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 News
Predicting Cyberattacks
A growing number of researchers are focusing on being more proactive in predicting and preventing cyberattacks, rather than reactively fixing problems later.
From ACM News
U.K. Government Test-and-Trace Program Illegal under GDPR
The government skipped essential data privacy impact assessments in its rush to get the system up and running.
From ACM TechNews
Siri, Alexa Targeted as E.U. Probes Internet of Things
The European Commission is mounting an antitrust investigation into the Internet of Things, targeting voice assistants such as Apple's Siri and Amazon's Alexa.
From ACM TechNews
Utah, Georgia Install Tech That Lets Roads Talk
Utah and Georgia are testing vehicle-to-everything technology installed in roads to alert drivers to hazards.
From ACM TechNews
Deepfake Used to Attack Activist Couple Shows New Disinformation Frontier
A student at the U.K.'s University of Birmingham has been unmasked as fictional by state-of-the-art forensic analysis programs from Israel-based startup Cyabra.
From ACM TechNews
Researchers 3D-Print Working Heart Pump with Real Human Cells
Researchers have three-dimensionally (3D) printed a functioning human heart pump in a laboratory.
From ACM TechNews
Machine Learning Helps Robot Swarms Coordinate
A new machine learning technique can govern the coordinated movement of flying robot swarms in order to avoid collisions.
From ACM TechNews
Google Announces 100,000 Scholarships for Online Certificates in Data Analytics, Project Management, UX
Google has launched new online certificate programs in data analytics, project management, and user experience design, through the online learning platform Coursera.
From ACM News
Giving Robots Human-Like Perception of Their Physical Environments
Kimera builds a dense three-dimensional semantic mesh of an environment and can track humans in the environment.
From ACM TechNews
Japanese Robot to Clock In at Convenience Store
In August, a robot made by Japanese developer Telexistence will prepare food at a FamilyMart convenience store.
From ACM TechNews
Google, Amazon, J&J Join WHO to Fight Covid-Era Smoking
Google, Amazon, and Johnson & Johnson have joined the World Health Organization effort to combat the global Covid-19 pandemic's threat to smokers, partly with artificial intelligence.
From ACM TechNews
A Hacker Used Twitter's Own 'Admin' Tool to Spread Cryptocurrency Scam
A hacker this week accessed an "admin" tool on Twitter to commandeer prominent Twitter accounts to spread a cryptocurrency scam, according to a person with direct knowledge of the incident.
From ACM TechNews
This Device Keeps Voice Assistants From Snooping on You
An international team of researchers has developed a Raspberry Pi-based device that eventually may be able to warn users when Amazon's Alexa and other voice assistants are snooping.
From ACM News
A Life-Saving Jog to the Memory
An artificial intelligence-based sensor system can prevent children from being forgotten in locked cars.
From ACM News
How 'Sustainable' Web Design Can Help Fight Climate Change
To cut the carbon, programmers are cutting the code. Call it green programming.
From ACM News
A Brazen Online Attack Targets V.I.P. Twitter Users in a Bitcoin Scam
In a major show of force, hackers breached some of the site's most prominent accounts, a Who's Who of Americans in politics, entertainment and tech.
From ACM News
Coping with Burnout in IT
Supporting staffers working from home adds another layer to the stress many IT professionals already were feeling.
From ACM TechNews
Emoji Reveal Whiteness as Driver of Technology
A study from the University of Alabama that investigated the inclusion of skin-tone modifiers in emoji sets demonstrated that whiteness remains the core of emoji design and coding structures.
From ACM TechNews
Bill Gates-Backed Company to Hunt for Cobalt Near Glencore Mine
Kobold Metals, a startup backed by Bill Gates, Jeff Bezos, and others, aims to search for cobalt near a nickel mine in northern Quebec using data analytics.
From ACM TechNews
Supercomputer Finds Existing Osteoporosis Drug with Potential for Treating Covid-19
A European Union-supported supercomputing platform has identified a generic osteoporosis drug's potential effectiveness against Covid-19.
From ACM TechNews
Tech to Contain Coronavirus on College Campuses Sparks Fresh Privacy Concerns
U.S. colleges are racing to contain the Covid-19 pandemic with technology including contact-tracing applications and facial recognition, prompting concerns about privacy infringement.
From ACM TechNews
Tech Sector Job Interviews Assess Anxiety, Not Skills
Researchers have found that technical interviews for many software engineering positions do not focus on whether the candidate is competent at coding, but whether they suffer from performance anxiety.
From ACM TechNews
Power of DNA to Store Information Gets an Upgrade
A team of interdisciplinary researchers used intertwined DNA strands to store an Esperanto translation of "The Wizard of Oz" with unprecedented accuracy.
From ACM TechNews
Parasite Infestations Revealed by Tiny Chicken Backpacks
A team of entomologists, computer scientists, and biologists has designed a wearable insect detection system that spots livestock mite infestations in poultry.
From ACM TechNews
AI Seeks ET: Machine Learning Powers Hunt for Life in the Solar System
The U.S. National Aeronautics and Space Administration is testing a pilot artificial intelligence system for use on a future Mars mission.
From ACM TechNews
Scaling Up the Quantum Chip
Massachusetts Institute of Technology engineers have developed a process for manufacturing and integrating artificial atoms with photonic circuitry.
From ACM TechNews
No Masks, No Coughs: Robots Can Be Just What the Doctor Ordered in Time of Social Distancing
In Japan, a country with a long fascination with robots, automated assistants have become bartenders, security guards, deliverymen, and more, since the onset of the coronavirus pandemic.
From ACM News
UNESCO Launches Worldwide Online Public Consultation on the Ethics of Artificial Intelligence
UNESCO is inviting interested stakeholders to comment on the draft text before July 31.
From ACM News
AI Xenobots
Robots wrought from living cells.
From ACM News
Changing Course, U.S. Allows Visas for Online Students
The Trump administration said it would no longer require foreign students to attend in-person classes during the coronavirus pandemic in order to remain in the United States.