Communications of the ACM
The news archive provides access to past news stories from Communications of the ACM and other sources by date.
June 2011
From ACM TechNews
Superfast Search Engine Speeds Past the Competition
Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory researchers have developed FastBit, a new approach to searching huge databases that can search databases up to 100 times faster than large commercial database software.
From ACM TechNews
Social Media Fortifies Bond Between Scientists
More than 1 million people are using a social network for researchers called ResearchGate, which is meant to facilitate the exchange of information among researchers, providing message boards, group following, and other tools…
From ACM TechNews
Why Talking Is So Much Tougher Than Math
In a recent interview, University of Toronto artificial intelligence professor Geoffrey Hinton discussed AI's future, including the technology's future opportunities, and diffuses fears about the dangers of AI.
From ACM TechNews
Smarter Software Development
Victoria University researchers have collaborated with researchers from other New Zealand universities during the last four years to make software development faster and more flexible and affordable.
From ACM News
Apple's Path to the App Store Wasn't a Straight Road
The unveiling of the iPhone almost four years ago stands as a pivotal moment in computing history. The elegant design not only ushered in the mobile computing revolution, it also ignited an entire billion-dollar business based…
From ACM TechNews
Caltech Researchers Build Largest Biochemical Circuit Out of Small Synthetic DNA Molecules
California Institute of Technology researchers say they have built the most complex biochemical circuit ever created out of DNA-based devices.
From ACM TechNews
Phase Change Memory-Based 'moneta' System Points to the Future of Computer Storage
Researchers at the University of California, San Diego have developed Moneta, a phase-change memory, solid state storage device that is thousands of times faster than conventional hard drives and up to seven times faster than…
From ACM TechNews
The Million-Dollar Puzzle That Could Change the World
The single biggest problem in computer science, for which the Clay Mathematics Institute is offering a $1 million prize, is determining whether P equals NP, which raises the issue that computation has a fundamental, innate limitation…
From ACM News
Sri: Silicon Valley's Old School Incubator
These days, it seems there's a new incubator for just about every pair of 19-year-olds working on a mobile-payment startup. Long ago, before Y Combinator and 500 Startups, there was SRI International: the old school, nonprofit…
From ACM News
Making the Case For Security
Major corporations have made serious mistakes with information security recently, resulting in spectacular failures to protect business and customer records. After years of warnings, why do so many businesses still fail to…
From ACM News
Google's Ceo Steps Into Spotlight
In his most extensive public comments since becoming Google's CEO, Larry Page on Thursday delivered a carefully crafted response to critics who say the company is too free-spending, too unfocused and too aloof to investors…
From ACM News
The Next Great Resource Shortage: U.S. Scientists
The word "stem" is tossed around so much at education meetings these days, you'd think you were at a gardening seminar. STEM is shorthand for "science, technology, engineering, and mathematics"—all fields that are growing,…
From ACM News
The Rise of a New Science Superpower?
Since the turn of the 21st century, the number scientific papers published predominantly by Chinese researchers in any of the Nature journals has risen from six to nearly 150 according to a new index published by Nature on May…
From ACM News
Tapping Quantum Effects For Software that Learns
In a bid to enable computers to learn faster, defense company Lockheed Martin has bought a system that uses quantum mechanics to process digital data.
From ACM TechNews
How Friends Influence Gadget Adoption
People are more likely to buy a product that their friends have already purchased, and the spread of adoption within social networks could help predict whether new products will become a hit, according to Telenor researchers.…
From ACM TechNews
Cisco Predicts Internet Device Boom
There will be twice as many Internet-connected devices as people in the world in the next four years due to the proliferation of tablets, mobile phones, connected appliances, and other smart machines, according to Cisco's fifth…
From ACM News
One Brain, Hundreds of Eyes: DARPA Plots Manhunt Master Controller
Thought military tracking technology couldn’t get any creepier? Hold onto your tinfoil hats and hide behind the nearest curtain because the next generation of manhunting gear just took another step closer to reality.
From ACM News
Robot Wars Prepare Kids For Manufacturing Jobs
Robot battles have drawn kids into novels, TV shows, and movies for decades. Now companies are using robot wars to attract a new generation of employees to high-tech manufacturing.
From ACM News
Darpa's Regina Dugan on 'the Nation
Dr. Regina Dugan is director of the Defense Advance Research Projects Agency, where she researches, develops, and demonstrates high-risk, high-payoff projects for the current and future combat force, prevents strategic surprises…
From ACM News
List of Cyber-Weapons Developed By Pentagon to Streamline Computer Warfare
The Pentagon has developed a list of cyber-weapons and -tools, including viruses that can sabotage an adversary’s critical networks, to streamline how the United States engages in computer warfare.
From ACM News
Cell Phone Users Are Talking Less
Call Kimberly Brown a smartphone junkie if you want. "I'm sure everyone around me will say I'm most definitely addicted," said Brown, an archaeologist at The Gibraltar Museum in Gibraltar, and self-described gadget freak.…
From ACM TechNews
Web Interface Defines New Paradigm For Life Science Data Sharing
The Japanese research institute RIKEN has developed the Scientists' Networking System (SciNetS), a lightweight Web service interface for accessing large amounts of life science research data across several public and private…
From ACM TechNews
Zhejiang University Students Seize "world's Smartest" Trophy at the "battle of the Brains"
Zhejiang University students were named World Champions of the 2011 ACM-ICPC competition, also known as Battle of the Brains, in which 105 university teams compete to solve some of the most challenging programming problems.
From ACM News
Parting Shots from a Mars Rover
NASA is no longer sending commands to the Spirit rover on Mars, but the long-silent robot still has a few more chances to phone home. Not that anyone is expecting Spirit to call, more than a year after the six-wheeled robot…
From ACM News
Vint Cerf on the Internet and Out-of-This-World Communications
Vint Cerf is one of the most recognized network engineers of all time. He is often referred to as one of the "fathers of the Internet" for his groundbreaking work as a co-designer of the TCP/IP protocols and the architecture…
From ACM News
Google Missed 'friend Thing'
Google Inc. executive chairman Eric Schmidt said one of his biggest failures as chief executive of the search giant over the last decade was grappling with the rise of social identity services such as Facebook Inc.
From ACM News
U.k. Seeks Cyber Security Champions
Britons who can defend the nation's networks armed only with a keyboard are being sought in a national competition.
From ACM News
Pentagon to Consider Cyberattacks Acts of War
The Pentagon, trying to create a formal strategy to deter cyberattacks on the United States, plans to issue a new strategy soon declaring that a computer attack from a foreign nation can be considered an act of war that may…
From ACM TechNews
Finding an Edge
MIT researchers Jason Chang and John Fisher have developed an algorithm that can determine object boundaries in digital images with at least 50,000 times greater efficiency than its predecessors.
From Communications of the ACM
The Promise of Flexible Displays
New screen materials could lead to portable devices that are anything but rectangular, flat, and unbendable.