Communications of the ACM
The news archive provides access to past news stories from Communications of the ACM and other sources by date.
July 2021
From ACM TechNews
Chatbot Can Explain Apps, Show How They Access Hardware or Data
Researchers have developed a chatbot that can help designers and developers create new apps, and explain apps to end-users.
From ACM TechNews
ECB Starts Work on Digital Version of the Euro
The European Central Bank has launched an initiative to produce a digital euro currency.
From ACM TechNews
Chinese Phone Games Now Require Facial Scans to Play at Night
Chinese video game publisher Tencent has added a facial recognition system to more than 60 of its China-specific smartphone games.
From ACM TechNews
Autonomous Drone Swarm Can Localize Gas Leaks
Scientists have engineered a swarm of tiny drones capable of autonomously detecting and localizing gas sources in cramped indoor settings.
From ACM News
Facebook Sees Slight Decline in Female Worker Representation
Company says the gender gap in technical roles is especially challenging.
From ACM News
Google Demonstrates Vital Step towards Large-scale Quantum Computers
Said Peter Knight at Imperial College London, "Without this advance, you will still have uncertainty about whether the roadmap towards fault tolerance was feasible. They removed those doubts."
From ACM News
Concern Trolls and Power Grabs: Inside Big Tech’s Angry, Geeky, Often Petty War for your Privacy
Inside the World Wide Web Consortium, where the world's top engineers battle over the future of your data.
From ACM News
Are We Engaged in a Cyber-war?
Here are the reasons why we're not.
From ACM TechNews
Stanford Researcher's Cryptography Can Preserve Genetic Privacy in Criminal DNA Profiling
Researchers have devised cryptography that permits searching for DNA matches in criminal cases while protecting the suspect's genetic privacy.
From ACM TechNews
At a Summer Camp, Juice Boxes and Bitcoin Mining
The Crypto Kids Camp hosted five days of activities in Los Angeles to familiarize 26 children ages five to 17 with money and cryptocurrency.
From ACM TechNews
Resetting Your IoT Device Before Reselling It Isn't Enough, Researchers Find
A new study suggests Amazon's recommendation that users factory reset their Internet of Things devices to erase personal information before reselling them may not be sufficient.
From ACM News
Cerebras' New Monster AI Chip Adds 1.4 Trillion Transistors
Shift to 7-nanometer process boosts the second-generation chip's transistor count to a mind-boggling 2.6 trillion.
From ACM News
For the First Time, Scientists Detect a Moving Photon Multiple Times Without Destroying It
A boon for all things quantum.
From ACM News
What's Worse Than a Chip Shortage? Buying Fake Ones
Global semiconductor shortage attracts fraudsters, counterfeits; 'Of course, a bunch of them didn't work,' a buyer says
From ACM News
Why You Should Care About Your Right to Repair Gadgets
New legislation could simplify tech maintenance and make buying a new smartphone or computer the last resort.
From ACM News
Inside Facebook's Data Wars
Executives at the social network have clashed over CrowdTangle, a Facebook-owned data tool that revealed users' high engagement levels with right-wing media sources.
From ACM News
Tapping Into the Brain to Help a Paralyzed Man Speak
In a once unimagined accomplishment, electrodes implanted in the man's brain transmit signals to a computer that displays his words.
From ACM News
France Fines Google €500 Million Over Publication Rights
France's Autorité de la Concurrence ordered Google to present a remuneration offer to news publishers and agencies for the use of their copyrighted content.
From ACM TechNews
Singapore Launching $50 Million Program to Advance Research on AI, Cybersecurity
Singapore intends to invest $50 million in research on artificial intelligence and cybersecurity for next-generation communications infrastructures.
From ACM TechNews
Faces Are the Next Target for Fraudsters
Facial recognition systems increasingly are a target for fraudsters.
From ACM TechNews
WHO Releases AI Guidelines for Health
A new report from the World Health Organization offers guidance for the ethical use of artificial intelligence in the health sector.
From ACM TechNews
Paris Welcomes First Pizzeria Operated by Robots
The first fully robotic pizzeria has opened in Paris' Beaubourg neighborhood after eight years of development and refinement.
From ACM TechNews
Tech Workers Are Preparing to Quit. Persuading Them to Stay Won't Be Easy
A survey of 1,000 technology workers and 500 IT decision makers found that only 29% of employees surveyed plan to remain at their current jobs for the next 12 months.
From ACM News
Quantum Computing on a Chip: Brace for the Revolution
The development is being compared to the desktop computing system revolution of the 1960's.
From ACM News
Buzz Off, Bees. Pollination Robots Are Here.
Advances in artificial intelligence are helping some startups develop another way to pollinate plants, which could increase yield compared with insects and human workers.
From ACM TechNews
Short-Staffed Restaurants Prop Up Table Service with Technology
Casual-dining chains increasingly are using technology for contactless ordering and payment, streamlining the ordering process and helping compensate for a shortage of servers.
From ACM TechNews
Columbia's Army Ants Youth Robotics Team Wins International Award for Smart Compression Stocking
Army Ants, a youth robotics team from Columbia, MO, won the 2021 Global Innovation Design Award in the FIRST Robotics Competition for a smart compression stocking.
From ACM TechNews
GitHub Previews AI Tool That Makes Coding Suggestions
GitHub partnered with OpenAI to develop GitHub Copilot, which uses artificial intelligence to make it easier to learn to code.
From ACM News
The New Form of Currency
Central bank digital currencies hold the promise—and peril—of changing money as we know it.
From ACM News
The Fed's Digital Dollar could Bring Millions into the Digital Economy
A Fed-backed digital dollar would in theory function like cash and could usher unbanked or underbanked Americans into the digital economy.