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
Hack Apple, Get Paid – By Apple
In a first for Apple, the company will pay up to $200,000 to researchers who find security problems in its systems.
From ACM News
Pentagon Bot Battle Shows How Computers Can Fix Their Own Flaws
It might be the least spectacular show to ever grace a Las Vegas stage.
From ACM News
Why U.s. Broadband Is Stuck in the Slow Lane
U.S. broadband Internet could be faster—a lot faster. Several companies are trying to make that a reality.
From ACM News
Welcome to the Cyborg Olympics
Vance Bergeron was once an amateur cyclist who rode 7,000 kilometres per year—much of it on steep climbs in the Alps.
From ACM News
Crystal Mimics Brain Cell to Sift Through Giant Piles of Data
There's nothing quite like the human brain. Today, researchers at IBM unveiled their latest attempt to mimic it: an artificial neuron that switches between crystal and glass-like states as information comes in.
From ACM News
What's Inside Ceres? New Findings from Gravity Data
In the tens of thousands of photos returned by NASA's Dawn spacecraft, the interior of Ceres isn't visible. But scientists have powerful data to study Ceres' inner structure: Dawn's own motion.
From ACM TechNews
Retroscope Opens Doors to the Past in Smartphone Investigations
Researchers at Purdue University are developing a technique that could help law enforcement recover evidence from smartphones when investigating crimes.
From ACM TechNews
Here's How Government Thinks Nanotech Will Transform Cyber
A group of U.S. federal organizations think brain-inspired nanotechnology could help the government protect its networks.
From ACM TechNews
What's Wasting Power at Home? Ask Your App!
New technology could make it much easier for consumers to accurately determine how much power is being consumed by each device in their home.
From ACM TechNews
New Robot Overcomes Obstacles
Researchers at Bielefeld University of Applied Sciences have developed Ourobot, a robotic system that looks like a bicycle chain consisting of 12 fist-sized segments.
From ACM Opinion
Google's Driverless-Car Czar on Taking the Human Out of the Equation
You devoted your life to human-driven transportation, engineering SUVs at Ford and taking Hyundai (as U.S. CEO and president) to record levels of sales in the U.S. Why did you go driverless?
From ACM News
Frequent Password Changes Are the Enemy of Security, Ftc Technologist Says
Shortly after Carnegie Mellon University professor Lorrie Cranor became chief technologist at the Federal Trade Commission in January, she was surprised by an official agency tweet that echoed some oft-repeated security advice…
From ACM News
Sprinkling of Neural Dust Opens Door to Electroceuticals
University of California, Berkeley engineers have built the first dust-sized, wireless sensors that can be implanted in the body, bringing closer the day when a Fitbit-like device could monitor internal nerves, muscles or organs…
From ACM News
Programmable Ions Set the Stage for General-Purpose Quantum Computers
Quantum computers promise speedy solutions to some difficult problems, but building large-scale, general-purpose quantum devices is a problem fraught with technical challenges.
From ACM TechNews
The Brain Behind Google's Artificial Intelligence
In an interview, Jeff Dean, senior fellow of Google's Systems and Infrastructure Group, discusses the company's artificial intelligence agenda.
From ACM TechNews
Caltech Scientists Improve Computer Graphics With Quantum Mechanics
Scientists at the California Institute of Technology have used the mathematics that govern the universe at the quantum level to simulate large-scale motion.
From ACM TechNews
How Vulnerable to Hacking Is the U.s. Election Cyber Infrastructure?
Adversaries' growing use of cyberweapons to influence target groups in the U.S. is provoking concern that the U.S. electoral process is at risk.
From ACM TechNews
Blind Athlete Runs Desert Marathon Unassisted Using Smartphone App
IBM researchers have developed an application designed to help visually-impaired runners navigate on their own.
From ACM TechNews
Vortex Laser Offers Hope For Moore's Law
Researchers have used orbital angular momentum to advance laser technology, a breakthrough that could boost computing power and information transfer rates tenfold.
From ACM News
Hackers Hijack a Big Rig Truck's Accelerator and Brakes
When cybersecurity researchers showed in recent years that they could hack a Chevy Impala or a Jeep Cherokee to disable the vehicles' brakes or hijack their steering, the results were a disturbing wakeup call to the consumer…
From ACM TechNews
Reach in and Touch Objects in Videos With 'interactive Dynamic Video'
Interactive Dynamic Video is a new imaging method that can simulate the tactile sensation of objects in videos using cameras and algorithms.
From ACM News
Five Years Post-Launch, Juno Is at a Turning Point
Five years after departing Earth, and a month after slipping into orbit around Jupiter, NASA's Juno spacecraft is nearing a turning point.
From ACM News
America's Electronic Voting Machines Are Scarily Easy Targets
This week, GOP presidential candidate Donald Trump openly speculated that this election would be "rigged." Last month, Russia decided to take an active role in our election.
From ACM News
In Memoriam: Seymour Papert 1928-2016
Papert was known for focusing on the impact of new technologies on learning, and on technology use in schools as learning organizations.
From ACM News
Your Battery Status Is Being Used to Track You Online
A little-known web standard that lets site owners tell how much battery life a mobile device has left has been found to enable tracking online, a year after privacy researchers warned that it had the potential to do just that…
From ACM News
Can Machines Keep S Safe from Cyber-Attack?
Best known for its part in bringing the internet into being, the Defence Advanced Research Projects Agency has more recently brought engineers together to tackle what it considers to be "grand challenges".
From ACM TechNews
Memories That Last
An experimental method of writing data into next-generation memory chips is more efficient and requires fewer resources than traditional means.
From ACM TechNews
Portable Device Produces Biopharmaceuticals on Demand
The U.S. Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency has funded the development of a portable on-demand biopharmaceutical production system.
From ACM TechNews
Study: Businesses Can't Afford to Ignore the Human Element of It
New research examines how human personality traits and moods can influence information technology errors and decision-making.
From ACM News
Snapping p Cheap Spy Tools, Nations 'monitoring Everyone'
It was a national scandal. Peru's then-vice president accused two domestic intelligence agents of staking her out.