Communications of the ACM
The news archive provides access to past news stories from Communications of the ACM and other sources by date.
August 2013
From ACM News
Gene Golovchinsky, 1965 2013
Gene Golovchinsky, senior research scientist at FX Palo Alto Laboratory, passed away last week at the age of 48.
From ACM Careers
How Big Data Could Help Identify the Next Felon—or Blame the Wrong Guy
Think of it as big data meets "Minority Report."
From ACM News
Among the Nsa's Own Tips For Securing Computers: Remove the Webcam
Seems like everything gets hacked these days. Baby monitors. White House employees' personal email. Toilets.
From ACM TechNews
Foursquare Check-Ins Tell Stores Where to Set Up Shop
A recent study on the use of social media was designed to help retailers find the best locations for new stores.
From ACM TechNews
Advancing Resistive Memory to Improve Portable Electronics
A new technology could lead to the next generation of memory storage devices for portable electronics such as smartphones, laptops, tablets, and digital cameras.
From ACM TechNews
Dragonflies Can See By Switching 'on' and 'off'
The vision systems for robots could benefit from research into the visual circuit in the brain of dragonflies.
From ACM TechNews
Why We’re a Long Way From Computers That Really Work Like the Human Brain
Significant work remains to be done before computers designed to simulate the human brain achieves that goal.
From ACM TechNews
Research Shows Precisely Which Strategies Help Players Win Team-Oriented Video Games
A new technique can determine which strategies give players an advantage at multi-player, real-time strategy games.
From ACM TechNews
Disney Researchers se Automated Analysis to Find Weakness in Soccer Coaching Strategy
Researchers applying artificial intelligence to the analysis of professional soccer have discovered a strategic error often made by coaches of visiting teams.
From ACM TechNews
Crowdsourcing Weather Using Smartphone Batteries
A team of app developers and weather experts have created a system that crowdsources hundreds of thousands of smartphone temperature readings.
From ACM News
Here's What You Find When You Scan the Entire Internet in an Hour
Until recently, scanning the entire Internet, with its billions of unique addresses, was a slow and labor-intensive process.
From ACM TechNews
Programming Competition Allows Students to 'Geek Out' and Gain Crucial Skillsets
The Second Annual Extreme Science and Engineering Discovery Environment conference hosted the XSEDE13 Student Programming Competition, a contest in which student participants arranged in 10 teams tackled computational challenges…
From ACM News
Nasa Rover Gets Movie as a Mars Moon Passes Another
The larger of the two moons of Mars, Phobos, passes directly in front of the other, Deimos, in a new series of sky-watching images from NASA's Mars rover Curiosity.
From ACM News
Why Can’t My Computer Understand Me?
In a terrific paper just presented at the premier international conference on artificial intelligence, Hector Levesque, a University of Toronto computer scientist, has taken just about everyone in the field of Artificial Intelligence…
From ACM News
It’s Time to Reform the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act
A bill working its way through Congress is an opportunity to update an unfair, outmoded cybersecurity law
From ACM Careers
An Inventor Wants One Less Wire to Worry About
Sometimes, there is an actual eureka moment.
From ACM News
A New 'dawn' in Exchanges' War on Hackers
When prices on some U.S. stocks suddenly zoomed one day last month and others unexpectedly plunged, stock-market officials set out to detect a possible computer glitch or a trading algorithm run amok.
From ACM TechNews
Google Is Preparing For Screenless Computers
Google aims to fulfill its vision of a future in which people's primary interaction with computers is vocal by enabling voice commands in all of its products, and making such engagement as simple and intuitive as current keyboard…
From ACM News
Medical Hacking Poses a Terrifying Threat, in Theory
In the world of hypothetical cybercrime, not much is scarier than the hacked medical device.
From ACM TechNews
Nasa Details Software Algorithm That Could Precisely Guide Future Spacecraft Landings
Researchers at the NASA are developing algorithms designed to land spacecraft safely. One of the key algorithms under development is designed to incorporate a spaceship's trajectory, speed, and landing information to guide a…
From ACM News
Nasa Voyager Statement About Competing Models to Explain Recent Spacecraft Data
A newly published paper argues that NASA's Voyager 1 spacecraft has already entered interstellar space.
From ACM TechNews
Researchers Develop Acoustic-Based Data Transfer System For Phones
Microsoft researchers have a system that offers near-field communications-like capabilities without requiring dedicated wireless hardware. The system uses sound to securely exchange data at speeds of up to 2.4 kilobits/second…
From ACM TechNews
Nsa Broke Privacy Rules Thousands of Times Per Year, Audit Finds
The U.S. National Security Agency has violated privacy rules or overreached its authority thousands of times annually since 2008, primarily through unauthorized surveillance of targets in the U.S., according to an internal audit…
From ACM TechNews
Researchers Building a Computer Chip Based on the Human Brain
Boise State University researchers are developing a chip with a computing architecture resembling the human brain.
From ACM Careers
.s. Brain Project Puts Focus on Ethics
The false mouse memories made the ethicists uneasy. By stimulating certain neurons in the hippocampus, Susumu Tonegawa and his colleagues caused mice to recall receiving foot shocks in a setting in which none had occurred.
From ACM TechNews
Researchers se Augmented Reality to Coach Train Drivers
Central University of Queensland researchers are improving train driving simulations with augmented reality in order to facilitate drivers' skills development. The system give drivers real-life scenarios and shows them the consequences…
From ACM TechNews
Military Education Falls Short on Cybersecurity Training
Most of the six U.S. military graduate programs have not fully integrated cybersecurity education into their curricula or aligned their programs with the strategic goals of the U.S.'s cyberdefense strategy, according to a recent…
From ACM TechNews
U.s. to Standardize Car App/communication Device Components
The U.S. Department of Transportation recently issued a call for public and private researchers to develop "a hypothetical four-layer approach to connected vehicle devices and applications certification."
From ACM TechNews
Scientists Find Asymmetry in Topological Insulators
Researchers at the U.S. Department of Energy's National Renewable Energy Laboratory have found that a class of materials being targeted for the next generation of computers behaves asymmetrically at the sub-atomic level.
From ACM Careers
Weather Channel Now Also Forecasts What You'll Buy
The Weather Channel knows the chance for rain in St. Louis on Friday, what the heat index could reach in Santa Fe on Saturday, and how humid Baltimore may get on Sunday.