Communications of the ACM
The news archive provides access to past news stories from Communications of the ACM and other sources by date.
July 2010
From ACM TechNews
Building Skills That Count
The Texas Advanced Computing Center has created a supercomputing curriculum designed to teach advanced computing skills to undergraduate and graduate students at the University of Texas at Austin.
From ACM TechNews
Predicting Success With Niwa Supercomputer
New Zealand's National Institute of Water & Atmospheric Research has launched the most powerful computer in the southern hemisphere. The new supercomputer can perform 34 trillion calculations a second and can store 5 petabytes…
From ACM TechNews
Stanford 'frankencamera' Platform Available on Nokia N900 Smartphone
Stanford University has released Frankencamera, an open source digital photography software platform that enables users to create imaging applications for use on Nokia N900 mobile computers.
From ACM TechNews
Data Mining Made Faster
University of Utah researchers have developed a new multidimensional scaling method that they say enables simpler, faster data mining.
From ACM News
We're Running Out of Internet Addresses
Don't panic, but we're running out of internet addresses. Not domain names—those Website names that you see at the top of this page and which always start with some semblance of "http://" and "www." We've got plenty of those.
From ACM News
Personal Robots: Newest Cs1 Teaching Tool
The Institute for Personal Robots in Education has developed a curriculum, software, and plug-in board for an off-the-shelf personal robot that it hopes will make computer science more tantalizing to undergraduates.
From ACM News
Neurons to Power Future Computers
Researchers are developing novel computers by mimicking the way that neurons are built and how they talk to each other.
From ACM News
Study Finds Strong Negative Reaction to Paying For Online Services
An annual study of the impact of the Internet on Americans by the Center for the Digital Future found that 49 percent of Internet users said they have used free micro-blogs such as Twitter. But zero percent said they would be…
From ACM News
Ads that Match a Web Page's Images
Using the contents of images or videos to target Web ads could improve click-through.
From ACM News
Wal-Mart Radio Tags to Track Clothing
Wal-Mart Stores Inc. plans to roll out sophisticated electronic ID tags to track individual pairs of jeans and underwear, the first step in a system that advocates say better controls inventory but some critics say raises privacy…
From ACM News
India nveils Prototype of $35 Tablet Computer
It looks like an iPad, only it's 1/14th the cost: India on Thursday (July 22) unveiled the prototype of a $35 basic touchscreen tablet aimed at students, which it hopes to bring into production by 2011.
From ACM News
Wireless Companies Could se Your Friends
Each time you make a cellphone call, your network provider knows whom you're calling, for how long, and what device you're using. Now researchers at one of the world's largest wireless carriers are exploring whether such information…
From ACM News
Facebook Milestone: 500 Million Members; On to 1 Billion?
Facebook on Wednesday announced a remarkable milestone: 500 million active monthly users. And the velocity of its growth raises a mind-boggling possibility: Could Facebook reach 1 billion "friends" next year? That would be roughly…
From ACM News
The Web Means the End of Forgetting
Four years ago, Stacy Snyder, then a 25-year-old teacher in training at Conestoga Valley High School in Lancaster, Pa., posted a photo on her MySpace page that showed her at a party wearing a pirate hat and drinking from a plastic…
From ACM News
IBM nveils a New Generation of Mainframes
The mainframe business is to IBM what manufacturing is to the American economy, a shrinking but strategically vital part of the franchise.
With the introduction of a new generation of mainframes on Thursday, July 22, IBM…From ACM News
Crash Spurs Interest in Real-Time Flight Data
In the year since the fatal, still-unexplained crash of a French airliner over the mid-Atlantic, interest has intensified in technologies to enhance the tracking of aircraft over remote areas and enable real-time transmission…
From ACM News
Where Will All This Oil Be in August?
As government officials continue to nervously monitor the cap on the Deepwater Horizon well, there are still millions of barrels of oil oozing around in the Gulf of Mexico. In order to minimize the damage, scientists, engineers…
From ACM News
Twitter Mood Maps Reveal Emotional States of America
America, are you happy? The emotional words contained in hundreds of millions of messages posted to the Twitter website may hold the answer.
From ACM News
Working to Make Combat Soldiers' Lives Easier
In combat, things can be so chaotic and loud that soldiers sometimes aren't even aware they're being shot at.
From ACM News
Fewer Ads, More Clicks
Search engines get smarter at predicting when we'll respond to a pitch.
From ACM News
New Cybersecurity Degree Program Designed to Fill Workforce Needs
The University of Maryland University College is reporting robust response to a first-of-its kind cybersecurity degree program scheduled to commence this fall.
From ACM News
Official: Google's China Changes in Line with Law
China renewed Google's Internet license after it pledged to obey censorship laws and stop automatically switching mainland users to its unfiltered Hong Kong site, an official said Tuesday.
From ACM News
A Trip Beyond the Edge of the Observable Universe
If you want to see what outer space looks like, there may be no better way to do so than to have Carter Emmart take you on a ride there.
From ACM News
Cyberwarrior Shortage Threatens U.S. Security
There may be no country on the planet more vulnerable to a massive cyberattack than the United States, where financial, transportation, telecommunications, and even military operations are now deeply dependent on data networking…
From ACM News
Spending Soars on Internet's Plumbing
Behind the recovery in business spending is a surge in purchases of the computers that form the backbone of the Internet, as companies scramble to meet growing demand for video and other Web-based services.
From ACM News
Passwords that Are Simple
Researchers at Microsoft have come up with a way to create easy-to-remember passwords without making a system more vulnerable to hackers.
From ACM News
You Want My Personal Data? Reward Me For It
Life, as they say, imitates art. And the way things work commercially today across much of the Web recalls that chapter in “The Adventures of Tom Sawyer” where Tom cajoles his guileless friends into whitewashing Aunt Polly’s…
From ACM News
Google Search: Political Power
Google’s aggressive tactics have put it on top of the business world, and now the Internet giant is looking to leverage the high profile and sterling connections of its CEO to achieve similar power in the political sphere.
From ACM News
Researchers Create Sounds of Animated Things Breaking
A delicate wine glass shatters on the floor. A rock is thrown through a window. A child smashes his piggy bank. Dramatic moments like these in an animated movie or video game or some future virtual reality won't seem realistic…
From ACM News
se of Flexible Robotics Reduces Trauma in Surgery
Research conducted by surgeons from the Methodist DeBakey Heart & Vascular Center shows that using robotics reduces blood vessel trauma during minimally invasive procedures to repair diseased arteries