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
Students' Smartphone App Promotes Good Deeds
University of Michigan computer science students have developed DoGood, an application for the iPhone and iPod Touch that encourages users to perform acts of kindness, such as cleaning up their surroundings, leaving inspirational…
From ACM TechNews
Researchers to Develop Reliable Low-Power Computing Systems
The U.K. government has awarded researchers from the University of Southampton's School of Electronics and Computer Science (ECS) a grant to develop better methods for testing low-power computing systems. The goal is to improve…
From ACM News
CMU Researchers Accurately Predict Social Security Numbers
Carnegie Mellon University researchers have shown that public information readily gleaned from governmental sources, commercial databases, or online social networks can be used to routinely predict most — and sometimes all —…
From ACM News
How Computing Is Changing Journalism
Computing has influenced many fields in a big way, and journalism is one of them. There’s an ongoing trend away from print media and toward digital, and this is helping to create a new discipline known as computational journalism…
From ACM TechNews
Researchers Unveil Whiskered Robot Rat
Researchers from the Bristol Robotics Lab — a partnership between the University of the West of England and the University of Bristol — and the University of Sheffield have developed SCRATCHbot, a robotic rat that can look for…
From ACM TechNews
Breaking Down the Gender Barrier
A recent ACM survey of more than 1,400 college-bound high school students found that 45 percent of boys see a computer science major as a "very good" choice, but only 10 percent of girls have a similar opinion. Experts at the…
From ACM TechNews
.s. Takes Aim at Cyberwarfare
The U.S. Pentagon's decision last week to open a cybercommand for both offensive and defensive cyberwarfare activities raises a host of questions. U.S. Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates issued a memo to military leaders ordering…
From ACM TechNews
Magnet and Glue Turn Tongue Into Joystick
New ScientistGeorgia Tech University professors Maysam Ghovanloo and Xueliang Huo have developed a headset that enables a person to precisely control a wheelchair or computer using only their tongue. The system uses two sensors…
From ACM TechNews
Second Life Data Offers Window Into How Trends Spread
University of Michigan researchers are using information available through the Second Life virtual world to study how "gestures," or pieces of code that users must acquire to make their avatar perform certain motions, make their…
From ACM TechNews
DARPA Investigates Extreme Supercomputing
Future network-tethered sensor systems will be capable of unleashing an enormous amount of data, so a new breed of supercomputers will be needed to make sense of it. The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency is considering…
From ACM TechNews
Big Brother Untangles Baby Babble
Deb Roy, an artificial intelligence researcher at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology Media Lab, is exploring children's development of communication skills through an unusual research strategy called the Human Speechome…
From ICT Results
Translate This: 'cognition-Strength Interfaces'
A highly ambitious European project used basic cognitive function, eye-tracking and keystroke logging as the starting point for the study of human-computer interaction (HCI) for translation. It could be the dawn of a new era,…
From ACM News
Emc Aims to Tap the Best Brains in Computer Science
Even though EMC Corp. makes some of the world's most advanced data-storage gear, the Hopkinton, Mass. company is going back to school. Late last month, EMC unveiled an alliance with the Media Lab at the Massachusetts Institute…
From ICT Results
Semantic Solution, A Patent Commercial Success
Information services company Matrixware has teamed up with a consortium of European researchers to enhance access to its database of patents. The commercial deal points to a bright future for software designed to help organizations…
From ACM TechNews
Sound Imaging: Clever Acoustics Help Blind People See the World
The European Union-funded CASBLiP project has developed a portable system to help visually-impaired users navigate outdoors. The system analyzes video from portable cameras to calculate the distance of objects and predict the…
From ACM TechNews
Researchers Receive $1.2 Million Muri Grant
The Army Research Office has awarded Pennsylvania State University (PSU) researchers pursuing work on hard/soft data fusion with a $1.2 million Multidisciplinary University Research Initiative (MURI) Award. A collaborative grant…
From ACM TechNews
Physics Brings Realism to Virtual Reality
The latest multi-core processors and smart software are enabling physicists and engineers to simulate the real world with unprecedented accuracy to create more realistic virtual worlds. Experts say the technologies behind these…
From ACM TechNews
Circuit Malfunction Preceded Dc Metro Crash
The replacement of an important piece of collision-prevention equipment five days before last week's fatal train crash on the Washington, D.C., Metro's Red Line did not prevent the tragedy, as the track circuit failed and the…
From ACM News
Award-Winning Paper Reveals Key to Netflix Prize
When the organizers of the Netflix Prize contest announced late last week that one team had met the requirement for the $1 million Grand Prize, Yehuda Koren, a member of the seven-person multinational team, was in Paris to present…
From ACM News
Drexel to Deploy Smart Grid System
Drexel University will deploy a smart grid system to provide real-time measurements of the University's power usage and allow excess power to be sold back to the regional grid. The university is the first institution in the country…
From ACM News
Long-Range Effects Found in Advanced Magnetic Devices
A tiny grid pattern has led materials scientists at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) and the Institute of Solid State Physics in Russia to an unexpected finding — the surprisingly strong and long-range…
From ACM TechNews
Mobile Tv Coming to Canada?
Simon Fraser University (SFU) doctorate student Cheng-Hsin Hsu, along with SFU graduate students Yi Liu and Cong Ly, and their supervisor Mohamed Hefeeda, has designed algorithms and prototypes of mobile TV base stations that…
From ACM TechNews
Data You Can Admire
The University of California, Davis' Visualization and Interface Design Innovation lab, run by professor Kwan-Liu Ma, seeks to render massive data sets into insightful visualizations that are explorable and workable. "By employing…
From ACM TechNews
Nurturing a Love of Math, Sciences
Experts are concerned that not enough teachers who can arouse passion for science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) in public school students are being produced by the United States, which endangers the country's…
From ACM TechNews
Scientists Create First Electronic Quantum Processor
Yale University researchers have led a research effort to develop the first rudimentary solid-state quantum processor, a major step toward the creation of a quantum computer. The researchers used a two-qubit superconducting…
From ACM TechNews
'mixed Reality' Human Helps Medical Students Learn to Do Intimate Exams
The University of Florida is using a life-sized computer avatar on a flat screen and a mannequin with prosthetic body parts to teach medical students how to perform exams that they would otherwise rarely get to perform on real…
From ACM TechNews
Techies the Latest Weapon in Catching Car Thieves
Researchers at the University of Technology, Sydney, (UTS) Australia, have developed software that uses new imaging technology to enable moving police cars to automatically detect stolen cars in traffic. The new imaging techniques…
From ACM TechNews
Motorola Funds Workshop to Inspire Tomorrow's Innovators
The Anita Borg Institute (ABI) for Women and Technology recently announced that the Motorola Foundation has awarded the institute a $30,560 Innovation Generation grant, which will fund a K-12 Computer Science Teacher Workshop…
From ACM TechNews
Organic Traffic Control
Researchers in Germany believe organic computing has the potential to solve the problems of urban traffic systems, which rely on sensors and controllers. Using an organic approach, Holger Prothmann of the Karlsruhe Institute…
From ACM News
Business Groups Hail China Web Software Delay
The American and European chambers of commerce in China have welcomed a decision by Beijing to delay an order that new computers sold in the country be equipped with an Internet filtering program. The filter, called Green Dam…