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 TechNews
Microsoft Training Computers to Finish Our Sentences
Computer scientists from Microsoft Research and researchers from Cornell University and the University of California-Irvine are trying to determine if it is possible for computers to know what humans are going to say before they…
From ACM News
Start-Up Attempts to Convert Prof Hawking's Brainwaves Into Speech
An American scientist is to unveil details of work on the brain patterns of Prof Stephen Hawking he says could help safeguard the physicist's ability to communicate.
From ACM TechNews
'googling' Through nique Audio Material: Towards a Better Search Result
University of Twente researchers are working to make spoken audio material from the past more accessible. The researchers say that a combination of speech recognition and search technology can offer a method for searching through…
From ACM TechNews
IBM Research Conjures p Augmented Reality Mobile Shopping App
IBM Research has developed an augmented reality mobile shopping application that enables retailers to personalize each individual customer's shopping experience.
From ACM TechNews
Mapping Research With Wikimaps
The evolution of a page, topic, or collection of connections on Wikipedia can be mapped using a dynamic tool from an international research team. The tool, WikiMaps, makes use of the underlying information in the metadata of…
From ACM TechNews
Suit Allows sers to Create Music Through Movement
Singer Imogen Heap performed at the recent TED Global 2012 conference in Edinburgh, Scotland wearing a musical suit, which gave her a greater opportunity to create and manipulate sound and control music through the movement of…
From ACM News
Hackers Steal BMWs in 3 Minutes Using Security Loophole
There has been an unusual spike in the number of BMWs stolen in the U.K. this year, with some sources suggesting the number may be 300 cars or higher. The cars are being stolen without activating car alarms or immobilizers.
From ACM TechNews
New Patent Office Fighting Tech Giants For Talent
Silicon Valley is one of four areas that will soon have a regional U.S. Patent and Trademark Office, and the challenge will be how to attract and retain qualified patent examiners in what the agency describes as "a hyper-competitive…
From ACM TechNews
Robot Avatar Body Controlled By Thought Alone
Researchers have used functional magnetic resonance imagery to scan the brain of a student as he imagined moving different parts of his body. The researchers hope to eventually provide people with the ability to manipulate a…
From ACM News
Google Shaman Explains Mysteries of 'compute Engine'
Google started work on the Google Compute Engine over a year and a half ago, and it was all Peter Magnusson could do to keep his mouth shut.
From ACM News
Mind Control Moves Into Battle
Technology that taps into a soldier's thought patterns could soon see action on the battlefield.
From ACM News
Is .s. Government Reading Email Without a Warrant?
Does the U.S. government read your email? It's a simple question, but apparently there's no simple answer. And the Justice Department and the Internal Revenue Service are reluctant to say anything on the topic.
From ACM TechNews
Sharing Data Links in Networks of Cars
Researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Georgetown University, and National University of Singapore recently presented an algorithm that enables Wi-Fi-connected cars to share their Internet connections.
From ACM TechNews
Patent Trawler Aims to Predict Next Hot Technologies
Hungarian Academy of Sciences researchers have developed a data-mining tool that automatically helps predict emerging technologies.
From ACM TechNews
New Technology Slashes Data Center Energy Consumption
A new energy-aware plug-in can reduce energy consumption in data centers by more than 20 percent, according to researchers with the European Union-funded FIT4Green project.
From ACM TechNews
New Technologies Spread Arrival of Robots Into Our Lives
Robotics experts predict that within 10 years general-purpose robots will perform household chores while consumers are at work.
From ACM News
Mars Panorama: Next Best Thing to Being There
From fresh rover tracks to an impact crater blasted billions of years ago, a newly completed view from the panoramic camera (Pancam) on NASA's Mars Exploration Rover Opportunity shows the ruddy terrain around the outcrop where…
From ACM News
The nified Theory of Wu
Virginia Tech Associate Professor at Wu-chun Feng, commonly known as "Wu," talks about productivity and his latest work on supercomputers.
From ACM News
Nbc, Google, Stage 'war Games' To Prepare For Olympic Disruptions
NBC and Google are conducting "war games" in at least three countries, to prepare for the possibility of hacker attacks or hardware malfunction disrupting the online streaming of the Summer Olympics Games in London, which start…
From ACM TechNews
New Apps Redefine Poetry
Computing technology offers new methods for poetic expression, says Jason Lewis, a professor in the Department of Design and Computation Arts at Concordia University. Lewis has developed a suite of 10 digital poetry apps.
From ACM TechNews
Computing Grid Built For Physics Benefits a Wide Range of Science
The University of California, San Diego houses the Open Science Grid, a network that connects processors and data storage owned by an alliance of universities and national laboratories to obtain enough computing power to meet…
From ACM News
England V Germany: Goal-Line Technology Decision Imminent
Football's world governing body Fifa and other organisations are preparing to vote on something many fans of the game have been crying out for: goal-line technology.
From ACM News
PageRank Algorithm Reveals Soccer Teams' Strategies
Many readers will have watched the final of the Euro 2012 soccer championships last Sunday in which Spain demolished a tired Italian team by 4 goals to nil. The result, Spain's third major championship in a row, confirms the…
From ACM News
Want a Terabyte Ipad? Then You'll Want to Read This
In the latter half of the 19th century, the introduction of elevators and steel trusses enabled us to put up taller buildings with denser cores. It changed urban landscapes forever—packing more people into small spaces. Now,…
From ACM Careers
In Silicon Valley, Hardware Is Hot Again
Since the mid-1990s Liam Casey, PCH International's chief executive officer, has helped technology companies with the nastiest task in Silicon Valley: building hardware.
From ACM TechNews
Symantec: World Has 2.2 Zettabytes of Business Data That Costs $1.1 Trillion to Store and Secure
Organizations globally hold approximately 2.2 zettabytes of data and spend roughly $1.1 trillion to secure and provide access to it, according to a new Symantec study.
From ACM TechNews
Clothing the Body Electric
Electronics will be part of our wardrobe in the future, says University of South Carolina professor Xiaodong Li, who has turned the material in a cotton T-shirt into a source of electrical power.
From ACM TechNews
Melanin Considered for Bio-Friendly Electronics
University of Queensland researchers recently published a study that provides insight into the electrical properties of melanin and its biologically compatible "bioelectronic" features.
From ACM News
A Code of Conduct, For Drones?
It's a bird. It's a plane. Actually, it's a drone. And now those unmanned aircraft, best known for being used by the U.S. to kill terrorism suspects overseas, have a new state-of-the-art feature: a code of conduct.
From ACM News
Jobs vs. Gates, Redux
It’s difficult to find two people who have had a greater influence on people’s lives than Steve Jobs and Bill Gates.