Communications of the ACM
The news archive provides access to past news stories from Communications of the ACM and other sources by date.
September 2013
From ACM News
The Nba Will Now Track Every Player's Movements
The National Basketball Association announced a contract with sports information company Stats to install player-tracking camera systems in every arena beginning next season.
From ACM TechNews
Sudoku Saves Photographers From Copyright Theft
Computer scientists in Malaysia have developed a watermarking technology based on a system similar to the rules used to solve the puzzles known as Sudoku.
From ACM News
The New Era of Toy Robotics
In olden times, the most an ambitious young tinkerer could hope for in a toy was to be able to stick one funny-shaped piece onto another. Kids built airplanes with Tinkertoys and spaceships with Erector Sets. In large part, the…
From ACM TechNews
Engineers Make Golden Breakthrough to Improve Electronic Devices Based on Molybdenum Disulfide
Molybdenum disulfide is a material that, when manipulated with gold atoms, has the potential to improve electronic and thermal devices.
From ACM TechNews
md Engineering Group on Cutting Edge in Car Safety
Researchers have developed programming that will give drivers instant information on what lies ahead of them on the road.
From ACM News
Beyond Passwords: New Tools to Identify Humans
As everything around us becomes connected to the Internet, from cars to thermometers to the stuff inside our mobile phones, technologists are confronting a tough new challenge: How does a machine verify the identity of a human…
From ACM News
Why Bluetooth se Is On the Rise
Bluetooth has been with us for around 15 years. Named after Denmark's King Harald "Bluetooth" Blatand, who reigned in the first century AD, it is a technology that everyone is aware of on their computers and phones, yet not many…
From ACM Opinion
Nsa Surveillance Makes For Strange Bedfellows
The controversy over U.S. government surveillance has produced a king-size collection of strange bedfellows. Beneath the covers one finds both amusing ironies and sober insights into the nature of American governance and political…
From ACM Opinion
A Peek nder the Hood at the Brains of Self-Driving Cars
What car maker today doesn't seem to have an autonomous car bumbling around its test lot?
From ACM TechNews
Can You Beat This Machine at Angry Birds?
A new artificial intelligence agent is capable of playing Angry Birds independently.
From ACM News
Terramechanics Research Aims to Keep Mars Rovers Rolling
In May 2009, the Mars rover Spirit cracked through a crusty layer of Martian topsoil, sinking into softer underlying sand.
From ACM TechNews
Penn Develops Computer Model That Will Help Design Flexible Touchscreens
Researchers have developed a method for designing transparent conductors using metal nanowires that could result in less expensive and more flexible touchscreens.
From ACM TechNews
In The World: Mapping the Logistics of Megacities
Logistics data on neighborhoods in several world cities is available online in an open-access pool of information that is graphically represented on city maps.
From ACM TechNews
The Smoke Alarm in Your Pocket and Other Winning Apps
One of the winners of Australia's Apps4Broadband competition is a Web-based app that enables tutors to teach students remotely.
From ACM Careers
The Big Data Employment Boom
Big data has been favorably cast as "the new oil" and held up as the economic counterweight to America's sinking manufacturing sector.
From ACM TechNews
Teens Are Losing Interest in Science, Survey Finds
A new survey found the number of teenagers interested in careers in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics dropped 15 percent this year.
From ACM TechNews
Open Source Career Opportunities Continue to Abound
Open source jobs remain a consistent source of career growth for technology professionals, according to Dice.com statistics from August 2012 to August 2013.
From ACM TechNews
Researchers Discover Breakthrough Technique That Could Make Electronics Smaller and Better
An international group of scientists have developed a technique for manufacturing nanostructures that could make electrical and optical devices smaller and better.
From ACM News
How the N.S.A Cracked the Web
It's been nearly three months since Edward Snowden started telling the world about the National Security Agency's mass surveillance of global communications.
From ACM News
Intel's Laser Chips Could Make Data Centers Run Better
Intel hopes to make computing far more efficient by introducing a technology that replaces conventional copper data cables with faster optical data links.
From ACM News
This Augmented-Reality Sandbox Turns Dirt Into a i
We've seen how kids take to touchscreens. To them, our unfathomably sophisticated smartphones and tablets are about as hard to figure out as a bucket full of blocks.
From ACM News
Huge Botnet Found sing Tor Network For Communications
In the wake of the revelations surrounding the NSA's domestic surveillance and intelligence-gathering operations, security experts said there would likely be a natural uptick in the usage of privacy focused tools such as Tor,…
From ACM TechNews
Nsa Able to Foil Basic Safeguards of Privacy on Web
The National Security Agency uses a variety of means to overcome encryption technologies, such as supercomputers, technical strategies, court orders, and persuasion, according to documents leaked by former NSA contractor Edward…
From ACM TechNews
Quantum Chip Connected to Internet Is Yours to Command
University of Bristol researchers have brought quantum computing to the cloud, enabling anyone with a Web browser to be able to log in and run basic algorithms on a quantum-based Internet system.
From ACM TechNews
Internet Needs 'cyber Fire Department' to Protect Web Users, Claims Vint Cerf
The Internet needs a cyber fire department to keep risks found on websites and services from spreading, says Google chief Internet evangelist and ACM president Vint Cerf.
From ACM TechNews
Older Brains Benefit From Video Game
University of California, San Francisco scientists found that people between the ages of 60 and 85 who played a videogame showed improved cognitive controls and that the effects can be long lasting.
From ACM TechNews
Scientists Expand Scale of Digital Snooping Alert
Researchers at Toshiba's European research laboratory in Cambridge, England, have released a paper describing a way to enable a group of users to exchange encryption keys using an experimental technique called quantum key distribution…
From ACM TechNews
Middle School Experiments With Humanoid Robot
Bullitt Lick Middle School in Shepherdsville, Ky., is offering a new robotics class that will teach students programming skills.
From ACM TechNews
Learning from Relatives
University of Freiburg researchers have developed CopraRNA, software that predicts the functions of bacterial gene regulators. CopraRNA reduces complicated laboratory tests while simplifying the search for bacterial regulators…
From ACM TechNews
New Remote-Sensing Development Could Aid Disaster Relief
Michigan Technological University researchers have developed BACKBOnE, a system that uses crowdsourcing to quickly and more accurately assess the damage from natural disasters.