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 News
Disney Invents Robots That Swarm Into Colorful Animations
Walt Disney pioneered the art of animation and pushed the boundaries of robotics with his audio-animatronic presidents, but now the research lab that bears his name, along with ETH Zurich, have figured out a way to combine both…
From ACM News
Scientific Computing's Future: Can Any Coding Language Top a 1950s Behemoth?
Take a tour through the research laboratories at any university physics department or national lab, and much of what you will see defines "cutting edge."
From ACM Opinion
Former Head of the Nsa and Commander of the S Cyber Command, General Keith Alexander
Recently retired director of the U.S. National Security Agency and commander of the U.S. Cyber Command General Keith Alexander was interviewed by Australian Financial Review contributing editor Christopher Joye. This is a full…
From ACM News
Windows Xp: The Millennium Bug For Atms?
There may be no industry more impacted by the retirement of the XP operating system than banking.
From ACM TechNews
Poetic Process Could Extend the End of Moore's Law
A process called Planar Opto-Electronic Technology could extend the life of Moore's Law.
From ACM TechNews
New Tool Eases the Burden of Creating and Reproducing Analytical Performance Models
Researchers say the Performance and Architecture Lab Modeling system simplifies the construction of a model by automating common modeling tasks.
From ACM TechNews
First-of-a-Kind Supercomputer at Lawrence Livermore Available For Collaborative Research
Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory recently made the Catalyst supercomputer available to test big data technologies, architectures, and applications.
From ACM News
Model niverse Recreates Evolution of the Cosmos
Can current theories of cosmology explain how the Universe evolved?
From ACM News
First Life with 'alien' Dna
For billions of years, the history of life has been written with just four letters—A, T, C and G, the labels given to the DNA subunits contained in all organisms.
From ACM News
Imaging: Cancer Caught in the Act
Mikala Egeblad was blown away when she made her first action film of tumour cells inside live mice.
From ACM News
Nasa's Curiosity Rover Drills Sandstone Slab on Mars
Portions of rock powder collected by the hammering drill on NASA's Curiosity Mars rover from a slab of Martian sandstone will be delivered to the rover's internal instruments.
From ACM TechNews
Tech Leaders Lobby For Coding Classes in California Schools
Educators and technology industry leaders are urging California Gov. Jerry Brown to improve computer science education in the state's public schools.
From ACM TechNews
Do-It-Yourselfers Inspire Hardware Renaissance in Silicon Valley
New high-tech, affordable manufacturing tools and new sources of funding are helping launch a generation of entrepreneurs and laying the basis for a hardware renaissance.
From ACM TechNews
An Intelligent Vehicle That Can Detect Pedestrians at Nighttime
Researchers have developed a pedestrian detection system for cars that works in low visibility conditions by capturing body heat with infrared cameras.
From ACM TechNews
We're Saved! Experts Show How to Fix U.s. Cybersecurity
A recent large-scale simulation attempted to gauge the ability of the U.S. to enact legislation to address cyber vulnerabilities following a national crisis.
From ACM TechNews
U.s. Plan Aims to Draw Immigrants With Technology Skills
The Obama administration on Tuesday announced plans to allow the spouses of some highly skilled temporary immigrants to work in the United States.
From ACM TechNews
Stephen Hawking: 'transcendence Looks at the Implications of Artificial Intelligence--But Are We Taking AI Seriously Enough?'
Today's advances in artificial intelligence research will pale in comparison to what the next decade will bring, write Stephen Hawking and several other scientists.
From ACM News
How George Washington niversity Is Shaping a Piece of Google's Smartphone Future
In the labs of George Washington University, students are laboring in labs covered in black-and-white dotted paper, puzzling out how to make a machine that understands images like the human brain.
From ACM TechNews
Robots May Need to Include Parental Controls
A recent study found older adults are worried that in the future, young people may become too physically and emotionally dependent on robots.
From ACM News
Terahertz Imaging on the Cheap
Terahertz imaging, which is already familiar from airport security checkpoints, has a number of other promising applications—from explosives detection to collision avoidance in cars.
From ACM Careers
Do-It-Yourselfers Inspire Hardware Renaissance in Silicon Valley
In the shadow of Internet monoliths such as Facebook, Google and Twitter, it's easy to forget that Silicon Valley got its start from hard-scrabble tinkerers building radios, microchips and other devices.
From ACM News
Augmented Reality Gains Traction For Training
Training is one of the original applications of the technology.
From ACM News
The Plug-and-Play Luxury Home
When it is completed in early 2018, Muse, a 49-story luxury-condo development in Sunny Isles Beach, Fla., will have an automated parking system with push-button robotics to park the car for you.
From ACM TechNews
Device Could Boost Image Quality For Phones, Computers, and Tvs
A new device could significantly improve the quality of images on smartphones, computer displays, TVs, and inkjet printers.
From ACM TechNews
National Day of Civic Hacking Widens Reach in Second Year
The National Day of Civic Hacking this year will broaden its scope to 79 international cities and 98 civic hacking events from May 31 to June 1.
From ACM TechNews
Saving Crops and People With Bug Sensors
A new method of classifying insects could help protect crops from insect damage and limit the spread of insect-borne diseases.
From ACM News
Will We Ever… Control the Weather?
With 2,000 drummers, 15,000 other performers and vast quantities of fireworks, the opening ceremony of the Beijing Olympics was a dazzling spectacle.
From ACM News
Wiring of Retina Reveals How Eyes Sense Motion
A vast project to map neural connections in the mouse retina may have answered the long-standing question of how the eyes detect motion.
From ACM News
Computer System Automatically Solves Word Problems
Researchers in MIT's Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory, working with colleagues at the University of Washington, have developed a new computer system that can automatically solve the type of word problems…
From ACM News
Self-Assembly Required: One Scientist's Bid to Build Cancer-Killing Nanorobots
The term "cancer killing nanorobot" could conjure up all sorts of images, the best involving teeny tiny laser eyebeams.