stanford Engineer Invents a Way to Beam Power to Medical Chips Deep Inside the Body
Researchers say they have has developed a technology that paves the way for 'electroceutical' devices to treat illness or alleviate pain.
From ACM TechNews
Hitachi Unveils Robot With a Sense of Humor
Hitachi engineers say they have created an android robot with a sense of humor.
From ACM TechNews
Liberating Devices From Their Power Cords
Researchers have developed a method for creating materials that can store and discharge significant amounts of electricity.
From ACM Opinion
Three Questions with the Man Leading Baidu's New AI Effort
Artificial intelligence is guided by the far-off goal of having software match humans at important tasks.
From ACM TechNews
Enabling Cutting Edge Future Internet Research
The SMARTFIRE project, a two-year European Union effort initiated in 2013, aims to develop large-scale experimental facilities for cutting-edge Internet research.
From ACM Careers
Coding Schools Tone Down Rosy Job Script
Learn to code. Get a job. Then what?
From ACM Opinion
The Myths & Realities of How the Eu's New 'right To Be Forgotten' in Google Works
Is it true that anyone in the EU can have anything removed from Google and other search engines?
From ACM News
Forging a Qubit to Rule Them All
Peering into his cabinet of curiosities on a recent spring day, Bob Willett, a scientist at Bell Labs in Murray Hill, N.J., nimbly plucked a tiny black crystal from the shelves and slid it under a microscope.
From ACM News
Hidden Greenland Canyons Mean More Sea Level Rise
Scientists at NASA and the University of California, Irvine (UCI), have found that canyons under Greenland's ocean-feeding glaciers are deeper and longer than previously thought, increasing the amount of Greenland's estimated…
From ACM TechNews
New Energy-Saving Facility Boosts Stanford's Computing Prowess
The new Stanford Research Computing Center is saving energy through air-driven cooling.
From ACM TechNews
Researchers Discover Critical Flaws in the Chip and Pin System
A pair of critical flaws in EMV smart card technology can be exploited to generate cloned cards that are undetectable by normal bank procedures.
From ACM TechNews
From the Smartphone to the Cloud and Back Again
College of William & Mary professor Robert Dickerson says there are many reasons to tie a smartphone app to the cloud.
From ACM News
For U.s. Companies That Challenge China, the Risk of Digital Reprisal
Two large American steel makers, U.S. Steel and Allegheny Technologies, each lost confidential files giving access to their computer networks.
From ACM News
Microbial Stowaways to Mars Identified
Dozens of microbial species may have accompanied the Curiosity rover to Mars, where it landed in August 2012.
From ACM News
How Google Built Its 3-D Interactive Rubik's Cube Doodle
Today Google launched one of its coolest doodles yet: a 3-D interactive Rubik's Cube.
From ACM Opinion
Why the Death of Net Neutrality Would Be a Disaster For Libraries
The Internet's eyes turned to the Federal Communications Commission on Thursday, as the panel approved a plan to consider allowing Internet service providers to charge Web sites like Netflix for higher-quality delivery of their…
From ACM TechNews
Device Aims to Brings Text and Graphics to Visually Impaired
European researchers are working on a portable Braille device with a tactile display that enables visually impaired users to access digital words and graphics.
From ACM TechNews
New Algorithm Shakes p Cryptography
Researchers have uncovered a flaw in cryptography security, discrediting several cryptographic systems that were assumed to provide sufficient safeguards.
From ACM TechNews
Glasses-Free 3D Projector
Researchers have developed a glasses-free, multi-perspective, three-dimensional video screen.
From ACM TechNews
Strongly Interacting Electrons in Wacky Oxide Synchronize to Compute Like the Brain
A device developed by Pennsylvania State University electrical engineers could serve as the foundation for non-Boolean computing.
From ACM TechNews
Harvard's Robotic Bees Aim to Pollinate Crops, Search For Survivors in Rubble
Researchers hope to prove within the next few years that it is possible to use robotic bees to artificially pollinate crops.
From ACM TechNews
Do We Need a Title Ix For STEM Workers?
The U.S. Office of Management and Budget's Lisa Schlosser thinks a measure along the lines of Title IX may be necessary to close the gender gap in IT.
From ACM TechNews
Fighting Off Virtual Attacks
Researchers say they have taken ideas from nature and applied them to security for software that runs on digital devices.