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
.s. R&d Companies Employed 27 Million Workers Worldwide in 2008
U.S. research & development companies employed 27.1 million workers worldwide in 2008, including 18.5 million domestically, according to a new report from the U.S. National Science Foundation.
From ACM TechNews
Woven Electronics
ETH Zurich researchers have developed intelligent textiles that have electronic components such as sensors and conductive filaments woven into the fabric.
From ACM TechNews
Artificial Intelligence For Improving Team Sports
Carlos III University of Madrid researchers are developing a system for evaluating sport performance by using artificial intelligence to automatically analyze a play's development.
From ACM TechNews
Google's Do-It-Yourself App Creation Software
Google is offering software designed to make it simple for users to create their own applications for Android smartphones. The free software has been under development for a year, with user testing being done by several different…
From ACM News
7887 Khz, Your Home For Classic Cuban Espionage Radio
The FBI documents that accompanied last week's arrest of 10 alleged Russian spies are alternately creepy—who knew the Tribeca Barnes & Noble was a hotbed of espionage?—and comical—turns out even foreign spies wanted to cash in…
From ICT Results
Solving the Crisis of Choice Online
In an age of information overload, a team of European researchers are developing technology to solve the "crisis of choice" people face when surfing the Web, shopping for products online or watching TV.
From ACM News
DARPA Plots Death-From-Above, On Demand
Before a bomb gets dropped in Afghanistan, dozens of people weigh in: air controllers bark coordinates over a radio; officers double-check the target’s location against digital maps; pilots survey the scene with cameras from…
From ACM News
Computers at Home: Educational Hope vs. Teenage Reality
Middleshcool students are champion time-wasters. And the personal computer may be the ultimate time-wasting appliance. Put the two together at home, without hovering supervision, and logic suggests that you won’t witness a miraculous…
From ACM News
Chinese Think Tank Accuses .S., Other Western Countries of sing Facebook to Sow nrest
A Chinese government-backed think tank has accused the U.S. and other Western governments of using social-networking sites such as Facebook to spur political unrest and called for stepped-up scrutiny of the wildly popular sites…
From ACM News
You Can't Hide Your Lyin' Eyes
University of Utah researchers are using eye-tracking technology to pioneer a promising alternative to the polygraph for lie detection.
From ACM News
Computer Technology Helps Doctors Target Underserved Patients
Multimedia talking touchscreens, housed in computer kiosks at clinics and hospitals, are helping researchers at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine to target patients with diverse language, literacy and computer…
From ACM News
Students, Meet Your New Teacher, Mr. Robot
The boy, a dark-haired 6-year-old, is playing with a new companion. The two hit it off quickly—unusual for the 6-year-old, who has autism—and the boy is imitating his playmate’s every move, now nodding his head, now raising his…
From ACM News
Indian Students Head For Canada to Join Research Internships
As part of MITACS Globalink internship program, 105 undergraduate Indian students are working on a number of research projects alongside undergraduate and graduate Canadian students under the supervision of Canadian faculty…
From ACM News
Talent Scarcity Crimps IT's Growth, Says Narayana Murthy
The scarcity of computer science engineers in India has led to the booming information technology sector poaching talent from other engineering disciplines, according to Infosys Technologies chairman and chief mentor N.R.…
From ACM TechNews
Japanese Supercomputer Ranked 1st in Little Green500 List
Japan's Grape-DR supercomputer tops the June 2010 edition of Green500.org's Little Green500 list, which ranks the performance per unit power consumption of smaller-scale supercomputers.
From ACM TechNews
Meeting Consumers' Hd Demands With a Faster Algorithm
Lehigh University researchers have developed signal-processing algorithms that enable handheld devices to display high-definition images.
From ACM TechNews
Flexible Organic Transistor Memory Looks Promising For Future Electronics
South Korean engineers have developed a flexible memory based on an organic transistor, which they say could be integrated, along with transistors and logic circuits, into flexible electronic devices.
From ACM TechNews
Government Auditors Urge Clearer Cybersecurity R&D Strategy
The U.S. Government Accountability Office has released a report that criticizes the way in which the federal government funds and carries out cybersecurity research and development.
From ACM TechNews
War in the Fifth Domain
The North Atlantic Treaty Organization's Estonia-based "center of excellence" for cyberdefense is the hub of brainstorming efforts covering the tactical and legal concepts of cyberwarfare.
From ACM TechNews
International Conference Confronts Data Deluge
At the recent International Conference on Scientific and Statistical Database Management, scientific domain experts, database researchers, practitioners, and developers discussed concepts, tools, techniques, and architectures…
From ACM News
Over 5 Billion Mobile Phone Connections Worldwide
More than a billion mobile phone connections have been added to the global tally in just 18 months, according to Wireless Intelligence.
From ACM News
Why Face Recognition Isn't Scary
Most of the time, Stacey Schlittenhard finds facial recognition technology to be extremely useful. When she uploads her family photos to the Website Picasa, for instance, the program automatically tags her friends and family…
From ACM News
Intel's Cure For Home Energy Management: Answering Machines
Intel may have come up with a way to solve one of the most pressing problems with home energy management consoles, and the solution harks back to the early '80s.
From ACM News
Inventor of Cell Phone: We Knew Someday Everybody Would Have One
In 1973, Martin Cooper changed the world, although he didn't know it yet.
From ACM News
Loophole May Have Aided Theft of Classified Data
The soldier accused of downloading a huge trove of secret data from military computers in Iraq appears to have exploited a loophole in Defense Department security to copy thousands of files onto compact discs over a six-month…
From ACM News
Algorithm Predicts Manhole Explosions in New York City
A team of Columbia University researchers have developed an algorithm that helps predict which of New York City's manholes might be the next to blow.
From ACM News
Consumers, Marketers Differ on Electronic Privacy Rules
The the first study to directly compare consumer and marketer expectations for privacy limits, researchers at the University of Massachusetts Amherst report that the two groups have different expectations for privacy boundaries…
From ACM News
Project to Quadruple Solar Energy Output on Furman Campus
Furman University will use a $340,000 grant for a new installation of solar panels that are expected to quadruple the solar energy output on campus.
From ACM News
2010 R&D 100 Awards Winners Announced
The editors of R&D Magazine have announced the winners of the 48th Annual R&D 100 Awards, which salute the 100 most technologically significant products introduced into the marketplace over the past year.
From ACM News
Companies Brace For End of Cheap Made-in-China Era
Factory workers demanding better wages and working conditions are hastening the eventual end of an era of cheap costs that helped make southern coastal China the world's factory floor.