Communications of the ACM
The news archive provides access to past news stories from Communications of the ACM and other sources by date.
July 2020
From ACM TechNews
Volunteer Hacker Army Boosts U.S. Election Cybersecurity
A University of Chicago program aims to strengthen U.S. election security by enlisting volunteer experts to aid local election officials.
From ACM TechNews
IBM Partners with Japanese Business, Academia in Quantum Computing
IBM has launched a research partnership with Japanese industry and academia to expedite quantum computing innovations.
From ACM TechNews
AR Tool Shown to Help Surgeons Remotely Guide First Responders in Battlefield-Like Scenarios
Researchers developed and tested an augmented reality headset that helps surgeons remotely guide medics through performing surgery in simulated war zones.
From ACM TechNews
Programming Language, Tool Ensure Code Will Compute as Intended
A multi-institutional team of researchers has published Armada, a coding language and tool for high-performance concurrent programs that ensure code is mathematically proven to compute as intended.
From ACM TechNews
NASA Launched Its New Perseverance Rover to Mars
The U.S. National Aeronautics and Space Administration on Thursday launched its new Mars rover, Perseverance.
From ACM News
A Speed Bump on the Road to 5G?
The impact of the coronavirus lockdown on the buildout of 5G networks appears to have been minimal.
From ACM News
AI Is All the Rage. So Why Aren’t More Businesses Using It?
A big study by the U.S. Census Bureau finds that only about 9% of firms employ tools like machine learning or voice recognition—for now.
From ACM TechNews
Data Scientists Are Used to Making Up the Rules. Now They're Getting Some of Their Own to Follow.
The U.K.'s British Computer Society, Royal Statistical Society, and Royal Academy of Engineering have joined forces to develop industry-wide professional standards in data science.
From ACM TechNews
Laser Inversion Enables Multi-Materials 3D Printing
Columbia Engineering researchers have created a technique that could enable multi-materials manufacturing by three-dimensional printing.
From ACM TechNews
Machine Learning Reveals Recipe for Building Artificial Proteins
Researchers at the University of Chicago's Pritzker School of Molecular Engineering (PME) have created a process that uses big data to design new proteins.
From ACM News
Doing Something About the Weather
Computer scientists commit to climate action.
From ACM News
How the Coronavirus Pandemic Is Breaking Artificial Intelligence and How to Fix It
Among the many things the coronavirus outbreak has highlighted is how fragile our artificial intelligence systems are. We need new approaches to ensure our AI systems remain robust.
From ACM News
Engineers Built “Giant Atoms” That Enhance Quantum Computers
Massachusetts Institute of Technology engineers hope their giant atoms lead to a simpler, enhanced form of quantum computers.
From ACM News
U.S. Computer Sales Spiked in the Rush to Work From Home
Computer makers were caught off guard by the huge surge in demand for laptops, with many retailers and distributors struggling to keep up during the early period of the pandemic.
From ACM TechNews
Ford to Use Boston Dynamics Robots to Map Manufacturing Facilities
Ford will use two of Boston Dynamics' Spot robots to help the automaker update the original engineering plans of a transmission manufacturing plant, as a pilot program.
From ACM TechNews
Police Requests for Google Users' Location Histories Face New Scrutiny
Police use of "geofence" warrants is being disputed by criminal defendants in Virginia and San Francisco, and could be banned by lawmakers in New York.
From ACM TechNews
How AI Systems Use Mad Libs to Teach Themselves Grammar
Artificial intelligence researchers at Stanford University have found that advanced AI systems can work out linguistic principles like grammar by themselves.
From ACM TechNews
Technology Makes Homes More Energy Independent, Helps Divert Power During Blackouts
A new smart technology can help utilities better serve communities struck by outages.
From ACM TechNews
Technology Infuses Ancient Hajj Rites Tailored for Pandemic
A small number of devout Muslims are being allowed to participate in the pilgrimage (hajj) to Mecca this year, tailored for the coronavirus pandemic with the latest technology.
From ACM TechNews
Black Tech Professionals Still Paid Less Than Their White Colleagues
Job search firm Hired estimates black technology professionals last year were offered an average yearly wage of $10,000 less than white workers, a minor improvement over the 2018 gap of $11,000.
From ACM News
New Zealand Claims World First in Setting Standards for Government Use of Algorithms
New Zealand's Statistics minister says the new charter on algorithms is an 'important part of building public trust."
From ACM TechNews
Study: Twitter Mirrors Our Attitudes, Feelings About Covid-19
University of Rochester researchers mined Twitter messages to gauge public attitudes and feelings about the Covid-19 pandemic.
From ACM TechNews
Researchers' AI System Strips Identifiable Attributes Like Gender From Speech Recordings
Researchers have proposed a technique that can remove attributes like gender from speech data to protect sensitive information.
From ACM TechNews
NIST's Post-Quantum Cryptography Program Enters 'Selection Round'
The U.S. National Institute of Standards and Technology initiated the third round of reviewing algorithms submitted to form the core of the first post-quantum cryptography standard.
From ACM News
Face Masks are Thwarting Even the Best Facial Recognition Algorithms, Study Finds
Researchers from the U.S. National Institute of Scence and Technology found that face masks are causing facial recognition algorithms to fail as much as 50% of the time.
From ACM News
The Impact of AI on Organizations
Implementing artificial intelligence through the looking glass of digital anthropology.
From ACM News
Remote Work is the New Normal, but the Tech Problems Won't Go Away
A new study finds that while many businesses successfully switched to telecommuting overnight, some serious fine-tuning is needed if WFH is to become permanent.
From ACM News
Robot Usage is Soaring During Pandemic
Conditions are ideal for a massive adoption boost to robotic and software automation technologies.
From ACM TechNews
Meet Scout: Amazon Is Taking Its Prime Delivery Robots to the South
Amazon has announced the deployment of its Scout autonomous delivery system to Atlanta, GA, and Franklin, TN, following year-long pilots elsewhere.
From ACM TechNews
Google Promises Privacy with Virus App but Can Still Collect Location Data
Despite Google's promise that its smartphone software does not track user locations, governments were surprised to learn location-setting must be active for the software to work with Android phones.