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 News
Mahdi, the Messiah, Found Infecting Systems in Iran, Israel
Who knew that when the Messiah arrived to herald the Day of Judgment he'd first root through computers to steal documents and record conversations?
From ACM News
The Moore's Law Moon Shot
It is seemingly a fact of life that every new generation of computing gadget will be significantly more powerful than the one before, but a looming technical roadblock threatens to undermine that.
From ACM TechNews
Researchers Create Highly Conductive and Elastic Conductors Using Silver Nanowires
North Carolina State University researchers have developed highly conductive and elastic conductors made from silver nanoscale wires, which they say can be used to produce stretchable electronic devices.
From ACM TechNews
Faster Simulation--Award for New Method
Dominik Schillinger was honored with the John Argyris Award during the recent World Congress on Computational Mechanics for developing a method for facilitating simulations in mechanical or civil engineering.
From ACM TechNews
New Computer Exam Tested For the First Time By niversity Students
The Linux Professional Institute recently tested its Linux Essentials exam program for the first time on students from Birmingham City University's School of Computing, Telecommunications and Networks.
From ACM News
Gov. Cuomo Uses Blackberry Pin-to-Pin Messaging System to Contact Key Staffers When They Can't Talk on the Phone
There's one phrase Gov. Cuomo never hears: "You’ve got mail!"
From ACM News
Five Reasons Why It's A Great Time to Major in Computer Science
While computer science always seems to be an excellent career choice, this happens to be a particularly great time to pursue a CS major, say experts.
From ACM Careers
In-Q-Tel: The Cia's Tax-Funded Player In Silicon Valley
For more than a decade the CIA has run its own venture capital fund called In-Q-Tel. It was founded in the late 1990s when the CIA was drowning in data and didn't have the tools to connect the dots.
From ACM News
Nasa's Car-Size Rover Nears Daring Landing on Mars
NASA's most advanced planetary rover is on a precise course for an early August landing beside a Martian mountain to begin two years of unprecedented scientific detective work. However, getting the Curiosity rover to the surface…
From ACM Opinion
How Google Is Becoming an Extension of Your Mind
It's time to think of Google as much more than just a search engine, and that should both excite and spook you.
From ACM TechNews
App That Allows Deaf People to Verbally Communicate Wins Imagine Cup
First place in the 2012 Imagine Cup went to a Ukrainian university team that developed an application that enables deaf people to verbally communicate using sensory gloves and a smartphone.
From ACM TechNews
Cyberwarfare, Conservation and Disease Prevention Could Benefit From MU Researcher's Network Model
University of Missouri researchers have developed a computer model they say could have wide-reaching applications in cyberwarfare, conservation, and disease prevention.
From ACM TechNews
New Notre Dame Research Raises Questions About Iris Recognition Systems
Since iris recognition technologies were first developed, it has been assumed that a person's iris remained stable over their lifetime, which is known as “one enrollment for life.”
From ACM TechNews
Would You Like to Play a Game? New AI Teaches Itself the Rules
Lukasz Kaiser has developed an AI program that can watch two-minute videos of simple board games being played, learn the rules, and then challenge human opponents.
From ACM TechNews
Computer Scientists Reproduce the Evolution of Evolvability
Modular systems evolve more easily than non-modular systems, but the evolution of modularity is a key open question for biology.
From ACM TechNews
Getting to the Bottom of Statistics
Technische Universitat Darmstadt researchers have developed the Explain-a-LOD tool, which accesses linked open data and automatically formulates hypotheses regarding the interpretation of arbitrary statistics.
From ACM News
Hacker Opens High Security Handcuffs with 3D-Printed and Laser-Cut Keys
The security of high-end handcuffs depends on a detainee not having access to certain small, precisely-shaped objects. In the age of easy 3D printing and other DIY innovations, that assumption may no longer apply.
From ACM News
The Death of Cash
Café Grumpy is the kind of hipster hangout that wouldn't deign to trumpet itself.
From ACM TechNews
Toward Achieving 1 Million Times Increase in Computing Efficiency
Northwestern University researchers say they have developed a new logic circuit family based on magnetic semiconductor devices that could result in logic circuits up to one million times more power-efficient than CMOS-based systems…
From ACM News
At Casino, Fuming Gamblers Leave Behind Maimed Machines
Along with over 5,000 blinking, whirring digital gambling machines, the new Resorts World Casino, opponents predicted, would bring a surge of crime to Queens when it opened last year.
From ACM TechNews
'clonewise' Security Service Helps Identify Vulnerable Code
Deakin University researchers have developed Clonewise, a service for finding common code in programs, which could help find vulnerable libraries built into larger bodies of code.
From ACM TechNews
Computer Science Continues Growth on College Campuses
After falling to its lowest level since the 1970s in 2005, computer science enrollments at U.S. universities have been rising for the last three consecutive years, according to the Computing Research Association.
From ACM TechNews
DARPA Seeks 'radical Innovation' in Data Analysis
DARPA is interested in novel ways to identify people, places, objects, and activities in visual and geospatial images. DARPA is seeking participants for a project that will have research teams work in a "short-fuse, crucible…
From ACM News
Step Inside the Large Hadron Collider
The Compact Muon Solenoid is one of two main detectors at the LHC. It weighs 12,500 tons, measures 69 ft. (21 m) in length, and is a key research tool for 2,000 scientists hailing from 37 countries.
From ACM News
The Eyes Have It: Marketers Now Track Shoppers' Retinas
Consumer-products companies are turning to new technology to overcome the biggest obstacle to learning what shoppers really think: what the shoppers say.
From ACM News
Tridium's Niagara Framework: Marvel of Connectivity Illustrates New Cyber Risks
John Sublett and his colleagues had an audacious, digital-age plan. They wanted to use the Internet to enable businesses to manage any kind of electronic device, anywhere on the planet, through the computer equivalent of a universal…
From ACM News
Laser Beam Keeps Robo-Plane Buzzing For Two Days Straight
LaserMotive has demonstrated a power system that can keep Lockheed Martin's Stalker unmanned aerial vehicle going for more than 48 hours with laser light—but that's not the most amazing part.
From ACM TechNews
Exascale Computing By Decade's End
Parallelism and technology scaling will make exascale computing possible by the end of the decade, says Intel Fellow Shekhar Borkar. By about 2018, engineers are expected to create an exascale supercomputer, which will likely…
From ACM TechNews
Welcome to the Programming Language Explosion
Mission-critical business software has for years largely been written in Cobol or RPG if it was on a mainframe, but the personal computer language market is much more fragmented.
From ACM News
Intel Fights to Keep Hp, Dell, and Other Customers from Defecting
Some of chip colossus Intel's biggest customers and partners are exploring a competing microprocessor design, signaling the start of a much-anticipated tech donnybrook that analysts say could trigger a dramatic shift in the computer…