Communications of the ACM
The news archive provides access to past news stories from Communications of the ACM and other sources by date.
August 2012
From ACM News
The Secretive Life of Apple
The Apple-Samsung trial revealed some secrets about Apple's inner workings such as — despite founder Steve Jobs' public statements — the Cupertino company conducts market research.
From ACM News
A Hardware Renaissance in Silicon Valley
In recent years, Silicon Valley seems to have forgotten about silicon. It’s been about dot-coms, Web advertising, social networking, and apps for smartphones.
From ACM News
Massive Cyberattack: Act 1 of Israeli Strike on Iran?
Talk in Israel of a military strike on Iranian nuclear facilities has reached a fever pitch.
From ACM News
The Rise of Cross-Platform Malware
For most of the recorded history of malware, viruses, Trojans, and other malicious software have been specialists.
From ACM TechNews
Origami Inspires Research Into Materials That Self-Assemble When Exposed to Light
The U.S. National Science Foundation is funding research into creating 2D materials capable of folding themselves into 3D objects when exposed to light.
From ACM TechNews
Report Reveals Positive Trend for Corporate R&D Investment
Investments in research and development (R&D) among European Union (EU) businesses are likely to rise at an average of 4 percent between 2012 and 2014, according to a survey by the European Commission.
From ACM TechNews
Apple Case Muddies the Future of Innovations
Many industry experts have expressed concerns about the future of innovation after a jury ruled that Samsung's smartphone and tablet products violated a series of Apple patents protecting several designs and functions.
From ACM TechNews
Getting Serious About Global Gaming
University of Alberta researchers have developed a network designed to bring together academia and the gaming industry.
From ACM News
Nasa Rover Returns Voice and Telephoto Views from Mars
NASA's Mars Curiosity has debuted the first recorded human voice that traveled from Earth to another planet and back.
From ACM Opinion
Apple-Samsung Jury Foreman Recalls 'aha! Moment'
According to Velvin Hogan, the 67-year-old foreman of the jury in the U.S. trial between the Apple and Samsung, one of the turning points in group's journey to a verdict came after some deep thinking at home.
From ACM News
DARPA Has Seen the Future of Computing … And It's Analog
By definition, a computer is a machine that processes and stores data as ones and zeroes. But the U.S. Department of Defense wants to tear up that definition and start from scratch.
From ACM News
Inside Intellectual Ventures, the Most Hated Company in Tech
To many in the high-tech business, a troll plots his schemes in a white office building on a hill in this leafy suburb of Seattle.
From ACM TechNews
At the Intersection of Big Data and Healthcare: What 7.2 Million Medical Records Can Tell Us
Big data analytics have enabled researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology's SENSEable City Lab and colleagues at GE Healthymagination to create a powerful visual of the relationships between medical conditions…
From ACM TechNews
Making Crowdsourcing Easier
MIT researchers have developed Qurk, a database system that automatically crowdsources tasks that are difficult or impossible to perform computationally.
From ACM TechNews
Watson Turns Medic: Supercomputer to Diagnose Disease
IBM's supercomputer Watson is learning to use its language skills to help doctors diagnose patients.
From ACM TechNews
Home Wi-Fi Routers Could Operate as Emergency Network, Say Scientists
Home Wi-Fi routers could be used as a backup mesh network by fire, police, and ambulance services during emergencies in cities and towns with overwhelmed cell and phone systems, according to German researchers.
From ACM TechNews
Internet Architecture Is at Odds With Its Use
The network architecture of the Internet has not evolved to better match the way people use the Internet, according to Jarno Rajahalme at Aalto University's Department of Computer Science and Engineering.
From ACM News
Stanford Biologist and Computer Scientist Discover the 'anternet'
On the surface, ants and the Internet don't seem to have much in common. But two Stanford researchers have discovered that a species of harvester ants determine how many foragers to send out of the nest in much the same way that…
From ACM News
Apple's Samsung Win Slams Asian Phone Makers
Samsung wasn't the only Asian smartphone maker to suffer through a Black Monday.
From ACM News
An Empire Strikes Back: Intel Muscles Into the Mobile Market
Some of the biggest bets in the computing industry were made on the fifth floor of Intel's Robert Noyce Building, on the northeast corner of the chip giant's main campus in Santa Clara, California.
From ACM News
Hubble's Hidden Treasures Revealed
Hubble has made over a million observations since launch, but only a small proportion are attractive images—and an even smaller number are ever actually seen by anyone outside the small groups of scientists that publish them.
From ACM TechNews
One Laptop Per Child Project Developing New Laptop Tablet Device
The One Laptop Per Child project is developing a version of its XO device that will combine its existing laptop functionality with a full-fledged tablet mode.
From ACM TechNews
Researchers Create 'frankenstein' Malware Made Up of Common Gadgets
University of Texas researchers Vishwath Mohan and Kevin Hamlen have created a computer virus from common gadgets that can evade conventional antivirus programs.
From ACM TechNews
Robot Learns to Recognise Itself in the Mirror
Yale University researchers have developed Nico, a humanoid robot that can recognize its reflection in a mirror and identify its arms' location and orientation down to an accuracy of 2 centimeters in any dimension.
From ACM TechNews
National Campaign Launched to Recruit Fellows to Understand How Software Can Help Research
The United Kingdom's Software Sustainability Institute recently started recruiting researchers to take part in its new Fellows program to develop a better understanding of the way that software is used in research.
From ACM TechNews
In Google’s Inner Circle, a Falling Number of Women
In an effort to address the declining number of female employees within the company, Google researchers developed algorithms to determine exactly when the company lost women and how to keep them.
From ACM News
'super Pac App' Knows When Political Ads Stretch the Truth
What if every political ad came with a "truthiness" disclaimer?
From ACM News
Siemens 'flaw' Claim Sparks U.s. Power Plant Security Probe
A security expert said that he had found a backdoor in hardware from a Siemens subsidiary, RuggedCom.
From ACM News
In Japan, Mobile Startups Take Gaming To Next Level
On the subway, in doctor's waiting rooms and during college lectures, millions of Japanese can be found glued to their smartphones. But they're not texting or making phone calls—they're playing video games.
From ACM TechNews
Digitizing the Past to Protect and Preserve History
Archeologists now take thousands of digital photos, make notes in a database on a laptop or a tablet, and record careful, geographically referenced information that only a computer can decipher.