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 TechNews
Smartphones Provide Video Monitoring of Tb Patients
San Diego County health officials are using smartphones to improve treatment monitoring for tuberculosis patients, as part of a collaboration with the University of California, San Diego and Verizon.
From ACM News
Gaming Improves Multitasking Skills
Sixty-five-year-old Ann Linsey was starting to worry about how easily she got distracted from whatever she was doing.
From ACM News
Robots: Is the Uncanny Valley Real?
Mick Walters opens a door in his lab and points his computer's camera towards the small, blurry, tan-coloured object he has just revealed. "This is Kaspar Two," he says.
From ACM TechNews
Privacy App Pinpoints Your Exact Location Using Social Media
Many people are unaware that metadata accompanying social media posts can be used to "cybercase" their homes.
From ACM TechNews
Biodiversity App Logs Insects By Their Telltale Call
Cicada Hunt is a smartphone app designed to listen for the call of the endangered New Forest cicada; it also can be trained to detect other animals by their calls.
From ACM TechNews
Mystery of the Missing Women in Science
Although test scores prove that girls have science and math aptitude equal to that of boys, many girls choose not to pursue these fields.
From ACM TechNews
Windows 8 Picture Passwords Easily Cracked
Security researchers have found taht Microsoft Windows 8's picture gesture authentication system is not difficult to crack.
From ACM TechNews
Mapping the Twitterverse
Researchers are studying how much public geospatial data is generated by Twitter users and how that information could be used by third parties.
From ACM TechNews
Skype Eye Contact Finally Possible
A new software prototype could make videoconferencing more realistic for home users, by creating the impression of eye contact.
From ACM Opinion
Beyond The Shadows: Apple's Ios 7 Is All About The Screen
At some point in the coming weeks, users of Apple iPhones and iPads will wake up to an alert that there is a new version of the company's mobile operating system, known as iOS, for them to install.
From ACM News
The Digital Divide Continues
There is still a significant number of people in the United States who do not own a computer or have home Internet access.
From ACM Opinion
Tech Pioneer Vint Cerf on the Age of Context and Why You Can't Be a Citizen of the Internet
Few people have as much claim as Vint Cerf to the title "Father of the Internet," but as the technologies he helped develop in the 1970s and 1980s become increasingly central to our lives, delighting us in ever more exciting…
From ACM News
Your Phone Is Blabbing Your Location to Anyone Who Will Listen
Everywhere you go, your phone is sending out signals that can be assembled to form a picture of your movements.
From ACM TechNews
NASA's Mars Curiosity Debuts Autonomous Navigation
The Curiosity Mars rover recently used autonomous navigation to drive onto ground that could not be confirmed safe before the start of the drive.
From ACM TechNews
Neutron Stars in the Computer Cloud
Using the Einstein@Home project to analyze archival data from the CSIRO Parkes radio telescope in Australia, researchers have discovered 24 pulsars.
From ACM TechNews
Hack Attacks, Explained
Harvard University professor Jonathan L. Zittrain says recent cyberattacks on media outlets offer lessons on how institutions can guard against future incidents.
From ACM News
Drug Agents se Vast Phone Trove, Eclipsing N.s.a.'s
For at least six years, law enforcement officials working on a counternarcotics program have had routine access, using subpoenas, to an enormous AT&T database that contains the records of decades of Americans' phone calls—parallel…
From Communications of the ACM
Remembering Douglas Engelbart
"Inspiring," "visionary," "humble," "honest," "impeccable integrity," "passionate and stubborn about his work." Tributes poured in for Douglas Engelbart, inventor of the computer mouse and an Internet pioneer, following his…
From Communications of the ACM
Magnetic Diversion For Electronic Switches
'Chameleon processors' could function as programmable logic or nonvolatile memory.
From Communications of the ACM
Software-Defined Networking
Novel architecture allows programmers to quickly reconfigure network resource usage.
From Communications of the ACM
Ephemeral Data
Privacy issues can evaporate when embarrassing content does likewise.