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
The Face of Facebook
Mark Zuckerberg founded Facebook in his college dorm room six years ago. Five hundred million people have joined since, and eight hundred and seventy-nine of them are his friends. The site is a directory of the world’s people…
From ACM TechNews
Self-Organizing Traffic Lights
Researchers at TU Dresden's Institute of Transport & Economics and ETH Zurich are working to ease traffic congestion by enabling traffic lights to organize their own on-off schedules using traffic-responsive operating rules.
From ACM TechNews
Powerful Argument for Cutting IT Energy Consumption
Although technology is growing more and more energy efficient, more innovation is needed to offset the growing use of computers in countries such as India and China.
From ACM TechNews
Tiny Mavs May Someday Explore and Detect Environmental Hazards
The next phase of high-performance micro air vehicles (MAVs) for the Air Force could involve insect-sized robots for monitoring and exploring hazardous environments.
From ACM TechNews
Disembodied Performance
Massachusetts Institute of Technology Media Lab professor Tod Machover has spent more than a decade inventing the technology for a new opera premiering in September that could redefine the technological enhancement of live performance…
From ACM TechNews
ICANN Warns Against Government Control of the Internet
ICANN CEO Rod Beckstrom, speaking at the recent Internet Governance Forum, said that all Internet stakeholders must strive to keep Internet governance out of the hands of intergovernmental organizations.
From ACM News
NASA's LRO Exposes Moon's Complex, Turbulent Youth
The moon was bombarded by two distinct populations of asteroids or comets in its youth, and its surface is more complex than previously thought, according to new results from NASA's Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) spacecraft…
From ACM News
Lately, stories about Google often seem to be stories about conflict—Google knocking heads with China or the Justice Department or Facebook. For Eric E. Schmidt, Google’s chief executive, that is a good sign.
From ACM News
.s. Cybersecurity Plans Lagging, Critics Say
More than a year after President Obama made a White House speech proclaiming that the protection of computer networks was a national priority, the federal government is still grappling with key questions about how to secure…
From ACM News
Nist Data Sets Enable Technical Basis For High-Rise Evacuation Planning
Researchers at NIST are stepping up the pace for designing safer building evacuations by releasing large, numerical datasets tracking the movement of people on stairs during high-rise building evacuation drills.
From ACM News
ARP Awards Recognize Outstanding Research and Science Parks
The Association of University Research Parks (AURP) announces their 2010 Annual Awards of Excellence and names Virginia Tech Corporate Research Center in Blacksburg, VA the 2010 Outstanding Research Park.
From ACM News
New Approach to Quantum Computing Devised in the U.K.
A team of expert led by physicists from the University of Bristol announced the development of a new approach to conducting quantum computing. The team believes the technique could make the quantum computer a reality in less…
From ACM News
Hrp-4 Robot Can Strike a Pose, Pour Drinks
Japan has added another soldier to its humanoid robot army. The HRP-4 is the latest edition in the state-backed humanoid project.
From ACM News
Three Teams Share $10 Million Purse in Automotive X Prize Competition
Three teams were awarded a share of the $10 million purse in the Progressive Insurance Automotive X PRIZE for Super Fuel-Efficient Vehicles.
From ACM News
Obama Expands 'educate to Innovate' Campaign to Improve STEM Education
President Barack Obama announced Thursday (September 16) the launch of Change the Equation, a CEO-led effort to dramatically improve science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) education programs.
From ACM TechNews
Archer Fish Can See Like Mammals
Computer scientists at Ben Gurion University of the Negev trained archer fish to spit at images of insects on a liquid crystal display screen, then used images of two bars to represent prey objects, set against a patterned background…
From ACM TechNews
Commissioner Kroes Wants to Include Developing Countries in Internet Governance
European Union digital agenda commissioner Neelie Kroes wants countries with emerging economies to have more say in Internet governance since they will soon have more Internet users than the United States and the EU combined. …
From ACM News
NC State Receives Grant To Study Artificial Intelligence In The Classroom
North Carolina State University recently received a four-year, $3.5 million grant from the U.S. National Science Foundation to explore using artificial intelligence as a learning tool inside fourth- and fifth-grade science classrooms…
From ACM News
Researchers Team Up With Schoolteachers on Web-Based Instruction System
A $2.5 million grant from the U.S. National Science Foundation to Florida State University will fund the creation of an electronic performance support system that links teachers to online tools to save them considerable time…
From ACM News
Nist Finalizes Initial Set of Smart Grid Cyber Security Guidelines
NIST has issued its first Guidelines for Smart Grid Cyber Security, and additional information for crafting strategies to protect the modernizing power grid from attacks, malicious code, cascading errors and other threats.
From ACM News
Peripheral Developers Are Key Contributors to Open-Source Projects, Study Finds
An information systems researcher at the University of Arkansas has found that peripheral developers outside the core development team make significant contributions to product quality, especially on projects beyond the design…
From ACM News
Home's Electrical Wiring Acts as Antenna to Receive Low-Power Sensor Data
Using a home's electrical wiring as a giant copper antenna enables extremely low-power wireless sensors that run for decades on a single watch battery. The device could be used for low-cost medical monitoring or home sensing…
From ACM News
A Professor
At this time of year, students are buying textbooks and looking for ways to avoid reading them.
From ACM News
Pi record Smashed As Team Finds Two-Quadrillionth Digit
A researcher has calculated the 2,000,000,000,000,000th digit of pi—and a few digits either side of it.
From ACM News
Intel Will Teach Gadgets to Learn About You
Rather than teach your gadgets what to do, Intel researchers say that in the not-too-distant future they will learn about you on their own. That means where you are, how you're feeling, and what you want.
From ACM News
Nano-Based Marker Designed to Thwart Counterfeit Products
Nanotechnology advances at the University of Arkansas at Little Rock have been licensed to two new businesses that will market a solution to a $600 billion global business problem—counterfeit products.
From ACM News
Officials In The Dark About Voting Machine Glitches
Problems with voting machines are still popping up 10 years after the controversial presidential vote in Florida.
From ACM TechNews
European Partnership Funds Research Toward Robot Aides for the Elderly
A team of researchers from 20 European states, the European Union, and several private enterprises recently launched a project aimed at developing robots capable of serving as adaptable, interactive, and safe assistants for older…
From ACM TechNews
New Gadgets to Solve Fat Finger Fumbles
Scientists such as Hasso Plattner Institute professor Patrick Baudisch are developing new gadgets that may eliminate small keyboards and other problems that make accessing services from handhelds difficult.
From ACM TechNews
Quantum Crypto Products Cracked By Researchers
A European research team has shown that commercial implementations of quantum key distribution (QKD) are subject to eavesdropping with off-the-shelf materials.