Communications of the ACM
The news archive provides access to past news stories from Communications of the ACM and other sources by date.
September 2010
From ACM News
Gadget for N.F.L. Stadiums Vies for Fans' Inattention
For football spectators, a device called FanVision might be nirvana—or it might turn them into stadium versions of zombies who stumble down streets staring mesmerized at their BlackBerrys.
From ACM News
Australia's Education Departments Go Wild For the Ipad
Schools and universities around Australia have jumped headfirst into trials of Apple's hyped iPad tablet as they rush to discover exactly the device's use in the educational field—sometimes with the support of their education…
From ACM News
British Chip Designer Prepares For Wider Demand
Near the southeastern edge of Cambridge, where this idyllic university town gives way to fields of green, sits the headquarters of ARM Holdings. Neither the modest three-building campus nor its surroundings evoke notions of…
From ACM News
Virtual CS School Educates a Record Number of Participants
Over 1,000 graduate students and researchers registered for courses offered by the Virtual School of Computational Science and Engineering this summer. The courses were designed to teach techniques for applying high-performance…
From ACM News
Progress Toward Terabit-Rate High-Density Recording
Next-generation high-density storage devices may keep more than 70 times the contents of the entire U.S. Library of Congress on a single disc—but only if that data can be written quickly enough.
From ACM TechNews
Rdav and Nautilus Enter Full Production
Nautilus, a high-performance computer that will be used for visualizing and analyzing large datasets at the Remote Data Analysis and Visualization Center (RDAV) at the University of Tennessee, was launched Monday (Sept. 20).
From ACM News
Sensor Networks Top Social Networks For Big Data
The Internet of Things—with sensors that monitor, for example, road use or airline flights—is poised to dwarf social media sites in its ability to generate data.
From ACM News
Watching Electrons Move in Real Time
Research published in The Journal of Chemical Physics describes the emerging technique of X-ray powder diffraction, which has been used to map the movement of electrons in real time.
From ACM News
IBM Ceo: Smart Grid Is Internet of Things
In a rare public speaking occasion, IBM CEO Sam Palmisano said that today's energy infrastructure needs to be further digitized and focused on the end consumer.
From ACM News
Certain Doped-Oxide Ceramics Resist Ohm's Law
A group of researchers in England and Spain has discovered that certain barium titanate ceramics do not follow Ohm's Law. Applying a voltage to them gradually changes their electrical resistance. The work is described in theApplied…
From ACM News
Sensors Use Building's Electrical Wiring as Antenna
The trick lets sensors last five times as long between charges.
From ACM News
Nctu Creates Brain-Computer Interface
The National Chaio Tung University in Taiwan last week unveiled a portable, multi-channel brain-computer interface named "MINDO," an intermix of computer-generated image technology and wireless technology.
From ACM News
Physicians See Mobile Phones as Tools to Aid Non-Compliant Patients
Researchers are using smartphones and other technologies to remind patients to take medication, exercise, and to positively influence their compliance with treatment regimens.
From ACM News
For Deaf, Wireless Devices a New Portal to World
Quietly over the last decade, phones that make text messaging easy have changed life profoundly for millions of deaf people.
From ACM TechNews
Magical Beans: New Nano-Sized Particles Could Provide Mega-Sized Data Storage
Berkeley Lab researchers have discovered a new class of phase-change materials that could be applied to phase-change random access memory technologies and possibly optical data storage technologies.
From ACM TechNews
Lead By Women in Graduate Degrees Doesn't Extend to It
Women received 60 percent of the master's degrees and 50.4 percent of the doctorates in the 2008-09 academic year, but degrees in computer and information sciences were overwhelming earned by men, according to a survey by the…
From ACM TechNews
UTD Team Evaluating Facial Recognition Techniques
University of Texas at Dallas (UTD) researchers are working with the U.S. Department of Defense to find the most accurate and cost-effective way to recognize individuals who might post a security risk.
From ACM TechNews
New Wave: Spin Soliton Could Be a Hit in Cell Phone Communication
NIST researchers say they have discovered a new way to generate the high-frequency waves used in modern communication devices, which could lead to the development of a new generation of wireless technology that would be more…
From ACM TechNews
Technology in the Extreme
Researchers at Newcastle University's Centre for Extreme Environment Technology have developed radio transmitters that can withstand temperatures of up to 900 degrees Celsius using silicon carbide electronics.
From ACM TechNews
Student Creates Anti-Counterfeit Software
HCM City National University student Nguyen Kim Hoang Nhu has developed 1.1trieu.com, a program that can help people avoid accidentally purchasing counterfeit products.
From ACM News
Foursquare: Where Are Location Sites Taking Us?
Where others see a city map, Ryan Long sees a game board. The game is Foursquare, but not the way you played it in grade school. On Foursquare.com every bar, every restaurant, every office building is another space to be conquered…
From ACM News
Device Helps .s. Troops in Afghanistan Disable Ieds
A device developed by Sandia National Laboratories researchers that shoots a blade of water capable of penetrating steel is headed to U.S. troops in Afghanistan to help them disable improvised explosive devices—the No. 1 threat…
From ACM News
'Cookies' Cause Bitter Backlash
Spate of lawsuits shows user discomfort with latest innovations in online-tracking technology.
From ACM News
Conflict Over Nasa Spaceflight Program Complicates Funding
NASA's human space program, long the agency's biggest public and congressional asset, has become instead its biggest headache.
From ACM News
ORNL Strengthens DOE-Funded Clean Vehicles Team
As a member of the recently announced clean vehicles consortium, part of the U.S.-China Clean Energy Research Center, Oak Ridge National Laboratory researchers are focusing on a suite of technologies to put more electric and…
From ACM News
Cloud Computing Hits Snag in Europe
Cloud-based breakthroughs face a formidable obstacle in Europe: strict privacy laws that place rigid limits on the movement of information beyond the borders of the 27-country European Union.
From ACM News
Intel Touts
Intel has joined the parade of companies trying to beam video to your TV. The chipmaker is betting on “WiDi,” its technology for streaming media wirelessly from the PC to the TV.
From ACM News
New Biosensing Technology Could Replace Microplates
A new electronic biosensing technology developed by a team of engineers and biomedical scientists at the Georgia Institute of Technology could make the multi-welled microplate, long a standard tool in diagnostic laboratories…
From ACM News
Why Google Went Instant
The service, an engineering marvel, could boost Google's bottom line.
From ACM News
3-D Computer Simulations Help Shed Light on Supernovae Explosions
Scientists have found a novel way to make three-dimensional computer simulations of supernovae explosions that may help in understanding these explosions better.