Communications of the ACM
The news archive provides access to past news stories from Communications of the ACM and other sources by date.
August 2015
From ACM News
Cassini's Final Breathtaking Close Views of Dione
A pockmarked, icy landscape looms beneath NASA's Cassini spacecraft in new images of Saturn's moon Dione taken during the mission's last close approach to the small, icy world.
From ACM News
Nsa Preps Quantum-Resistant Algorithms to Head Off Crypto-Apocalypse
The National Security Agency is advising U.S. agencies and businesses to prepare for a time in the not-too-distant future when the cryptography protecting virtually all e-mail, medical and financial records, and online transactions…
From ACM TechNews
Standardized Tests May Be Holding Back the Next Generation of Computer Programmers
Educating students to pass standardized tests, which command most school administrators' time, leaves little room for computer science classes to train the next generation of coders, according to a Google/Gallup study published…
From ACM TechNews
How Social Bias Creeps Into Web Technology
Predictive and decision-making Web technologies are susceptible to the unconscious social biases of their designers and programmers, to a degree that can reflect those prejudices in their functions.
From ACM TechNews
Quantum Computer Firm D-Wave Claims Massive Performance Boost
D-Wave Systems, which makes computers with some quantum properties, claims its latest device, the D-Wave 2X, is up to 15 times faster than regular PCs. As with many of D-Wave's claims, many experts are skeptical.
From ACM News
Diy Tractor Repair Runs Afoul of Copyright Law
The iconic image of the American farmer is the man or woman who works the land, milks cows and is self-reliant enough to fix the tractor. But like a lot of mechanical items, tractors are increasingly run by computer software.
From ACM News
Small Rocks Build Big Planets
The biggest planets in the Solar System may have gotten their start from the smallest of rocks: centimetre-sized pebbles that formed 4.5 billion years ago from dust and ice swirling around the newborn Sun.
From ACM News
How Apple's Force Touch Could Change the Way You se Your Next Iphone or Ipad
Pressure-sensitive screens, haptic feedback: Why should you care?
From ACM TechNews
Fbi Wants Better Automated Image Analysis For Tattoos
The U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation collaborated with the U.S. National Institute of Standards and Technology to find a better way to search for matching tatoos.
From ACM TechNews
Going Solid-State Could Make Batteries Safer and Longer-Lasting
Researchers say they have developed a solution to the problem of lithium-ion batteries overheating and burning that also would extend battery life.
From ACM TechNews
Setting Ground Rules For Nanotechnology Research
U.S. researchers led by Duke University faculty have produced two new studies to lay the groundwork for the emerging discipline of nanoinformatics.
From ACM TechNews
Robotics Research at mass Lowell That Could Change the World--Really
University of Massachusetts Lowell researcher Holly Yanco will collaborate on several projects designed to help save lives and help people with mobility issues.
From ACM News
Nasa: California Drought Causing Valley Land to Sink
As Californians continue pumping groundwater in response to the historic drought, the California Department of Water Resources today released a new NASA report showing land in the San Joaquin Valley is sinking faster than ever…
From ACM News
Google Reveals How It Scales Its Network
Google Inc., Tuesday, outlined its decade-long journey with software-defined networking in a new paper that it presented at the ACM SIGCOMM 2015 conference in London.
From ACM News
A Surprise Source of Life's Code
Genes, like people, have families—lineages that stretch back through time, all the way to a founding member.
From ACM News
Something Deep Inside Pluto Is Replenishing Its Atmosphere
Pluto has a problem: Its thin, nitrogen atmosphere shouldn't be there.
From ACM TechNews
Quantum Computing Advance Locates Neutral Atoms
Pennsylvania State University researchers have developed a method for addressing individual neutral atoms without changing surrounding atoms.
From ACM TechNews
Computer Scientists Find Mass Extinctions Can Accelerate Evolution
Robots evolve more quickly and efficiently after a virtual mass extinction modeled after real-life disasters such as the one that killed off the dinosaurs.
From ACM TechNews
Ibm's 'rodent Brain' Chip Could Make Our Phones Hyper-Smart
IBM researchers say they have built the digital equivalent of a rodent brain using 48 TrueNorth chips, an experimental processor designed to emulate neurons.
From ACM TechNews
Researchers Tinker With Flying, Rolling Rfid-Sensorized Robots
A team of researchers have developed a prototype robot-based environmental-measuring system from commercially available components.
From ACM TechNews
Could Hackers Take Down a City?
Researchers warn of the possibility of cyberattackers crippling a city because of urban centers' increasing reliance on technology.
From ACM News
To Inspire Software and Hardware Developers, Intel Gets Bold and Very Weird
It was about 10 seconds into the robotic spider dance that you had to remind yourself you were watching a presentation by the world's largest chipmaker, Intel.
From ACM News
Superconductivity Record Sparks Wave of Follow-p Physics
Hydrogen sulfide—the compound responsible for the smell of rotten eggs—conducts electricity with zero resistance at a record high temperature of 203 kelvin (–70 °C), reports a paper published in Nature.
From ACM TechNews
New Optical Chip Lights p the Race For Quantum Computer
Researchers say they have developed a multipurpose, reprogrammable optical chip that can carry out in hours experiments that previously would have taken months.
From ACM News
Natural Selection: Mama Robot Builds Self-Evolving Baby-Bots
The theory of natural selection popularised by Charles Darwin has now been demonstrated in robots.
From ACM News
Atlas, a Humanoid Robot, Takes a Walk in the Woods
Scientists trying to build a better robot are encouraged by the latest steps, however tentative, of a humanoid named Atlas.
From ACM TechNews
AI Football Manager Knows How Different Teams Play the Game
A team of researchers has used a detailed computer analysis of the 2013-2014 Spanish football league to better understand various teams' different patterns of play.
From ACM TechNews
sing Online Health Forums to Serve nderserved Communities
A team from the University of California, Riverside, has found that men and women use social media and online health forums for different purposes.
From ACM News
Will Barbie Pass the Turing Test?
Startups are beginning to empower toys with child-friendly speech recognition technology.
From ACM News
AI Football Manager Knows How Different Teams Play the Game
Who really calls the shots in team sports?