Communications of the ACM
The news archive provides access to past news stories from Communications of the ACM and other sources by date.
July 2012
From ACM Opinion
Will Wright Wants to Make a Game Out of Life Itself
For almost 30 years, Will Wright’s creations have attracted people who would never have played videogames. He's also managed the trick of developing games that enthrall hardcore fans while making rabid players out of novices.
From ACM TechNews
Nsf Announces New Savi at Intersection of It, Disasters
U.S. and Japanese researchers will collaborate on developing fundamental advances in information technology to support disaster management under a new Science Across Virtual Institutes project.
From ACM TechNews
Research pdate: Chips With Self-Assembling Rectangles
MIT researchers have developed an approach to creating the array of wires on microchips that uses a system of self-assembling polymers. The process produces arrays of wires that meet at right angles, which are traditionally…
From ACM News
Top Five 'earth as Art' Winners
During a span of 40 years, since 1972, the Landsat series of Earth observation satellites has become a vital reference worldwide for understanding scientific issues related to land use and natural resources.
From ACM News
Minister Stresses Iran's Ability to Confront All Spy Malwares
Iran's Minister of Communication and Information Technology Reza Taqipour announced that Iran has successfully confronted sophisticated spy malwares and thwarted all cyber attacks against the country's infrastructures.
From ACM News
In First, Software Emulates Lifespan of Entire Organism
Scientists at Stanford University and the J. Craig Venter Institute have developed the first software simulation of an entire organism, a humble single-cell bacterium that lives in the human genital and respiratory tracts.
From ACM News
Assistance Systems Help Out Distracted Drivers
Advanced Driver Assistance Systems (ADAS) are changing the way we drive — and paving the way for cars that can drive themselves.
From ACM News
Gps Hijacking Catches Feds, Drone Makers Off Guard
On June 19, when University of Texas researchers successfully hijacked a drone by "spoofing" it— giving it bad GPS coordinates–they showed the Department of Homeland Security how civilian drones could fall into the wrong hands…
From ACM TechNews
Obama Proposes $1b For Science, Math Teachers
The Obama administration has proposed a plan to invest $1 billion in fiscal year 2013 to increase U.S. students' participation in science, technology, engineering, and math by creating an elite corps of master educators through…
From ACM TechNews
Indian Scientists Try to Crack Monsoon Source Code
Indian researchers are developing computer models that could help predict the erratic movements of monsoons.
From ACM TechNews
Innovation Promises to Cut Massive Power Use at Big Data Companies in a Flash
Princeton University researchers have developed SSDAlloc, software that could help organizations use a type of memory in their servers that requires much less energy than conventional systems.
From ACM TechNews
Imagining Tomorrow's Computers Today
Intel principal engineer and futurist Brian David Johnson discusses his presentation at the recent Euroscience Open Forum on a future world of computers that develop relationships with the humans they serve.
From ACM TechNews
Lessons Learned From Mitx's Prototype Course
MIT and Harvard University are preparing to offer free online courses in the fall through the edX project, which is based on MIT's MITx platform.
From ACM Careers
Would German-Style Apprenticeships Work in the .s.?
In a world of high youth unemployment, where the supply of skilled labor often fails to match employer demand, Germany believes help can be found in its Dual Vocational Training System (TVET)—a time-tested economic model now…
From ACM News
Autopilots Take to the Ground
For decades, autopilots have controlled how planes climb, cruise and descend in the air.
From ACM News
Newest U.s. Counterterrorism Strategy: Trolling
In the decade since 9/11, the U.S. government has used a wide variety of tactics against terrorists.
From ACM TechNews
Microsoft, Juniper, Others in Coding Consortium Issue Guidelines For Safer Applications
The Software Assurance Forum for Excellence in Code recently issued "Practical Security Stories and Security Tasks for Agile Development Environments," a white paper that offers guidelines to lower the risk that vulnerabilities…
From ACM TechNews
Stanford Faculty Is Embracing Online Teaching Opportunities
Stanford University's online education initiative is providing seed grants to professors for developing new online courses.
From ACM TechNews
sing Hip-Hop to Teach Computer Science
Georgia Tech recently provided computer science education to Atlanta area high school students via a musical summer camp.
From ACM TechNews
Graphene Transistors in High-Performance Demonstration
Friedrich-Alexander University Erlangen-Nuremberg researchers announced that they used silicon carbide to create graphene.
From ACM News
Aclu: 'reasonable Suspicion' Not Good Enough For Gps Tracking
If you're a student of the privacy and tech law worlds (or you just read Ars) then you're probably familiar with last year's Supreme Court decision, Jones v. United States.
From ACM News
Coning In: New Ways to Tap Old Data Boost Hurricane Forecast Accuracy
Despite advances in weather prediction technology, meteorologists must still qualify any hurricane forecasts with a "cone of uncertainty," which depicts just how far the center of a storm might deviate from its projected track…
From ACM News
Study: Wikileaked Data Can Predict Insurgent Attacks
Insurgencies are amongst the hardest conflicts to predict. Insurgents can be loosely organized, split into factions, and strike from out of nowhere. But now researchers have demonstrated that with enough data, you might actually…
From ACM TechNews
Artificial Football Manager Hoping to Top the Fantasy Football League
Researchers at the University of Southampton plan to participate in the English Fantasy Football League with an artificial soccer manager.
From ACM TechNews
Frog Calls Inspire a New Algorithm For Wireless Networks
Polytechnic University of Catalonia researchers have developed an algorithm based on the desynchronized form of calling used by Japanese tree frogs that assigns colors to network nodes, which can be applied to the development…
From ACM TechNews
Your Laptop Can Now Analyze Big Data
Carnegie Mellon University researchers have developed GraphChi, a framework for running large-scale computations on one personal computer.
From ACM TechNews
Can We Fix Computer Science Education in America?
Computer science is the only one of the science, technology, engineering, and math fields that has seen a decrease in student participation during the last 20 years, falling from 25 percent to 19 percent, according to a recent…
From ACM Opinion
Western Media Seeking to Play Down Iran's Cyber Capability By New Virus Story
The western media sought to play down Iran's cyber and computer software capability by releasing hundreds of reports on the discovery of a new computer virus and attributing the semi-professional malware to Iran.
From ACM News
The Brave New World of Tomorrow's Tablets
Tablets with paper-thin screens that can be folded and tucked into your back pocket, artificial intelligence and augmented reality—the stuff of science fiction may be coming to a store near you.
From ACM News
Apple Granted 'the Mother of All Smartphone Software Patents'
Both sides of the smartphone wars agree that the 25 patents granted Apple on Tuesday contain some powerful legal weapons.