Communications of the ACM
The news archive provides access to past news stories from Communications of the ACM and other sources by date.
July 2009
From ACM TechNews
Ntu nveils Green and Fastest Supercomputer in Asean
Nanyang Technological University (NTU) has partnered with Jardine OneSolution, IBM, and Red Hat to install a green supercomputer at its new High Performance Computing (HPC) Centre. NTU's HPC Centre, which is expected to be operational…
From ACM TechNews
Space Probe to Sport 'transforming' Hardware
A new satellite, planned for launch in 2012, will contain a flight computer built with field programmable gate arrays (FPGAs) that can be completely reconfigured in space, enabling the probe to switch functions on demand. The…
From ACM TechNews
Program Helps Faculty Members Develop Improved Security Assurance Programs
Carnegie Mellon University's CyLab and Information Networking Institute (INI) are hosting several faculty members for the annual Information Assurance Capacity Building Program (IACBP). IACBP is designed to foster programs that…
From ACM TechNews
Dns Remains Vulnerable One Year After Kaminsky Bug
In the year since security researcher Dan Kaminsky discovered a vulnerability in the domain name system (DNS), which could allow hackers to redirect traffic from a legitimate Web site to a fraudulent one, some progress has been…
From ICT Results
Taking the Hard Work Out of Software
Software development is a complex and sophisticated process that can take entire teams years to develop a program. Building, testing and releasing software consumes an ever-growing amount of time and resources. One EU-fundedETICS project…
From ACM TechNews
Engineering Labs Going Online as Part of Remote Controlled Learning Program
Montana State University (MSU) computer engineering students will soon be able to control laboratory equipment through their home computers. A two-year, $148,000 National Science Foundation grant will help the MSU College of…
From ACM TechNews
Iphone App Predicts Ipv4 Doomsday
Several companies and researchers have offered predictions for when the supply of IPv4 addresses will be exhausted. Hurricane Electric, for example, recently introduced an iPhone application that lists the number of domains…
From ACM TechNews
How Networking Is Transforming Healthcare
High-speed computer networks have the potential to transform the healthcare industry, according to Mike McGill, program director for Internet2's Health Sciences Initiative. Internet2's Health Network Initiative is a project…
From ACM TechNews
Mentornet Provides Success and Service
Michigan Technological University's (MTU's) MentorNet program matches students and new educators with mentors in either educational or professional positions to help graduate students, postdoctorates, and untenured professors…
From ACM TechNews
Dac Preview: Power Again Takes Center Stage
Low-power design will be a key theme of the 46th Design Automation Conference (DAC), with Synopsys' Cary Chin agreeing that "low power is one of the biggest challenges that designers face today." He notes that leakage power…
From ACM TechNews
Scientists Worry Machines May Outsmart Man
Advances in artificial intelligence (AI) have spurred a group of computer scientists to consider whether research that might lead to a loss of human control over computer-based systems that encompass an expanding portion of society's…
From ACM News
Skilled Immigrants on Why They're Leaving the .s.
A number of highly skilled immigrants are preparing to leave the U.S. as the nation's economy slows. With the U.S. unemployment rate approaching double digits, job opportunities are diminishing and calls to restrict immigration…
From ICT Results
Top Designers in Your Own Home?
A Web tool that gives homeowners a virtual representation of how new products look in their home promises to help textile producers boost product development. The AsIsKnown IT system gives European home textiles producers, distributors…
From ACM TechNews
A Contest to Train Cyber Combatants
A consortium that includes the Center for Strategic and International Studies, the SANS Institute, and the U.S. Department of Defense aims to cultivate a new generation of computer security and network administration experts…
From ACM News
Report Offers Principles For Maintaining the Integrity and Accessibility of Research Data
Though digital technologies and high-speed communications have significantly expanded the capabilities of scientists — allowing them to analyze and share vast amounts of data — these technologies are also raising difficult questions…
From ACM TechNews
Computing For the Future of the Planet
Computing could go a long way toward ensuring a sustainable future for human society and the earth, argue professor Andy Hopper and Andrew Rice of the University of Cambridge Computer Laboratory. Research being conducted at…
From ACM TechNews
Government Is Falling Behind on Cybersecurity, Report Finds
A report released by the Partnership for Public Service and Booz Allen Hamilton has found that the U.S. federal government is falling behind in its efforts to protect its computer systems from a variety of threats because it…
From ACM TechNews
Stock Traders Find Speed Pays, in Milliseconds
Practitioners of high-frequency trading use powerful computers to transmit millions of orders at incredible speed, and critics warn that the method could be used to manipulate prices. Wall Street's computers employ muscular…
From ACM TechNews
Molecules Mean More Moore
Researchers from Rice University and North Carolina State University say that Moore's Law could be prolonged by attaching molecules to the surface of silicon. Electronics manufacturers use doping to pack more transistors onto…
From ACM News
Mobile Computing Task Force: Making the Way For Mobile Learning
"I am helping to change the classroom." That's what Mike Dickson told his grandmother during a telephone conversation when she asked what he did for a living. Dickson, the special projects director in University Technology and…
From ACM News
Technology on Way to Forecasting Humanity's Needs, Researcher Reports
Much as meteorologists predict the path and intensity of hurricanes, Indiana University's Alessandro Vespignani believes we will one day predict with unprecedented foresight, specificity and scale such things as the economic…
From ACM News
How Robot Drones Revolutionized the Face of Warfare
Today's warriors are fighting without getting in harm's way, with drones dramatically tilting the war in Afghanistan and Pakistan in favor of the United States — but leaving civilians vulnerable to death. U.S. Air Force fighter…
From ICT Results
Next-Generation Sound Systems to Minimize Background Noise
The whole listening experience in cars, cinemas, theatres, and even during videoconferences, is likely to improve radically thanks to a new set of tools for application development being assembled by researchers in Europe.
From ACM TechNews
Researchers Set New Distance Record for Quantum Key Distribution
Researchers from the University of Geneva in Switzerland and Corning Inc. have set a new distance record for quantum key distribution (QKD) using a new prototype capable of distributing quantum keys over a distance of 250 km…
From ACM TechNews
Council Releases Network Science and Engineering Research Agenda
Ellen Zegura, chair of the Computing Community Consortium's (CCC) Network Science & Engineering (NetSE) Council, released a report during the GENI Engineering Conference in Seattle on improving the Internet. The Network Science…
From ACM TechNews
Asu Summer Research Internship Exposes Middle School Students to Robotics, Complex Data Collection
A discovery-based, three-day workshop at Arizona State University (ASU) for junior high school students aims to get young adults interested in science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) fields by exposing them to technologies…
From ACM TechNews
Three Atom Spintronic Device
Engineers in the United Kingdom and China are working to find alternative ways of creating the microelectronic components of the future. Surrey University physicists are researching spintronic devices based on existing semiconductor…
From ACM TechNews
Moore's Law Hits Economic Limits
Much attention has been given to the approaching scientific limit to chip miniaturization and the continuation of Moore's Law, but an economic limit is nearing faster than the predicted scientific limit, according to some experts…
From ACM TechNews
Japan's Next-Generation Supercomputer Configuration Is Decided
Japan's Institute of Physical and Chemical Research (RIKEN) and Fujitsu will deploy a new system configuration with a scalar processing architecture in its next-generation supercomputer. The goal of the supercomputer project…
From ACM TechNews
Federal CTO Says .S. Lagging in Innovation
The United States must capitalize on emerging opportunities in order to regain the top spot in innovation, federal chief technology officer Aneesh Chopra said in a keynote address to the recent Open Government and Innovations…