Communications of the ACM
The news archive provides access to past news stories from Communications of the ACM and other sources by date.
July 2011
From ACM News
Should the Government Need a Search Warrant to Track Your Car with Gps?
The Supreme Court ended its term with a high-profile ruling that violent video games are protected by the First Amendment, but a bigger technology decision could be looming. The court agreed to hear a case next term about…
From ACM News
Killer Drones, Stealth Jets, Spy Planes: Bob Gates
On his way out the door at the Pentagon, Robert Gates leveled with the military. A staggering $700 billion in defense R&D and gear since 9/11 led to only "relatively modest gains in actual military capability," Gates said on…
From ACM Opinion
Nasa's Lessons From The Outer Limits
In April 1981, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration launched a space shuttle program meant to take astronauts, cargo, research experiments and military equipment into low Earth orbit. The shuttle mission, called…
From ACM TechNews
Engineers Work to Ease Internet Data Flow as Demand For Video Grows
Princeton University researchers have developed the Edge Laboratory, a miniature version of the global communications network, to develop new ideas and systems that will help ensure that future networking infrastructure will…
From ACM TechNews
Wi-Fi 'napping' Doubles Phone Battery Life
Duke University researchers have developed SleepWell, software that can double the battery life of mobile devices by making changes to Wi-Fi technology.
From ACM TechNews
Rutgers-Led Experts Assemble Globe-Spanning Supercomputer Cloud
Researchers at Rutgers University, the University of Texas at Austin, and IBM have created a massive virtual supercomputer cloud designed to solve complex computing tasks.
From ACM TechNews
U. Va. Engineers Help Manage Crisis With Crowdsourcing
A Web-based crowdsourcing application developed by a team at the University of Virginia could be used to provide the public with critical information in the event of a catastrophe.
From ACM TechNews
Biomolecular Computer Can Autonomously Sense Multiple Signs of Disease
Weizmann Institute of Science researchers have developed a biomolecular computer that can autonomously sense several different types of molecules at once, and could be integrated with a biomedical database of diseases to all…
From ACM News
Scientists Hope to Get Glimpse of Adolescent Universe from Revolutionary Instrument-on-a-Chip
Scientists know what the universe looked like when it was a baby. They know what it looks like today. What they don't know is how it looked in its youth.
From ACM News
Magnetic Memory and Logic Could Achieve Ultimate Energy Efficiency
Future computers may rely on magnetic microprocessors that consume the least amount of energy allowed by the laws of physics, according to an analysis by University of California, Berkeley, electrical engineers.
From ACM Opinion
The Tragic Decline of Blackberry
Research In Motion (RIM), makers of the venerable BlackBerry devices, will always be remembered as the company that liberated corporate email from the PC. In fact, you could make a compelling case that the first BlackBerrys…
From ACM News
Biomolecular Computer Can Autonomously Sense Multiple Signs of Disease
In the future, nano-sized computers implanted in the human body could autonomously scan for disease indicators, diagnose diseases, and control the release of the appropriate drugs. Although this scenario is still several decades…
From ACM News
Panel Proposes Killing Webb Space Telescope
The House Appropriations Committee proposed Wednesday to kill the James Webb Space Telescope, the crown jewel of NASA’s astronomy plans for the next two decades.
From ACM TechNews
Stanford Faculty Collaborate to Improve Online Education
Stanford University faculty are jointly developing software and testing it in the classroom to improve online education.
From ACM TechNews
Can Google Get Web Users Talking?
Google researchers are implementing voice-driven Web search capability on computers, with the goal of making such searches as easy to perform as they are on the Android handset.
From ACM TechNews
Roving Robot to the Rescue
A roving robot that can locate victims of natural disasters via their mobile phones or bombs that are detonated through mobile phones has been developed by students at Northeastern University.
From ACM Opinion
A Collision of Creativity and Cash at Disney/pixar
When the Walt Disney Company bought Pixar Animation Studios for $7.4 billion in 2006, there was understandable concern that the media conglomerate that drove the famed Disney animation unit into the ground with duds like "Home…
From ACM TechNews
Student Pursues Breakthrough in Supercomputing
Northeastern University's Greg Kerr has developed a process that will make it possible for supercomputers running on the InfiniBand system to save their data part way through a computation, preventing the loss of progress due…
From ACM TechNews
The A-Z of Programming Languages: Shakespeare
In an interview, Swedish programmers Jon Aslund and Karl Wiberg say they created the Shakespeare Programming Language in one night while they were studying at the Royal Institute of Technology in Stockholm.
From ACM Opinion
Google+ Contributor and Mac Pioneer Talks with CNET
Thirty years ago, Andy Hertzfeld was a young computer engineer working at Apple Computer on the first Macintosh under the leadership of Steve Jobs. As Jobs had repeatedly promised the small team, their creation would change…
From ACM News
How Divorce Lawyers Use Social Networks
Updates you've posted to Facebook and Twitter can present obvious problems when you're searching for a job or starting a new relationship. But a growing number of legal cases suggests this may be just the beginning—divorce…
From ACM News
Phone-Call Cartography
Americans are more connected now than ever. Mobile phones allow people to maintain relationships with friends, family, and colleagues across long distances. If you analyze aggregated cellphone traffic—as researchers at M.I…
From ACM TechNews
Tunneling Transistors
The Midwest Institute for Nanoelectronics Discovery is researching the development of tunneling transistors, which are comprised of elements from the third and fifth columns of the periodic table (III-V) and consume less energy…
From ACM TechNews
Scientists Develop Sensitive Skin for Robots
Technical University of Munich (TUM) researchers are developing a sensitive skin for robots that will provide tactile information, adding to their existing perception capabilities provided by camera eyes, infrared scanners, and…
From ACM Opinion
Was the Space Shuttle a Mistake?
Forty years ago, I wrote an article for Technology Review titled "Shall We Build the Space Shuttle?" Now, with the 135th and final flight of the shuttle at hand, and the benefit of hindsight, it seems appropriate to ask a…
From ACM TechNews
Global Tech Leaders Promote Open Internet
The Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development has released a set of 14 policies designed to maintain the Internet as a forum for open communication and expression.
From ACM News
Maryland Sees Its Moment in Cybersecurity
As Fort Meade increasingly becomes a stronghold for federal cybersecurity, Maryland officials and business advocates are trying to take advantage of what they see as a critical opportunity for the state to own one of the most…
From ACM TechNews
Supercomputer Simulations to Help Predict Tornadoes
University of Oklahoma researchers are using supercomputers to assemble and analyze massive amounts of data on tornadoes, such as updraft, downdraft, and regions of spin, all of which could help develop advanced warning systems…
From ACM TechNews
Moore's Law Meets Exascale Computing
Moore's law will end during the decade of exascale computing, predicts a new white paper.
From ACM News
With the Shuttle Program Ending, Fears of Decline at Nasa
As NASA prepares to launch its last space shuttle—ending 30 years in which large teams of creative scientists and engineers sent winged spaceships into orbit—it is facing what may be a bigger challenge: a brain drain that…