Communications of the ACM
The news archive provides access to past news stories from Communications of the ACM and other sources by date.
May 2019
From ACM TechNews
Google Will Give sers More Control Over Who Tracks Them Online
Google is modifying its Chrome Web browser to give users more control over parties who track their online habits.
From ACM TechNews
Drones in Aisle 5? Grocery Stores Becoming nusual Hotbeds of Innovation
Texas-based data subscription service Pensa has created a drone and its underlying artificial intelligence (AI) to enhance grocery operations.
From ACM TechNews
Microsoft Offers Software Tools to Secure Elections
Microsoft is working with Galois to develop open source software to secure elections.
From ACM TechNews
Show Your Hands: Smartwatches Sense Hand Activity
Researchers now can determine when a standard smartwatch wearer is typing on a keyboard, washing dishes, petting a dog, pouring from a pitcher, or cutting with scissors.
From ACM TechNews
Why Is This Ostrich Wearing an Extra Set of Wings?
Researchers used robotic technology and young ostriches wearing artificial wings to gain insight into how a dinosaur's running gait may have caused its wings to flap.
From ACM TechNews
Making a 'To Do' List for Trauma Docs
Researchers have created and implemented the first digital procedural checklist for trauma centers.
From ACM TechNews
What Deep Learning Reveals About Saturn's Storms
Researchers have developed a deep learning approach that identifies and maps the components and features in turbulent regions of Saturn's atmosphere.
From ACM TechNews
Genetic Testing Has a Data Problem. New Software Can Help.
Researchers at Purdue University have developed a new tool designed to process data too large to fit on a computer's main memory at one time.
From ACM TechNews
A Programmer Solved a 20-Year-Old, Forgotten Crypto Puzzle
A self-taught Belgian programmer has solved a puzzle required to open a 1999 time capsule at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
From ACM News
Prototyping Faster with Laser Cutters
Laser cutting tools could outperform three-dimensional printers at prototyping stretchables, wearables.
From ACM TechNews
The Microbots Are on Their Way
A researcher at the University of Pennsylvania has developed tiny robots, thousands of which can fit side by side on a single silicon wafer.
From ACM TechNews
White House Kicks Off Effort to Develop AI Standards
The White House Office of Science and Technology has launched a request for information seeking insight into developing standards around artificial intelligence.
From ACM TechNews
Major New Initiative to Encourage Girls into Computing
The Gender Balance in Computing initiative will use a "range of tailored interventions" to encourage more young women to enter science, technology, engineering, and math fields.
From ACM TechNews
Unhackable: New Chip Stops Attacks Before They Start
A new computer chip architecture could enable proactive defense against cyberthreats.
From ACM TechNews
China's Mass Surveillance More Sophisticated Than Thought
Some of China's biggest technology companies are helping the government operate a mass surveillance system.
From ACM TechNews
For Lower-Paid Workers, the Robot Overlords Have Arrived
Companies like Amazon are using software to monitor employee productivity and terminate underperforming workers.
From ACM News
Jennifer Rexford Talks to ‘She Roars’ Podcast about Partnering with Google, Computer Science’s Revolution
Jennifer Rexford, Class of 1991 and chair of Princeton's computer science department, discusses the computational whirlwind that has transformed almost every walk of life and has even reshaped the fundamentals of a university…
From ACM TechNews
Oregon's a Testing Ground for Amazon's Facial Recognition Policing, But What if Rekognition Gets it Wrong?
Police in Washington County, OR, have used a facial-recognition algorithm from Amazon to publicly test new surveillance techniques for more than a year.
From ACM TechNews
Distracted by Tech While Driving? The Answer May Be More Tech
Advanced driver-assistance technologies can help prevent accidents caused by distracted driving.
From ACM TechNews
Patterns of Compulsive Smartphone se Suggest How to Kick the Habit
A study to determine why people compulsively check their phones found a series of triggers, common across age groups, that start and end habitual smartphone use.
From ACM TechNews
Early Warning System Predicts Risk of Online Students Dropping Out
Researchers in Spain have developed a predictive modeling system for personalized student dropout rates.
From ACM TechNews
Be Wary of Robot Emotions
Humans often anthropomorphize robots, which designers concede can be exploited for both connection and manipulation.
From ACM TechNews
Dreams of biquitous Social Robots Still Aren't Coming True
The closure of consumer robotics firms previously considered potentially game-changing has diminished industry prospects of social robots eventually achieving mainstream acceptance.
From ACM TechNews
Improving Security as AI Moves to Smartphones
Researchers suggest the vulnerability of compressed, or quantized, artificial intelligence models to adversarial attack could be remedied by adding a mathematical constraint
From ACM TechNews
Jaguar Land Rover Planning to Allow Helpful Car Drivers to Earn Cryptocurrency
U.K. automaker Jaguar Land Rover is testing software that will allow drivers of its vehicles to earn virtual currency as an incentive for sharing data.
From ACM News
Addressing Quantum Error Correction
Seeking to prevent premature decoherence of qubits.
From ACM TechNews
Girls Outscore Boys on Tech, Engineering, Even Without Class
U.S. eighth graders in 2019 did significantly better in school compared to 2014, especially among students who are white, black, Asian, or low-income.
From ACM TechNews
Drone Delivers Kidney to Maryland Woman
An aerial drone recently was used to deliver a kidney for implantation into a Maryland woman.
From ACM TechNews
Facial Recognition Software Meets Its Match: Barnyard Animals
Attempts to identify barnyard animals via facial recognition are complicated by the software's difficulty in distinguishing between animals.
From ACM TechNews
Partnership on AI: Algorithms Aren't Ready to Automate Pretrial Bail Hearings
The Partnership on AI has released a report declaring the algorithms now in use to automate the pre-trial bail process unfit to do so.