Communications of the ACM
The news archive provides access to past news stories from Communications of the ACM and other sources by date.
July 2019
From ACM TechNews
Chameleon Theory Could Change Our Thoughts on Gravity
Massive supercomputer simulations of the universe will be used to test whether the Chameleon Theory (f(R)-gravity) could explain the formation of cosmological structures.
From ACM News
American Voters Feel More Prepared for Election Hacking in 2020
Democrats were 35% more likely to say that they were at least slightly confident that the U.S. will be ready for any cyber attack in the 2020 Presidential elections than they were right before the 2018 midterm elections.
From ACM News
Fernando Corbató, a Father of Your Computer (and Your Password), Dies at 93
Computers, he said, were so expensive to use that any idle time was a huge waste. But with time-sharing, computer time was carefully metered and wasted time all but eliminated.
From ACM News
Alan Turing Will Be New Face of £50 Note, Bank of England Says
Alan Turing will be the face of Britain's new 50-pound note, the Bank of England announced.
From ACM TechNews
AI Poker Bot Is First to Beat Professionals at Multiplayer Game
A new artificial intelligence program beat elite professional poker players at six-player no-limit Texas hold'em poker.
From ACM TechNews
German Scientists Pull Off Autonomous Aircraft Landing
C2Land is an automated landing system that uses GPS for flight control, but does not require any ground-based antennas.
From ACM TechNews
Storing Data in Music
Researchers have developed a method of embedding data in music in a way that is imperceptible to the human ear.
From ACM TechNews
Coast Guard Calls for Ships to pdate Their Systems After Malware Attack
The U.S. Coast Guard is recommending all ships update their cybersecurity, following a February malware attack on a vessel that "significantly degraded" its computer system.
From ACM TechNews
C3M Programs a Humanoid Robot to Communicate in Sign Language
Researchers programmed a humanoid robot to communicate in sign language.
From ACM News
Coding for Disaster
At a U.N. hackathon, open source developers strive to mitigate the impact of natural disasters.
From ACM News
Major League Baseball 'Robot mp' Calls 1st Professional Baseball Game with 1 Hitch, No Controversy
A computer in the press box communicated to the umpire whether each pitch was in or out of the strike zone, and the umpire relayed the calls to the field as usual.
From ACM TechNews
Waze Data Can Help Predict Car Crashes, Cut Response Time
City leaders, academic researchers, and the U.S. Department of Transportation are working to predict car crashes and reduce emergency response times using data from traffic app Waze.
From ACM TechNews
Robot ses Machine Learning to Harvest Lettuce
A new vegetable-picking robot uses machine learning to identify and harvest iceberg lettuce.
From ACM TechNews
Shopping Centers Exploring Facial Recognition in Brave New World of Retail
U.S. mall owners and retailers are ramping up their use of facial recognition to ascertain shoppers' traffic patterns, employee performance, and consumer response to displays and marketing.
From ACM News
Chipping Away at Big Data
Neural network chips whittle big data down to size.
From ACM News
Not Just Tech Bros
Northwestern University's Sara Sood and Ian Horswill are working to make computer science more inclusive and appealing.
From ACM TechNews
.K.'s ICO Fines British Airways Record £183M Over GDPR Breach That Leaked Data From 500,000 sers
The U.K.'s Information Commissioner’s Office has leveled a £183.39-million fine against British Airways for a violation of the General Data Protection Regulation.
From ACM TechNews
Lennon or McCartney? Machine Learning Tries to Crack Disputed Beatles Authorship
Researchers used machine learning to ascertain the authorship of disputed Beatles songs.
From ACM TechNews
Drone Explodes into Maple Seed Microdrones in Midair
Samara-inspired drones can help deliver airborne payloads in a simple, reliable, inexpensive manner.
From ACM TechNews
FBI, ICE Find State Driver's License Photos a Gold Mine for Facial-Recognition Searches
U.S. federal investigators using facial-recognition technology to search millions of Americans' state driver's license photos, without their knowledge or permission.
From ACM TechNews
Tiny Jellyfish Robot Could Swim Inside the Bladder to Deliver Drugs
Researchers in Germany have developed a robotic jellyfish that can swim, burrow, and transport objects.
From ACM News
The pside of Adversarial Attacks
They may lead to better neural networks.
From ACM News
Someone Is Spamming and Breaking a Core Component of PGP’s Ecosystem
A new wave of spamming attacks on a core component of PGP's ecosystem has highlighted a fundamental weakness in the whole ecosystem.
From ACM News
Does the .S. Need a Cabinet-Level Department of Cybersecurity?
Some say a new department is needed to coordinate the nation's defenses. Others say it would only weaken those defenses.
From ACM TechNews
Before Connecting an IoT Device, Check Out a New NIST Report for Cybersecurity Advice
A new report from the U.S. National Institute of Standards and Technology aims to help Internet of Things users protect themselves, their data, and their networks from security and privacy risks.
From ACM TechNews
Neuromorphic Computing Finds New Life in Machine Learning
Researchers are working to resolve the fact that spiking neurons currently have no way that they can be trained via gradient descent—the basis of conventional machine learning.
From ACM News
How Computing Goes Green
Tech companies have bigger carbon footprints than ever. Here's what some of them are doing about it.
From ACM TechNews
Data Can Now Be Stored Inside Molecules That Power Our Metabolism
Brown University researchers have stored information within molecules smaller and less complex than DNA.
From ACM TechNews
How to Evaluate Computers that Don't Quite Exist
A team of researchers compared quantum computers developed by IBM, Rigetti Computing, and the University of Maryland.
From ACM TechNews
Code in Chinese Surveillance App Analyzed
Travelers entering China from Kyrgyzstan must install an app on their phones, and researchers have analyzed how the app works.