Communications of the ACM
The news archive provides access to past news stories from Communications of the ACM and other sources by date.
July 2013
From ACM TechNews
Self-Driving Cars Could Create 1Gbyte of Data a Second
Self-driving cars will come with a wide range of sensors, creating machine-to-machine data at the rate of 1Gbyte per second, according to BigData-Startups.com founder Mark van Rijmenam.
From ACM TechNews
Twitter Can Tell Whether Your Community Is Happy or Not
Researchers recently released a study on whether a community's sense of happiness could be determined from communications on Twitter. The study demonstrates that Twitter reveals the level of well-being at the community as well…
From ACM TechNews
Perfecting Digital Imaging
Harvard University researchers say they are developing computer graphics tools that narrow the gap between "virtual" and "real." One project tries to find better ways to mimic the appearance of a translucent object.
From ACM Careers
How Samsung Is Beating Apple in China
Apple Chief Executive Tim Cook believes that "over the arc of time" China is a huge opportunity for his pathbreaking company. But time looks to be on the side of rival Samsung Electronics Co Ltd, which has been around far longer…
From ACM News
Neuroscientists Plant False Memories in the Brain
The phenomenon of false memory has been well-documented: In many court cases, defendants have been found guilty based on testimony from witnesses and victims who were sure of their recollections, but DNA evidence later overturned…
From ACM News
Pin-Punching Robot Can Crack Your Phone's Security Code In Less Than 24 Hours
There's nothing particularly difficult about cracking a smartphone’s four-digit PIN code.
From ACM News
Court Says Skipping Ads Doesn't Violate Copyright. That's a Big Deal.
In 1984, the Supreme Court rejected Hollywood's argument that the record button on the Betamax VCR made its manufacturer, Sony, liable for copyright infringement.
From ACM TechNews
A Digital Take on 'remembering the Alamo'
The Texas General Land Office is working with several Texas universities to preserve the Alamo through three-dimensional laser scanning and photogrammetry.
From ACM TechNews
Paypal Founder's Fellowship Hatches Medication Reminder App
Nightingale is an easy-to-use app that can provide customized medication reminders.
From ACM TechNews
IBM Taps Into Android Devices for Volunteer Computing Effort
Owners of Android-based smartphones and tablets can now "donate" surplus computing power from their devices to science.
From ACM TechNews
App Security Testing Tool
A new system for testing the security of apps is designed to provide developers with individual reports for every app and operating system.
From ACM News
Solid State Drives Transform Data Centers
Enterprises increasingly are incorporating solid-state drive technologies into their data centers.
From ACM Careers
The Mooc That Roared
Georgia Institute of Technology is about to take a step that could set off a broad disruption in higher education: It's offering a new master's degree in computer science, delivered through a series of massive open online courses…
From ACM News
For Nsa Chief, Terrorist Threat Drives Passion to 'collect It All,' Observers Say
In late 2005, as Iraqi roadside bombings were nearing an all-time peak, the National Security Agency's newly appointed chief began pitching a radical plan for halting the attacks that were killing or wounding a dozen Americans…
From ACM News
Research Update: Genome Editing Becomes More Accurate
Earlier this year, MIT researchers developed a way to easily and efficiently edit the genomes of living cells. Now, the researchers have discovered key factors that influence the accuracy of the system, an important step toward…
From ACM News
Curiosity Makes Its Longest One-Day Drive on Mars
NASA's Mars rover Curiosity drove twice as far on July 21 as on any other day of the mission so far: 109.7 yards (100.3 meters).
From ACM TechNews
To Create a Robot With Common Sense, Mimic a Toddler
A new robot is being designed to mimic the common sense of a three-year-old.
From ACM TechNews
Chips That Mimic the Brain
A breakthrough in the effort to build an artificial brain involves using neuromorphic chips to incorporate complex cognitive abilities into electronic systems.
From ACM TechNews
World's Cheapest Computer Gets Millions Tinkering
The Raspberry Pi was designed to help children learn to code; nearly 1.5 million of the Linux-based devices have sold in 18 months.
From ACM TechNews
Study: Commerce Department App Privacy Proposal Confuses Consumers
The terminology of the Commerce Department's "short-form notice" privacy proposal is too ambiguous and confusing to be adopted.
From ACM TechNews
Mining For Meaning: Getting Computers to nderstand Natural Language Texts
Computer scientists are developing a procedure that will enable computers to learn to identify semantically relevant relationships within texts.
From ACM TechNews
Disney Researchers Create Computer Models That Capture Style and Process of Portrait Artists
Disney researchers have developed computer models that learn an artist's drawing style.
From ACM TechNews
Software Employment Rises 45% in 10 Years, as Angst in Engineering Grows
IT employment has gone up and down over the past decade, but the only tech occupation that appears to have recovered to full employment is software developer, according to Economic Policy Institute analyst Daniel Costa.
From ACM News
Fast, Accurate Detection of 100,000 Object Classes on a Single Machine
Humans can distinguish among approximately 10,000 relatively high-level visual categories, but we can discriminate among a much larger set of visual stimuli referred to as features.
From ACM News
Faster Than the Speed of Light?
Beyond the security gate at the Johnson Space Center’s 1960s-era campus here, inside a two-story glass and concrete building with winding corridors, there is a floating laboratory.
From ACM News
Touch Screen Ids sers via Fingerprints
Tabletop computers have not exactly taken the world by storm, as some predicted they would.
From ACM News
F.T.C. Turns a Lens on Abusers of the Patent System
To its defenders, Intellectual Ventures is a revolutionary company unfairly viewed, in the words of its co-founder Peter N. Detkin, "as the poster child of everything that is wrong with the patent system."
From ACM News
Nsa Surveillance Program Extended By Court, Intelligence Officials Say
A secret court on Friday extended the National Security Agency's authority to collect and store the phone records of tens of millions of American cellphone customers, the top U.S. intelligence official confirmed.
From ACM TechNews
Education Tech: What's Trending?
Educators and industry experts will gather July 25 at the Education Technology Innovation Summit to discuss new ideas and products in education technology.
From ACM TechNews
Symantec: Google Glass Still Vulnerable to Wi-Fi Attack
Just days after Google said it had patched a QR code vulnerability affecting its Google Glass wearable computer, Symantec says it has found another vulnerability affecting the device.