Communications of the ACM
The news archive provides access to past news stories from Communications of the ACM and other sources by date.
May 2021
From ACM TechNews
Vulnerabilities in Billions of Wi-Fi Devices Let Hackers Bypass Firewalls
A security researcher found 12 fragmentation vulnerabilities and aggregation attack exploits in Wi-Fi systems.
From ACM TechNews
Highly Sensitive LiDAR System Enhances Autonomous Driving Vision
A new Light Detection and Ranging (LiDAR) system can enhance weak signals reflected off faraway objects.
From ACM TechNews
Does Correcting Online Falsehoods Make Matters Worse?
A Twitter field experiment found that after corrections to tweeted misinformation, there was an increase in retweeting lower-quality and more partisan news.
From ACM TechNews
Helping Robots Learn What They Can and Can't Do in New Situations
University of Michigan researchers have developed a method of helping robots to predict when the model on which they were trained is unreliable.
From ACM TechNews
U.S. Has Almost 500,000 Job Openings in Cybersecurity
The U.S. Commerce Department's Cyber Seek technology job-tracking database and the trade group CompTIA count about 465,000 current U.S. cybersecurity job openings.
From ACM TechNews
Novel Approach Identifies Genes Linked to Autism, Predicts Patient IQ
Researchers have identified a novel computational approach for identifying genes most likely associated with autism spectrum disorders.
From ACM TechNews
Digital Nose Stimulation Enables Smelling in Stereo
Researchers at the University of Chicago (UChicago) have developed a wireless, nose-worn device that can enable directional smell using tiny electrical impulses.
From ACM TechNews
'Blind' Robot Successfully Navigates Stairs
A "blind" bipedal robot trained in a simulator by Oregon State University (OSU) researchers can negotiate varying terrain, including the climbing of stairs.
From ACM TechNews
Scientists Bring Sense of Touch to a Robotic Arm
Scientists conferred a sense of touch to a robotic arm that provides tactile feedback directly to a paralyzed man's brain.
From ACM TechNews
AI Program Accurately Predicts Lung Cancer Risk
A deep learning artificial intelligence algorithm can accurately predict the risk of lung nodules detected on computed tomography images turning cancerous.
From ACM TechNews
Google Aims for Commercial-Grade Quantum Computer by 2029
Google intends to invest billions of dollars to build a commercial-grade quantum computer that can perform large-scale, error-free calculations by 2029.
From ACM TechNews
Researchers Use 'Hole-y' Math, ML to Study Cellular Self-Assembly
Brown University researchers have demonstrated a machine learning method that measures the topological properties of cell clusters.
From ACM TechNews
Stunning Simulation of Stars Being Born is Most Realistic Ever
STARFORGE is the first computational framework to simulate an entire gas cloud in which stars are born.
From ACM News
Shape-Shifting Computer Chip Thwarts Hackers
A secure new computer processor thwarts hackers by randomly changing its underlying structure, making it virtually impossible to hack.
From ACM News
Microsoft is Retiring Web browser Internet Explorer
Some versions of the Windows operating system will continue to receive support for Internet Explorer.
From ACM News
A New Way of Seeing
Vision AI provides a deeper view.
From ACM News
Stocks Drop for a 3rd Day Following Bitcoin's Crash and Inflation Concerns
The decline in the stock markets was a faint echo of the crash in the market for cryptocurrencies in recent days.
From ACM News
Prabhakar Raghavan Isn't CEO of Google—He Just Runs the Place
In his first interview since taking a top job, Raghavan gets into the future of search, misinformation, employee ferment, and robots making phone calls.
From ACM News
The Timeline for Quantum Computing is Getting Shorter
New financial trading algorithms promise quantum- computer performance improvements over classical computers within 5-10 years, rather than 10-20.
From ACM News
Endless Scrolling Through Social Media can Literally Make You Sick
Once mainly a scourge of VR headsets, cybersickness seems to be on the rise as the pandemic pushes our bodies to their digital limits.
From ACM TechNews
The Future of Virus Tracking Can Be Found on This College Campus
Researchers have transformed the Colorado Mesa University campus into an epidemiological laboratory researching new avenues of pandemic management.
From ACM TechNews
Amazon Blocks Police from Using Its Facial Recognition Software Indefinitely
Amazon has indefinitely extended its ban on police use of its facial recognition software, which lawmakers and company employees have said discriminates against African-Americans.
From ACM TechNews
Helping Drone Swarms Avoid Obstacles Without Hitting Each Other
A predictive control model allows individual drones to predict their own behavior and that of neighboring drones in a swarm, to keep them from bumping into each other.
From ACM TechNews
France Embraces Google, Microsoft in Quest to Safeguard Sensitive Data
The French government says Google and Microsoft cloud computing technology could be used to store sensitive state and corporate data, providing it is licensed to French companies.
From ACM TechNews
Top Educational Apps for Children Might Not Be as Beneficial as Promised
An analysis of the most frequently downloaded educational apps for children found such apps may not provide high-quality educational experiences.
From ACM TechNews
Study Explores Privacy of Prison Communications
The constant monitoring of people incarcerated in the U.S. extends to communications between inmates and their relatives.
From ACM News
Cryptography Experts Trash NFTs on First Day of RSA Conference
The experts have weighed in: Non-fungible tokens are dumb as hell.
From ACM News
Mayo Clinic, Others Use 'AI Factories' to Speed AI Development
Healthcare provider is among organizations taking an assembly-line approach to quickly create targeted AI applications.
From ACM TechNews
Lasers, Levitation, and Machine Learning Make Better Heat-Resistant Materials
A process developed at the Argonne National Laboratory can predict how refractory oxides are impacted by high temperatures.
From ACM TechNews
Beautiful or Handsome? Neural Language Models Try Their Hand at Word Substitution
Researchers had five neural language models compete in lexical substitution tasks, including plain substitution and word sense induction .