Communications of the ACM
The news archive provides access to past news stories from Communications of the ACM and other sources by date.
August 2016
From ACM News
Nasa's Juno to Soar Closest to Jupiter This Saturday
This Saturday at 5:51 a.m. PDT, (8:51 a.m. EDT, 12:51 UTC) NASA's Juno spacecraft will get closer to the cloud tops of Jupiter than at any other time during its prime mission.
From ACM Careers
Majority of Mathematicians Hail from Just 24 Scientific 'families'
Most of the world's mathematicians fall into just 24 scientific 'families', one of which dates back to the fifteenth century.
From ACM News
Apple Issues Global Ios pdate After Attempt to se Spyware on Activist's Iphone
A botched attempt to break into the iPhone of an Arab activist using hitherto unknown espionage software has triggered a global upgrade of Apple's mobile operating system, security researchers said on Thursday.
From ACM TechNews
sing Data to Better nderstand Climate Change
A University of Minnesota-led research team is using data-driven approaches to better understand the environmental and social impacts of climate change.
From ACM TechNews
How Cooperative Behavior Could Make Artificial Intelligence More Human
Computer science can play an important role in determining the conditions that give rise to the form of cooperation known as indirect reciprocity, or donation to others.
From ACM TechNews
Chaos Could Provide the Key to Enhanced Wireless Communications
Researchers have shown that adding chaos to wireless communication can augment its reliability, efficiency, and security.
From ACM TechNews
Self-Driving Cars Reach a Fork in the Road, and Automakers Take Different Routes
Automakers are taking divergent approaches to the development and deployment of driverless vehicles.
From ACM TechNews
Computers Can Sense Sarcasm? Yeah, Right
Researchers at the University of Turin and Yahoo! have developed software that can identify the expression of sarcasm on social media and the Web.
From ACM News
Mind Aglow: Scientists Watch Thoughts Form in the Brain
When a single neuron fires, it is an isolated chemical blip. When many fire together, they form a thought.
From ACM News
Auto, Technology Industries Clash Over Talking Cars
Cars that wirelessly talk to each other are finally ready for the road, creating the potential to dramatically reduce traffic deaths, improve the safety of self-driving cars and someday maybe even help solve traffic jams, automakers…
From ACM News
Linux Took Over the Web. Now, It’s Taking Over the World
The roots of Linux stretch all the way back to the creation of Unix at AT&T’s Bell Labs in 1969.
From ACM News
35 Years On, Voyager's Legacy Continues at Saturn
Saturn, with its alluring rings and numerous moons, has long fascinated stargazers and scientists.
From ACM News
This Little-Known Pioneering Educator Put Coding in the Classroom
Papert argued that learning was most successful when students were engaged in creative acts – when they were making things.
From ACM News
All the Ways Your Wi-Fi Router Can Spy on You
City dwellers spend nearly every moment of every day awash in Wi-Fi signals.
From ACM TechNews
sing Light to Control Genome Editing
Researchers have added a new technique to the CRISPR genome-editing system that lets scientists control when and where gene editing occurs by using ultraviolet light.
From ACM TechNews
Streamlining Accelerated Computing For Industry
Researchers have developed open source software that will enable computational fluid dynamics applications to make good use of supercomputers.
From ACM TechNews
A Point of Light
Boston University professor Vivek Goyal says he has overcome the challenges of photographing clear images in low light.
From ACM TechNews
World's Biggest Telescope Meets World's Second-Fastest Supercomputer
A component of the software system that will manage data from the Square Kilometer Array telescope has run on Tianhe-2, the world's second-fastest supercomputer.
From ACM News
Beyond Terminator: Squishy 'octobot' Heralds New Era of Soft Robotics
A squishy octopus-shaped machine less than 2 centimetres tall is making waves in the field of soft robotics.
From ACM News
After 25 Years, a New Web
Tim Berners-Lee and others want a more reliable Web that ensures integrity and privacy.
From ACM News
The Ibrain Is Here
From ACM News
Test For Damp Ground at Mars' Seasonal Streaks Finds None
Seasonal dark streaks on Mars that have become one of the hottest topics in interplanetary research don't hold much water, according to the latest findings from a NASA spacecraft orbiting Mars.
From ACM News
Microsoft Sheds Some Light on Its Mysterious Holographic Processing nit
Since it was first unveiled, we've learned bits and pieces about the hardware inside Microsoft's HoloLens augmented reality headset.
From ACM News
Smartphone Speech Recognition Can Write Text Messages Three Times Faster Than Human Typing
Smartphone speech recognition software gets a bad rap. Most users find the nascent technology to be frustratingly slow, and there are entire blogs dedicated to documenting examples of its biggest—and sometimes hilarious—mistakes…
From ACM TechNews
Researchers Create 3D Faces From Online Photos to Defeat Face Authentication Systems
Researchers say they have developed a virtual reality-based cyberattack that can reproduce the human face well enough to trick face-authentication systems.
From ACM TechNews
Princeton Develops 25-Core Chip For Servers
Researchers at Princeton University have developed Piton, a chip they believe can significantly boost server performance while reducing energy consumption.
From ACM TechNews
Harvey Mudd College Took on Gender Bias and Now More Than Half Its Computer-Science Majors Are Women
This year, at Harvey Mudd College in Claremont, CA, for the first time, more women than men graduated with a degree in computer science.
From ACM TechNews
How an Algorithm Learned to Identify Depressed Individuals By Studying Their Instagram Photos
Researchers have trained a machine-learning algorithm to spot warning signs for depression on Instagram by analyzing the composition of posted images.
From ACM TechNews
New Lever Language Builds on Python's Convenience, Aims For Pypy Speeds
Lever aims to be a general-purpose programming language similar to Python with the ability to compile easily to standalone executables.
From ACM TechNews
Blockchain Could Bring Electronic Voting to Australia By 2017
Australia intends to employ blockchain technology to let citizens vote online.