Communications of the ACM
The news archive provides access to past news stories from Communications of the ACM and other sources by date.
May 2020
From ACM News
Using Crowdsourced Computing to Fight the Coronavirus
Folding@Home is more powerful than the world’s top seven supercomputers combined.
From ACM TechNews
Pandemic Spike in AI Learning--and What It Means For Schools
The learning platform edX has seen its enrollments increase tenfold while its computer science offerings increase ninefold over the past few months, fueled by the spread of Covid-19.
From ACM TechNews
Algorithm Helps Analyze Images to Improve Health Care, Manufacturing
A new algorithm makes it easier for humans to recognize and analyze patterns that appear in both natural and manufactured systems.
From ACM TechNews
Seeing the Universe Through New Lenses
An international team of researchers found 335 new gravitational lensing candidates in the data collected for a U.S. Department of Energy-supported telescope project.
From ACM TechNews
Coding for Covid-19: Contest Calls on Developers to Help Fight the Pandemic
One track in this year's IBM Call for Code challenge focused on the Covid-19 pandemic.
From ACM TechNews
Geometry Points to Coronavirus Drug Target Candidates
A new study incorporates a mathematical model that predicts protein sites on viruses that might be particularly susceptible to disabling treatments.
From ACM TechNews
This Robot Can Guess How You're Feeling by the Way You Walk
A new algorithm enables a small four-wheeled robot to perform real-time gait analysis in order to determine a walker's emotional state.
From ACM TechNews
AI Gauges Head Injuries by Classifying Brain Lesions
Scientists have developed an artificial intelligence algorithm that can detect and classify different types of brain lesions, to gauge the impact of a head injury.
From ACM TechNews
App State Creates Pollinator-Tracking App
A new smartphone application tracks bees and other pollinators, as part of a project to monitor the world's pollinator population.
From ACM TechNews
Sneakier, More Sophisticated Malware On the Loose
After analyzing more than 1 million samples of Android malware, researchershave found that malware coding is being hidden more cleverly.
From ACM TechNews
Elderly Home Turns to Wearables for Contact Tracing, Sidestepping Apple-Google Limits
The Legacy at Town Square senior living facility in Amarillo, TX, recently accelerated contact tracing by having staffers and residents wear high-tech wristbands.
From ACM News
Tactical Deceit
The art and science of deception technology.
From ACM News
A City Locks Down to Fight Coronavirus, but Robots Come and Go
Like many other places, a community 50 miles outside London went into quarantine. A fleet of delivery robots has been helping with the groceries.
From ACM News
Is the Brain a Useful Model for Artificial Intelligence?
Thinking machines think just like us—but only up to a point.
From ACM News
Microsoft: We Were Wrong about Open Source
Microsoft has embraced open source and even Linux in recent years.
From ACM News
COVID-19's YouTube Misinformation Outbreak
Study finds a quarter of most watched videos with "non-factual" information.
From ACM News
Trump Administration Weighs Suspending Program for Foreign Students
The Trump administration may suspend OPT, a program for foreign students to stay in the U.S. to get 1 or 2 years of occupational training after their educations.
From ACM TechNews
Scientists Develop Tool to Improve Disease Model Accuracy
A new embedded discrepancy operator could help scientists deliver more accurate predictions of how diseases such as COVID-19 spread through populations around the world.
From ACM TechNews
Kaiji Malware Targets IoT Devices Via SSH Brute-Force Attacks
Researchers have discovered a new strain of malware built to infect Linux-based servers and smart Internet of Things devices.
From ACM TechNews
Laser Loop Couples Quantum Systems Over a Distance
Researchers have created strong coupling between quantum systems using a laser loop, enabling nearly lossless exchange of information and strong interaction between them.
From ACM News
Meet the Uninfectables
Hospital wards, grocery stores, and food delivery services are turning to robotic devices to better navigate the pandemic.
From ACM News
Inside Big Tech’s High-stakes Race for Quantum Supremacy
Quantum computers used to be an impossible dream. Now, after a decade of research by some of the world's biggest tech companies, they're on the verge of changing everything.
From ACM News
Fake It Till You Make It
Mock Interview websites let you practice your job-search interviewing skills.
From ACM TechNews
Apple, Google Start to Win Over Europe to Their Virus-Tracking Technology
European nations are considering, or have opted for, technology developed by Apple and Google for smartphone contact-tracing applications to contain the coronavirus pandemic.
From ACM TechNews
Risks Overshadow Benefits with Online Voting, Experts Warn
With a handful of U.S. states launching online voting pilots, many experts warn the technology carries more pitfalls than benefits.
From ACM TechNews
AI Technique Detects, Classifies Galaxies in Astronomy Image Data
A new artificial intelligence program can analyze image data to detect and classify galaxies and stars in large datasets from astronomical surveys.
From ACM TechNews
EU Robotics Project Gives Maintenance Workers a 'Second Pair of Hands'
A five-year EU effort to develop a proactive humanoid assistant as a "second pair of hands" for industrial workers has concluded with the development of a new robotic helper.
From ACM TechNews
Supercomputers Hacked Across Europe to Mine Cryptocurrency
Hackers have compromised multiple supercomputers in the U.K., Germany, Switzerland, and possibly Spain with cryptocurrency-mining malware.
From ACM TechNews
The Virtual Made Real--New Technology for the Media of the Future
Researchers are developing media technologies with the potential to transform journalism.
From ACM News
Rust Marks 5 Years Since its 1.0 Release: The Long and Winding Road Actually Works
Programming language ready to leave the wilderness for mass adulation.