Communications of the ACM
The news archive provides access to past news stories from Communications of the ACM and other sources by date.
June 2012
From ACM TechNews
.s. Wants Inventive Ways to Get Research Out of niversity Labs and Into the Real World
A recent hearing of the U.S. House of Representative's Subcommittee on Technology and Innovation focused on ways to enhance collaboration between commercial and nonprofit organizations, as well as promote the use of inventions…
From ACM TechNews
Forget Movie Critics, Mindless Internet Chatter Predicts Blockbusters and Bombs
Japanese physicists have developed a model that strongly reflects the box office performance of movies based on the number of times a film is mentioned in blog posts and social media.
From ACM TechNews
Researchers Advance Biometric Security
A biometric security system developed by researchers at the University of Calgary can simulate the way the brain makes decisions about information from different sources.
From ACM News
Turing Awardees Pay Tribute to
The Turing Centenary Celebration featured the first gathering, in one place, of 33 of the 39 living ACM A.M. Turing Award laureates.
From ACM News
Digital Domain Grapples With Fur, Feathers
You may not have heard of the special-effects studio Digital Domain, but you've probably seen their work. They sank the Titanic for James Cameron; they aged Brad Pitt backward in The Curious Case of Benjamin Button. Most recently…
From ACM News
Iran Asks For Critiquing Western Computer Games
Iran's culture minister on Saturday called for a precise analysis and critique of western computer games to reveal the underlying goals pursued by developing such software.
From ACM TechNews
Finalists in Microsoft's $250k Contest Take on 'most-Pressing' Exploit Tactic
Microsoft announced that each of the three finalists in its $250,000 BlueHat Prize security contest came up with different solutions for blocking return-oriented programming, a technique often used to get around data execution…
From ACM TechNews
Department of Energy Creates Online-Learning Platform for Technical Training
The U.S. Department of Energy has unveiled the National Training and Education Resource, an open source online learning platform to facilitate technical training.
From ACM TechNews
Confusion Can Be Beneficial For Learning: Study
Confusion when learning can be beneficial if it is properly induced, effectively regulated, and ultimately resolved, according to a University of Notre Dame study.
From ACM TechNews
Three Questions For Patti Maes
Massachusetts Institute of Technology researcher Patti Maes recently spoke with Technology Review to discuss the future of mobile technology.
From ACM TechNews
For Minority College Students, STEM Degrees Pay Big
USC researchers recently completed a study showing that minority college students who major in STEM fields earn at least 25 percent more than students who study humanities or education.
From ACM News
Statistics nmask Phony Online Reviews
Searching for hotels in cities they've never visited, people often turn to customer-written reviews on websites such as TripAdvisor. But how do they know those reviews weren't written by the hotel manager, or by someone paid…
From ACM News
What Nasa's Next Mars Rover Will Discover
NASA's Mars Science Laboratory is on its way. In a little more than a month, the 1-ton rover, whichlaunched in November, will descend to the Martian surface.
From ACM News
U.s. Military Hunts For Safe Smartphones For Soldiers
The military has long needed computers that are tough enough on the outside to withstand the rough and tumble of the battlefield. Now, with the proliferation of smartphones and tablets in the hands of soldiers, those devices …
From ACM News
Infinite-Capacity Wireless Vortex Beams Carry 2.5 Terabits Per Second
American and Israeli researchers have used twisted, vortex beams to transmit data at 2.5 terabits per second. As far as we can discern, this is the fastest wireless network ever created—by some margin.
From ACM News
Researchers Amplify Variations in Video, Making the Invisible Visible
At this summer's Siggraph—the premier computer-graphics conference—researchers from MIT's Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory will present new software that amplifies variations in successive frames of video…
From ACM Opinion
What, Exactly, Is a Supercomputer?
It's official: The United States is home to the world's fastest supercomputer. But what exactly are supercomputers and why should we care about them? I decided to go straight to the source—Mike McCoy, program director for advanced…
From ACM Opinion
Microsoft's Research Boss Celebrates Legacy of Alan Turing
What does Alan Turing mean to Microsoft and the rest of the modern tech world? Rick Rashid can tell you.
From ACM TechNews
Exascale Computing: The View From Argonne
In an interview, U.S. Argonne National Laboratory directors Rick Stevens, Michael Papka, and Marc Snir contextualize the challenges and advantages of developing exascale supercomputing systems.
From ACM News
Intel Reveals Neuromorphic Chip Design
The brain is the most extraordinary of computing machines. It carries out tasks as a matter of routine that would fry the circuits of the most powerful supercomputers on the planet: walking, talking, recognising, analysing, and…
From ACM TechNews
P2p Comes to the Rescue of Internet Video
VTT Technical Research Center of Finland researchers, working with a consortium of 20 industrial partners on the P2P-Next project, have developed NextShare, an open source peer-to-peer (P2P) video-streaming platform.
From ACM TechNews
niversity of Waterloo Engineers nveil Two-Way Wireless Breakthrough
University of Waterloo engineering researchers have developed technology that enables wireless signals to be simultaneously sent and received on a single radio channel frequency.
From ACM TechNews
In This Online University, Students Do the Teaching as Well as the Learning
Although free online courses have been enticing students with the opportunity to learn from world-class professors at prestigious colleges, Peer 2 Peer University is questioning whether instructors are even necessary.
From ACM TechNews
Study: Wikipedia Perpetuates Political Bias
Researchers at Northwestern University and the University of Southern California say the collective intelligence used to create Wikipedia articles generally produces biased information.
From ACM News
Minister: Iran Ready to Repel Enemies' Cyber Attacks
Iranian Intelligence Minister Heidar Moslehi underscored on Thursday that the country is completely ready for defending its sensitive facilities against enemies' cyber attacks.
From ACM Opinion
Why Faces Matter to Facebook
Facebook really wants to know what you look like.
From ACM News
Next Cameras Come Into View
Scientists at Duke University have built an experimental camera that allows the user—after a photo is taken—to zoom in on portions of the image in extraordinary detail, a development that could fundamentally alter the way images…
From ACM News
Research Reveals Why Spammers Claim They're Nigerian
Most of us know the signs: stilted English, "Dear Sir/Madam," a particular fondness for exclamation points.
From ACM TechNews
How to Fix the Gender Gap in Technology
Women currently hold 27 percent of all computer science jobs, down from 30 percent 10 years ago, and they account for just 20 percent of undergraduate computer science majors, compared with 36 percent in 1986.
From ACM TechNews
Researchers Develop Optical Displays From Water and Air
Aalto University researchers have developed a concept of writing and displaying information on surfaces using just water.