Communications of the ACM
The news archive provides access to past news stories from Communications of the ACM and other sources by date.
June 2009
From ACM News
China Dominates Nsa-Backed Coding Contest
Programmers from China and Russia have dominated an international competition on everything from writing algorithms to designing components. Whether the outcome of this competition is another sign that math and science education…
From ACM News
China Defends Web-Filtering Software Requirement
China on Tuesday (June 9) defended a new requirement that personal computers sold in the country carry a software that filters online content, saying the program is targeted at preventing the spread of pornography and other "unhealthy"…
From ACM News
Moon Magic: Tool To Visualize Past, Future Lunar Eclipses
Researchers at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute have developed a new method for using computer graphics to simulate and render an accurate visualization of a lunar eclipse. The model uses celestial geometry of the sun, Earth,…
From ACM News
Mathematical Model Effectively Screens Airline Passengers
Passenger screenings at the nation's airports can be conducted more efficiently without compromising aviation security, according to research at Virginia Commonwealth University and the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign…
From ACM TechNews
Drawing Inspiration From Nature to Build a Better Radio
Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) engineers have developed a fast, ultra-broadband, low-power radio chip for use in wireless devices. MIT professor Rahul Sarpeshkar and graduate student Soumyajit Mandal designed the…
From ACM TechNews
Obama Administration Begins Work on Cybersecurity R&d
A major aspect of U.S. President Barack Obama's plan to improve the country's cyberdefenses involves maximizing government investment in cybersecurity research and development. The final objective is the cybersecurity equivalent…
From ACM TechNews
Study: Web Trackers Systematically Compromise Users' Privacy
A University of California, Berkeley study found that Web users may be tracked by dozens of sources on a visit to a single site. Within a single month, the researchers found 100 monitoring agents on the site blogspot.com. Although…
From ACM TechNews
Looking to Nature For Smarter Software Systems
Mike Hinchey, the director of the NASA Software Engineering Laboratory and co-director of the Irish Software Engineering Research Centre, says that software engineering is in the middle of a crisis. He says developers are building…
From ACM TechNews
Computer Program Will Detect, Measure Brain Tumors
University of Central Florida professor Mubarak Shah is using the techniques used to detect suspicious activity in airports, stadiums, and other public places to find and measure potentially life-threatening brain tumors. Shah…
From ACM TechNews
Research Has All the Right Moves
Researchers at Newcastle University have developed a motion-capture device that makes it easier to identify the different aspects of movement or sequences. Users sketch the movement with a mouse or pen, and the prototype tool…
From ACM News
China Demands New Pcs Have Web Site-Blocking Software
China will require that Web filtering software be included with all computers sold in the country, another step up in its efforts to control pornography and other content on the Internet. PC makers will be required to pre-install…
From ACM News
Technology Looks Into Some Old Dinosaur Bones
A new study published in The Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology uses high-resolution computed tomography (CT) imaging to guide sampling of bone lesions in the vertebrae of a hadrosaur ("duck-billed") dinosaur for histological…
From ICT Results
Network Creates Virtual Super-Telescope
Vast quantities of data are transferred in real time from telescopes around the world to a supercomputer in The Netherlands, where European researchers combine the information to create high-resolution images of distant objects…
From ACM News
Simulated Black Holes Collide
Louisiana State University students and researchers have created an award-winning computer simulation of two black holes colliding and the gravitational waves the event would generate. The simulation was only a fraction of the…
From ACM News
The Wars of Words on Wikipedia's Outskirts
It is an interesting twist about Wikipedia that the most controversial, most heavily trafficked articles — on abortion, politics, virgin birth — are often the most accurate and vandalism-free. Leave these high-traffic thoroughfares…
From ACM TechNews
Endless Original, Copyright-Free Music
University of Granada (UGR) researchers have developed Inmamusys, software that is capable of creating original music in response to emotions felt by the listener. Using artificial intelligence, the program creates music that…
From ACM TechNews
Better and Faster Search Engines
Ola Agren, a Ph.D. candidate at Umea University in Sweden, has developed an algorithm that will make search engines faster and return more relevant results. Search engines on the Internet often use an algorithm that assigns…
From ACM TechNews
Software Engineers Bestow Inaugural Influential Educator Award
ACM's Special Interest Group on Software Engineering (SIGSOFT) has honored the late A. Nico Habermann, the founding dean of Carnegie Mellon University's (CMU's) School of Computer Science, with the inaugural Influential Educator…
From ACM TechNews
Minorities, Women nderrepresented in It
Just 6.1 percent of men and 8.2 percent of women holding technical positions in Silicon Valley are minorities, with less than 2 percent of women of color holding high-level technical positions, according to "Obstacles and Solutions…
From ACM TechNews
Grid Enables Vector Supercomputing Environment
Tohoku University's Cyberscience Center, Osaka University's Cybermedia Center, Japan's National Institute of Informatics, and NEC Corp. recently announced the successful demonstration of one of the world's fastest vector supercomputing…
From ACM TechNews
The Display That Watches You
Fraunhofer Institute for Photonic Microsystems researchers have developed a new screen technology that uses interlacing photodetector cells and display pixels to simultaneously display a moving image while detecting movement…
From ACM TechNews
Is Internet Voting Safe? Vote Here
Arizona election officials demonstrated their Internet voting system at ACM's recent Computers, Freedom, and Privacy Conference in Washington, D.C. For the 2008 U.S. national election, all of Arizona's overseas military and…
From ICT Results
Predictive Powers: A Robot That Reads Your Intention?
European researchers in robotics, psychology and cognitive sciences have developed a robot that can predict the intentions of its human partner. This ability to anticipate (or question) actions could make human-robot interactions…
From ACM News
Graphene Shows Promise For Future Ic Interconnects
The unique properties of thin layers of graphite — known as graphene — make the material attractive for a wide range of potential electronic devices. Researchers have now experimentally demonstrated the potential for anotherElectron…
From ACM News
When Employers Become Watchers
Imagine if today at work you were watched for every single minute. Not just when you arrived and left, or when you went for your lunch. But every task, every conversation, every moment observed and logged. Modern surveillance…
From ACM TechNews
At Stanford, Research Surpasses Investments as Top Revenue Source
Stanford University's scientific research income has surpassed its multibillion-dollar endowment and other investments, making scientific research the school's largest revenue source. The economic crisis and the U.S. government's…
From ACM TechNews
Scientists Recreate Bach's Forgotten Horn
Computer modeling software originally developed by a University of Edinburgh Ph.D. student to optimize the design of modern brass instruments has been used to recreate a long-lost trumpet-like instrument. The software is enabling…
From ACM News
Memory with a Twist: Nist Develops a Flexible Memristor
Electronic memory chips may soon gain the ability to bend and twist as a result of work by engineers at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST). As reported in the July 2009 issue of IEEE Electron Device Letters…
From ACM News
Simulated Data Center Tests Heat Control Techniques
Researchers at the Georgia Institute of Technology are using a 1,100-square-foot simulated data center to optimize cooling strategies and develop new heat transfer models that can be used by the designers of future facilities…
From ACM News
Towards the Ultimate Transistor
In 1974 Ari Aviram and Mark Ratner from the IBM Thomas J Watson Research Center in New York suggested using molecules themselves as electronic components. In the June issue of
Physics World , Douglas Natelson explores the burgeoning…