Communications of the ACM
The news archive provides access to past news stories from Communications of the ACM and other sources by date.
September 2009
From ACM TechNews
Adding Trust to Wikipedia, and Beyond
WikiTrust, developed by University of California, Santa Cruz (UCSC) researchers, helps users evaluate information published on Wikipedia by automatically assigning a reliability color code to the text, based on the reliability…
From ACM TechNews
Putting Computing in Education's Core
ACM has submitted comments on the U.S. Department of Education's Race to the Top Fund program that stress the need to ensure the level of support and attention devoted to computer science education is at least equal to that committed…
From ACM TechNews
Still Trying to Crack Nazi Enigma Messages
Enigma@home is attempting to break one of three original messages generated by the Enigma machine, which was intercepted by the Allies in 1942. The Enigma M4 machine is believed to have been used by Germany to encipher the signals…
From ACM TechNews
Career Advice: High-Tech, Healthcare Best Choices For College Students
College students seeking careers in computer science and engineering have the best chance of being hired in the wake of the recession, according to a Challenger, Gray & Christmas survey of 150 human resource (HR) executives.
From ACM TechNews
Welcome to 3-D Learning
The Kentucky Community & Technical College System (KCTCS) is using three-dimensional (3D) technology to enable students to interact with the content covered in courses rather than merely read textbooks. For example, nursing…
From ICT Results
The Right Honorable Computer, Barrister-at-Law
European researchers have created a legal analysis query engine that combines artificial intelligence, game theory and semantics to offer advice, conflict prevention and dispute settlement for European law, and it even supports…
From ACM TechNews
Child's Play May Revolutionize Video Gaming, Police Work
University of Alberta researchers Marcia Spetch and Vadim Bulitko have completed a study on the decisions humans make when hiding and searching for objects. They are contributing to research that can make video-game characters…
From ACM TechNews
Dhs Report: It Sector Is Resilient Against Serious Cyberattacks
The U.S. Department of Homeland Security recently released a report that outlines several scenarios in which attacks against vital elements of the U.S.'s IT infrastructure could cause massive disruptions. The report, "IT Sector…
From ACM TechNews
tsa Wins $5 Million in Stimulus Funds For New Interdisciplinary Center
University of Texas at San Antonio (UTSA) researchers have received a five-year, $5 million National Science Foundation grant to establish the Simulation, Visualization and Real-time Predictions (SiViRT) Center for interdisciplinary…
From ACM TechNews
Female High Schoolers Targeted For Math, Science Degrees By N.j. Colleges
Rutgers University is among a group of New Jersey colleges that are working to get more women interested in pursuing careers in science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM). This fall Rutgers opened its second all-women…
From ACM TechNews
Researchers Will Tap Social Media to Support Citizens in Emergency Response
University of Colorado at Boulder (CU-Boulder) researchers have received more than $2 million from the National Science Foundation to investigate the public's use of social media during crisis situations. The researchers, led…
From ACM TechNews
Getting Your Robot On: Wearable Machines' Intimate Interface
Engineers around the world are exploring all kinds of possibilities for wearable robot interfaces, from brain implants to touch interfaces. Professor Jacob Rosen and colleagues at the University of California, Santa Cruz's Bionics…
From ACM TechNews
Open Source Dna
Tel Aviv University professor Eran Halperin and researchers from the University of California, Berkeley have developed a mathematical formula that can be used to protect genetic privacy while providing researchers with the raw…
From ACM TechNews
Filtering Network Attacks With a 'netflix' Method
University of California, Irvine (UC Irvine) researchers have developed a new method for blacklisting spam, distributed denial-of-service attacks, worms, and other network attacks. The predictive blacklisting method, which was…
From ACM TechNews
Lawmakers Strike New Tone With Proposed Cybersecurity Bill
The second draft of a U.S. Senate cybersecurity bill scales back language that would give the president the ability to shut down the Internet in an emergency. The bill, first introduced in April by Sen. John Rockefeller (D-W…
From ACM TechNews
Faster Searches Key to a Greener Web
University of Glasgow researchers created a system using field programmable gate arrays (FPGAs) to search a document index 20 times faster than a system based on standard processors. The researchers plan to develop the system…
From ACM TechNews
Paris Event to Showcase Informatics Advances, Honor European Pioneers
The fifth edition of the European Computer Science Summit (ECSS) will take place in Paris on October 8-9, 2009, with a special workshop for new (and not so new) department heads on Oct. 7 and the first-ever ACM Europe award reception…
From ACM TechNews
Queen's University Belfast and Imperial College London have launched a program that will conduct research into the interaction of light with matter at the nanoscale level. The research could lead to the development of computers…
From ACM News
Budget, Personnel Cutbacks Could Be a Cause of It Outages
When eBay Inc.'s PayPal unit suffered a worldwide outage early last month, Sailrite Enterprises Inc., a sailing supply company based in Churubusco, Ind., lost its critical customer payment services for six hours. The next day…
From ACM News
Researchers Design Graphene-Based Nano-Material with Magnetic Properties
An international team of researchers has designed a new graphite-based, magnetic nano-material that acts as a semiconductor and could help material scientists create the next generation of electronic devices like microchips.…
From ACM News
Computational Process Zeroes in on Top Genetic Cancer Suspects
A team of engineers at Johns Hopkins University have devised innovative computer software that can sift through hundreds of genetic mutations and highlight the DNA changes that are most likely to promote cancer. Its inventors…
From ACM News
Trying to Woo Partners, Cloud Computing Vendors Show Them the Money
One of the early promises of software-as-a-service and cloud computing was that it would allow start-ups to directly market their Web services while skipping the expensive, lengthy process of creating an ecosystem of partners…
From ACM News
After the Transistor, a Leap Into the Microcosm
Gaze into the electron microscope display in Frances Ross’s laboratory here and it is possible to persuade yourself that Dr. Ross, a 21st-century materials scientist, is actually a farmer in some Lilliputian silicon world.…
From ACM TechNews
National Science Foundation Awards $1.4 Million For Genocad Development
Virginia Bioinformatics Institute at Virginia Tech professor Jean Peccoud has been awarded a three-year, $1.42 million grant from the National Science Foundation to develop a Web-based computer-aided design (CAD) environment…
From ACM TechNews
Dhs Cybersecurity Chiefs Speak Out
As federal agencies continue to brainstorm ways to effectively oversee cybersecurity, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) is increasing its foothold as one of a handful of key players in securing government computer…
From ACM News
$30 Million Grant to Enhance Teragrid Computing Network
A $30 million grant from the U.S. National Science Foundation will enable the University of Chicago to expand and extend until 2011 the operation of TeraGrid, a national system of interconnected supercomputers devoted to leading…
From Communications of the ACM
Entering a Parallel Universe
The promise of parallel computing has run afoul of the harsh reality of Amdahl's Law, which puts a ceiling on the benefit of converting sequential code to parallel code. The upshot is that parallelism will not necessarily reap…
From Communications of the ACM
Medical Nanobots
Researchers working in medical nanorobotics are creating technologies that could lead to novel health-care applications, such as new ways of accessing areas of the human body that would otherwise be unreachable without invasive…
From Communications of the ACM
Facing an Age-Old Problem
Researchers are addressing the computing challenges of older individuals, whose needs are different — and too often disregarded.
From Communications of the ACM
Computer Science Meets Environmental Science
Scientists share knowledge and seek collaborators at computational sustainability conference.