Communications of the ACM
The news archive provides access to past news stories from Communications of the ACM and other sources by date.
August 2010
From ACM TechNews
Secrets of the Gecko Foot Help Robot Climb
Stanford University engineer Mark Cutkosky has led the development of Stickybot, a robot that can climb up smooth surfaces with feet modeled on the design of gecko toes.
From ACM TechNews
Shake to Adjust Your Smartphone's Privacy Settings
Open University's Lukasz Jedrzejczyk led the development of Privacy Shake, an application that enables users with global positioning system-enabled smartphones to adjust their privacy levels for their location services.
From ACM News
Court Allows Agents to Secretly Put GPS Trackers on Cars
Law enforcement officers may secretly place a GPS device on a person's car without seeking a warrant from a judge, according to a recent federal appeals court ruling in California.
From ACM News
Searching For Fun
Research suggests that search engines could tap into users' need to be entertained.
From ACM News
Apple Reinvents the Audio Jack
Although Apple is known for filing patents on complex multi-touch algorithms, anti-piracy measures and advanced user interfaces, it still has a focus on basic hardware engineering. One U.S. patent application filed this week…
From ACM News
Now You Can Earn Virtual Currency By Watching Ads
You know the type—social game addicts who pepper your Facebook page with updates about the wine recipe they created playing "FarmVille," or the gem broker they robbed on "Mafia Wars." To fuel their gaming, those same people…
From ACM News
Nsf Awards San Diego Supercomputer Center $2.8 Million For Trestles System
The U.S. National Science Foundation has awarded the San Diego Supercomputer Center at the University of California, San Diego, $2.8 million to build and deploy a new high performance computer system called Trestles.
From ACM News
Virtual Farm Games Absorb Real Money, Real Lives
Last century's cash crops included tobacco, cotton, and sugar cane. Now we have magic cauliflower and super berries, too—and even though they can't be sold at market, some people still toil from dawn to dusk cultivating them…
From ACM News
China Limits Use of Foreign Computer Security Technology
China has ordered its banks and other major companies to limit use of foreign computer security technology, setting up a possible trade clash with the United States and Europe while adding to strains over high-tech secrecy…
From ACM News
Lenovo to Develop Game Console
Lenovo Group Ltd. is investing in the development of a new videogame console, part of a broader push by the Chinese personal-computer company to branch out into new product categories including tablet-style PCs and smartphones…
From ICT Results
Rational Design Process Produces Enhanced Optoelectronics Materials
European researchers have combined computer modelling of quantum mechanics and precision fabrication processes to create novel transparent conductive oxides made to order for a wide range of scientific and consumer applications…
From ACM News
Telepresence Robot Replaces Editor at Ieee Spectrum
With several companies offering telepresence robots to act as people's proxies at the office, IEEE Spectrum magazine investigated their use earlier this year by having one replace an associate editor for a week.
From ACM News
Google Gives Real-Time Search Its Own Page
Google is digging deeper into real-time search, with a new search page that displays only results from timely sources, like updates from Twitter and other social networks.
From ACM TechNews
The Fast Track From Code to Cloud
Combining emerging technologies such as dynamic language platforms, cloud computing, and agile development practices has led to a new paradigm for software development, according to ISO managing architect Nigel DeFreitas.
From ACM TechNews
Heady Days of Nanotech Funding Behind It, the .s. Faces Big Challenges
Despite the U.S.'s lead in patenting nanotechnology inventions, it has not been able to translate that success into the marketplace, which has enabled other countries to challenge the United States for nanotechnology supremacy…
From ACM TechNews
A Search Service that Can Peer Into the Future
Yahoo!'s Barcelona research lab has developed Time Explorer, a prototype news search engine that generates timelines that stretch into the future as well as the past.
From ACM News
Luring Shoppers to Stores
Marketers try interactive mirrors, discounts via scanners.
From ACM News
Wikipedia Age Challenges Scholars
For professors, publishing in elite journals is an unavoidable part of university life. The grueling process of subjecting work to the up-or-down judgment of credentialed scholarly peers has been a cornerstone of academic…
From ACM News
Software Helps Scientists Conduct Hurricane Research
Scientists studying how and why Atlantic hurricanes form will have a better chance of getting the data they need thanks to flight planning software developed at The University of Alabama in Huntsville.
From ACM News
Sizing Samples
Many scientific disciplines use computers to infer patterns in data. But how much data is enough to ensure that the inferences are right?
From ACM News
U.S. Cyber Defense Needs to Focus on Superior Technology, Official Says
With India and China poised to over take the United States in the training of proficient computer scientists, a top U.S. Defense official has said that America must confront the cyber defense challenge with a focus on superior…
From ACM News
Insiders Doubt 2008 Pentagon Hack Was Foreign Spy Attack
In the fall of 2008, a variant of a three year-old, relatively benign worm began winding its way through the U.S. military's networks, spread by troops using thumb drives and other removable storage media. Now, the Pentagon…
From ACM News
U.s. Funds Improve Broadband Connectivity to Foster Scientific Collaboration
The U.S. National Science Foundation has awarded $20 million to universities in 17 states to improve inter- and intra-campus cyber connectivity.
From ACM News
A Search Service that Can Peer into the Future
Showing news stories on a timeline has been tried before. But Time Explorer, a prototype news search engine created in Yahoo's Barcelona research lab, generates timelines that stretch into the future as well as the past.
From ACM News
Supercomputers Supermodel Supermassive Black Holes
What happens when two black holes smash into each another? They form an even larger black hole while driving jets of relativistic matter into the far reaches of the cosmos. New complex computer simulations have attempted to…
From ACM News
Digital Devices Deprive Brain of Needed Downtime
It’s 1 p.m. on a Thursday and Dianne Bates, 40, juggles three screens. She listens to a few songs on her iPod, then taps out a quick e-mail on her iPhone and turns her attention to the high-definition television.
From ACM TechNews
Virtual Router Smashes Speed Records
Researchers at the Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology have developed a networking router that transmits data at nearly 40 gigabytes per second, significantly faster than the previous record for such devices.
From ACM TechNews
'spintronics' Breakthrough Holds Promise For Next-Generation Computers
University of Kansas (KU) researchers have discovered a way to recognize currents of spinning electrons, or spintronics, within a semiconductor using powerful lasers, which could lead to the development of advanced computers…
From ACM TechNews
.K. Researchers Tap Semantic Web for Business Intelligence Innovation
SAP is leading a European research project that will combine semantic technologies with business intelligence in a system to help business users make better sense of their data.
From ACM TechNews
Researchers Work to Protect, Restore Vulnerable Networks
The University of Arizona is collaborating with researchers at Columbia University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology on a project which is developing ways to prevent a telecommunications meltdown in the event of an…