Communications of the ACM
The news archive provides access to past news stories from Communications of the ACM and other sources by date.
July 2015
From ACM TechNews
Researchers Prove Html5 Can Be sed to Hide Malware
The upcoming HTML5 standard could enable hackers to execute drive-by download attacks, according to researchers in Italy.
From ACM TechNews
The Unintended Consequences of Rationality
Harvard School of Engineering and Applied Sciences professor David C. Parkes contends rational models of economics are applicable to artificial intelligence.
From ACM News
The Tools Inspectors Can Use to Catch Iran's Nuclear Hijinks
After Tuesday's historic agreement between Iran and the "P5+1" group of countries, inspectors from the International Atomic Energy Agency will have access to all of the Mideast power's nuclear facilities.
From ACM News
A New 'model For Models' in Software Development Effort Estimation
Researchers put forth an automatically transformed linear model as a suitable baseline model for comparison against software estimation effort models.
From ACM News
The Square Kilometre Array: Radio Silence in Western Australia For Most Powerful Telescope in History
In outback Western Australia, around 350k northeast of the small town of Geraldton, lies an area of land about the size of the Netherlands, but with only 100 humans living in it: the shire of Murchison.
From ACM News
NASA's New Horizons Discovers Frozen Plains in the Heart of Pluto's 'Heart'
In the latest data from NASA's New Horizons spacecraft, a new close-up image of Pluto reveals a vast, craterless plain that appears to be no more than 100 million years old, and is possibly still being shaped by geologic processes…
From ACM TechNews
Firing Squad Synchronization, Computer Science's Most Macabre-Sounding Problem
Getting a firing squad to fire in sync is a puzzle that was studied in computer science's early days, because it was vital to automata theory.
From ACM TechNews
RoboCup World Championship: UNSW Student Engineers Take Robots to China to Defend Title
University of New South Wales student engineers are in Hefei, China, to defend their Standard Platform League title at the RoboCup World Championships.
From ACM TechNews
NASA Algorithms Keep Unmanned Aircraft Away From Commercial Aviation
New algorithms could enable large unmanned aircraft to remain "well clear" of commercial airliners in flight and prevent a disaster.
From ACM TechNews
Data Miners Dig For Answers About Harper Lee, Truman Capote, and 'go Set a Watchman'
Literature researchers used data science to investigate long-standing debates about the work of Harper Lee, author of "To Kill a Mockingbird" and "Go Set a Watchman."
From ACM TechNews
-M Will Test 3D-Printed, Autonomous 'smartcarts'
University of Michigan researchers are working to understand the challenges of a transportation-on-demand system built around autonomous cars.
From ACM Careers
Coders Balk at Making Apps Searchable
The giants of the Web have been pressing developers of mobile apps to index their content so it can be parsed by search engines or linked to from other sites.
From ACM News
The Hard Disk of the Future Will Be Ten Thousand Times Faster, Researchers Say
Think your computer is pretty slow?
From ACM News
Moore's Law Is Showing Its Age
No company sounds more religious about Moore’s Law than Intel Corp., whose co-founder made a famous observation about the miniaturization of chip circuitry 50 years ago.
From ACM News
As Tech Firms Track Your Location, Advertisers Zero In For the Sale
Mapping technology advancements from Google Inc and Facebook Inc that provide more precise user location data than ever before are starting to dent advertisers' longtime skepticism about boosting mobile ad spending.
From ACM News
In Memoriam: Robert Dewar, 1945-2015
Robert Dewar, a significant contributor to the early development and continuing success of the Ada programming language, died June 21 at age 70.
From ACM TechNews
Researchers at University of Virginia Use Leds to Create Wireless Networks
An enhancement to Wi-Fi-based networks could enable more data to be transmitted without requiring additional energy.
From ACM TechNews
Waldio Mode to Improve Smartphone Life Explained at senix
Researchers say they have resolved an anomaly in the Android IO stack known as journaling of journal.
From ACM TechNews
New Cyber Programs Debut in California, Louisiana
Louisiana Tech University and the University of San Diego are creating new cyber programs.
From ACM TechNews
Computing at the Speed of Light
Massachusetts Institute of Technology researcher Sergio Cantu studies how light can act as an information carrier in computing and calculating.
From ACM News
Transparent Paper Produces Power With Just a Touch
A new transparent-paper device can generate electrical power from a user's touch (ACS Nano 2015, DOI: 10.1021/acsnano.5b02414).
From ACM News
The Icy Mountains of Pluto
New close-up images of a region near Pluto's equator reveal a giant surprise: a range of youthful mountains rising as high as 11,000 feet (3,500 meters) above the surface of the icy body.
From ACM Careers
Welcome to the AI Conspiracy: The 'canadian Mafia' Behind Tech's Latest Craze
In the late '90s, Tomi Poutanen, a precocious computer whiz from Finland, hoped to do his dissertation on neural networks, a scientific method aimed at teaching computers to act and think like humans.
From ACM TechNews
Minecraft Shows Robots How to Stop Dithering
Brown University researchers have developed an approach that enables robots to quickly determine the sequence of actions that will work in a particular environment.
From ACM TechNews
Computer Program Fixes Old Code Faster Than Expert Engineers
Researchers have developed a program designed to automatically fix existing code without requiring the original source.
From ACM TechNews
Where Do Most of the Internet Users Live?
Researchers at the Oxford Internet Institute have updated their 2011 visualization of Internet users around the world, using 2013 data from the World Bank.
From ACM TechNews
Can the Apple Watch Enhance Student Achievement?
Pennsylvania State University researchers will test how the Apple Watch can enhance student achievement via self-regulation and learning strategy.
From ACM TechNews
Astronomers Teach Machine to 'See' Galaxies in Space
University of Hertfordshire researchers say they have taught a machine to "see" astronomical images, including the ability to distinguish between galaxies.
From ACM News
The Camera Behind the New Pluto Photos
For decades after its discovery in 1930, Pluto looked like nothing more than a gray smudge in the abyss of space.
From ACM News
Virtual Medical Training: Don’t Call It Virtual Reality
Medical professionals prefer to reference the technology with terms that are "less sci-fi."