Communications of the ACM
The news archive provides access to past news stories from Communications of the ACM and other sources by date.
August 2014
From ACM News
Alternatives For the Mouse-Averse
Controlling computers with gestures offers greater potential than a mouse ever could.
From ACM News
Robotic Brain 'learns' Skills from the Internet
Robo Brain is designed to acquire a vast range of skills and knowledge from publicly available information sources such as YouTube.
From ACM News
Robotics: How Machines See the World
Can you tell the difference between a human and a soda can?
From ACM TechNews
Eight in 10 Enterprises Turn to Citizen Developers For Innovation
A recent survey found that 80% of enterprises are forming partnerships with groups such as citizen developers to close to the skills gap for application development.
From ACM TechNews
R Programming Language Gains on Traditional Statistics Packages
A recent survey gauging the popularity of statistical software programs found the R programming language is rapidly gaining on traditional statistics packages.
From ACM TechNews
Johann Receives National Science Foundation Grant For Computer Science Research
The U.S. National Science Foundation has awarded a grant to computer science professor Patricia Johann to support her research in relational parametricity.
From ACM News
The Cookies You Can't Crumble
If you've used the Internet for longer than the iPhone has been around, you're probably familiar with cookies, those little packets of personal data that help load websites you frequent and tell the websites' owners who you are…
From ACM News
Galileo: What Does a More Accurate Sat-Nav System Mean?
With the planned launch of two satellites aboard a Soyuz rocket from French Guiana later this month, Europe is pushing ahead with its own satellite-navigation system, known as Galileo.
From ACM News
Nasa Pluto-Bound Spacecraft Crosses Neptune's Orbit
NASA's Pluto-bound New Horizons spacecraft has traversed the orbit of Neptune. This is its last major crossing en route to becoming the first probe to make a close encounter with distant Pluto on July 14, 2015.
From ACM News
Rosetta: Landing Site Search Narrows
Using detailed information collected by ESA's Rosetta spacecraft during its first two weeks at Comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko, five locations have been identified as candidate sites to set down the Philae lander in November—the…
From ACM TechNews
Meet the 'swarmies'--Robotics Answer to Bugs
Researchers are developing software that instructs small, wheeled robots to work together in searching an area for a particular material.
From ACM TechNews
Intelligent Navigation System to Personalize Shopping Trips
Researchers are developing an indoor navigation system to help improve people's experiences at supermarkets, hospitals, and parks.
From ACM TechNews
For Sale: Systems That Can Secretly Track Where Cellphone sers Go Around the Globe
Privately owned surveillance companies are offering systems capable of tracking the location of any cellphone user to governments around the globe.
From ACM TechNews
For Google's Self-Driving Cars, It's a Bumpy Trip
The future of Google's pursuit of fully autonomous vehicles is being put into question by new California rules that forbid such vehicles from driving on public roads.
From ACM News
Next For Virtual Reality: Video, Without the Games
Nearly all the hype around virtual reality—much of it fanned by Facebook’s $2 billion acquisition of Oculus VR, the headset maker—is about how the technology can be used for games.
From ACM TechNews
Research Paves Way for Cyborg Moth 'Biobots'
Methods being developed to electronically manipulate the flight muscles of moths could lead to remote-controlled "biobots" for emergency search and rescue operations.
From ACM TechNews
Hacking Traffic Lights With a Laptop Is Easy
Security researchers with permission from local road authorities hacked into nearly 100 wirelessly networked traffic lights and were able to change the lights on command.
From ACM News
China Targets Own Operating System to Take on Likes of Microsoft, Google
China could have a new homegrown operating system by October to take on imported rivals such as Microsoft Corp, Google Inc and Apple Inc, Xinhua news agency said on Sunday.
From ACM TechNews
Why the Future of Education Is Open
edX CEO Anant Agarwal says the online education platform is using open source and big data to help educate millions of people.
From ACM News
Queen Pardons Gay Codebreaker Alan Turing
Britain’s Queen Elizabeth II this week granted a Royal pardon for internationally acclaimed British codebreaker and computer scientist Alan Turing, who took his own life in 1954 after being convicted two years earlier of having…
From ACM News
A Chinese Internet Giant Starts to Dream
Punk bands from Blondie to the Ramones once played in Broadway Studios, an age-worn 95-year-old neoclassical building surrounded by strip clubs in San Francisco’s North Beach.
From ACM TechNews
New Era in Safety When Cars Talk to One Another
The U.S. Department of Transportation this week announced a plan to eventually require that vehicle-to-vehicle (V2V) communications systems be installed in all U.S. cars and trucks.
From ACM TechNews
Rethinking Cad: New Design Paradigms in the Age of 3-D Printing
The future of computer-aided design tools, in light of recent developments in 3-D printing and additive manufacturing, was the focus of a recent workshop by DARPA's Information Science and Technology group.
From ACM News
Voyager Map Details Neptune's Strange Moon Triton
NASA's Voyager 2 spacecraft gave humanity its first close-up look at Neptune and its moon Triton in the summer of 1989.
From ACM TechNews
Tool Makes Online Personal Data More Transparent
Columbia University researchers have developed XRay, a tool that seeks to reveal what personal data is being mined to craft online advertisements, product recommendations, and special pricing offers.
From ACM TechNews
Antivirus Works Too Well, Gripe Cybercops
Internal documents leaked by activists earlier this month show police clients from several nations complaining to FinFisher GmbH, a seller of spyware to government clients, that the company's products were being thwarted by antivirus…
From ACM TechNews
Virtual Reality Navigation System to Help Diagnose Cognitive Defects
The onset of dementia can lead to an inability to navigate a neighborhood or building, and a new virtual reality-based tool is being developed at the University of California, San Diego to address the problem.
From ACM News
Is Emailing Your Brainwaves the Future of Communication?
Here's something you probably didn't expect in your inbox: Researchers have now developed a way to email brainwaves.
From ACM Opinion
Tor Project's Struggle to Keep the Dark Net in the Shadows
The BBC has interviewed Andrew Lewman, executive director of the Tor Project.
From ACM Opinion
Anatomy of an Air Strike: Three Intelligence Streams Working in Concert
In a fast-moving war with an elusive foe like the Islamic State militants, information is as important as guns, jet fighters and bombs.