Communications of the ACM
The news archive provides access to past news stories from Communications of the ACM and other sources by date.
September 2014
From ACM TechNews
The Hidden World of Facebook "like Farms"
A new study systematically investigated the nature of so-called Facebook "like farms," services which will direct Facebook Likes to a given Facebook page for a fee.
From ACM TechNews
Victoria Team Defends Title With Speedy Robot
Victoria University of Wellington students will travel to Sydney, Australia, to defend their title at the Australasian National Instruments Autonomous Robotics Competition.
From ACM News
New Rfid Technology Helps Robots Find Household Objects
Mobile robots could be much more useful in homes, if they could locate people, places and objects.
From ACM News
Scientists Make Quantum Leap, Teleport Data from Light to Matter
We're one step closer to creating the Ansible communicator in "Ender's Game," the warp drive envisioned by Mexican physicist Miguel Alcubierre and a "Star Trek"-style Transporter.
From ACM News
A Sense of Technology
Researchers are working to add smell, taste, and touch to the digital world, but significant challenges remain.
From ACM News
Robots That Learn Through Repetition, Not Programming
Eugene Izhikevich thinks you shouldn't have to write code in order to teach robots new tricks.
From ACM Careers
New Smartphone App Gives Sight to the Blind
Jonathan Mosen, who has been blind since birth, spent his evening snapping photos of packages in the mail, his son's school report and labels on bottles in the fridge.
From ACM Careers
Nasa Invents a Folding Solar Panel Inspired By Origami
Twenty years ago Brian Trease was a high school exchange student in Japan.
From ACM TechNews
Ieee Standards Group Wants to Bring Order to Iot
The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) P2413 Working Group wants to develop an overall architecture for the Internet of Things.
From ACM TechNews
Mozilla Rust Language Approaches 1.0 Milestone
Mozilla plans to ship Rust 1.0 beta around the end of the year, and says the system's programming language could become the 1.0 release if all goes well.
From ACM TechNews
Nuclear Spins Control Current in Plastic Led
A recent breakthrough brings physics closer to the development of quantum computers, more compact data storage devices, and plastic or organic LEDs.
From ACM News
Gaze-Tracker Lets You Connect to Devices with a Glance
An eye-tracking camera calculates where the wearer is looking, and transmits it to all the nearby Internet-connected devices, such as stereos and TVs, via Wi-Fi.
From ACM News
Oculus Brings the Virtual Closer to Reality
Virtual reality is virtually here—although its first incarnation will come with short battery life, images that do not quite track eye movements and a tendency to induce motion sickness.
From ACM News
A Newspaper's First Trip Into Virtual Reality Goes to a Desolate Farm
Against the odds, the Des Moines Register has just become one of the first newspapers to move into virtual reality.
From ACM Opinion
The History of the Predator, the Drone that Changed the World
These days, the word drone is used to refer to just about any kind of remote-controlled, unmanned aircraft.
From ACM News
The Hidden World of Facebook 'like Farms'
Facebook has become the advertising outlet of choice for many of the world’s businesses and companies.
From ACM Careers
How Two Men nlocked Modern Encryption
In September of 1974, when he was 30 years old, Whitfield Diffie was obsessed with cryptography.
From ACM TechNews
Making Big Data Think Bigger
Big-data management will create a significant shift in the way decisions are made, as new sources of data are mined for patterns.
From ACM TechNews
'honeybee' Robots Replicate Swarm Behavior
A new open-platform system will make it more feasible and economical for researchers to replicate swarm behavior in a large number of robots.
From ACM TechNews
.s. Official: Chinese Want Nsa Cyber Schools
Corporate leaders in China believe cyber-relations with the U.S. could improve if Chinese universities taught U.S. National Security Agency-approved curricula.
From ACM TechNews
Quick-Change Materials Break the Silicon Speed Limit For Computers
New phase-change materials-based devices can be melted and recrystallized in as little as half a nanosecond using appropriate voltage pulses.
From ACM TechNews
What's the Next Big Tech Trend? This Federal Agency Thinks It Can Predict the Answer
The U.S. Intelligence Advanced Research Projects Activity is using machine intelligence to predict what emerging technologies will become popular in the future.
From ACM TechNews
Virginia Tech Researchers Devise Traffic App to Rival Weather Apps
Researchers are developing a cloud-based application that will use real-time information and historical data to predict when and where traffic is likely to occur.
From ACM News
Time Dilation Measured at 40 Percent of the Speed of Light—in the Lab
Einstein is most famous for general relativity, which is really a theory of gravity.
From ACM News
Nasa's Newest Mars Mission Spacecraft Enters Orbit Around Red Planet
NASA's Mars Atmosphere and Volatile Evolution (MAVEN) spacecraft successfully entered Mars' orbit at 7:24 p.m. PDT (10:24 p.m. EDT) Sunday, Sept. 21, where it now will prepare to study the Red Planet's upper atmosphere as never…
From ACM News
Quantum Internet Could Keep S Safe from Spying Eyes
Quantum networks are quietly spreading across the world.
From ACM News
Microsoft Shuts Down Silicon Valley Research Lab, Amid Broader Layoffs
Microsoft laid off another 2,100 employees on Thursday.
From ACM Opinion
Visualizing 4-Dimensional Asteroids
One of the largest treasure troves of astronomical data comes from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS), an ongoing scan of the firmament that began 15 years ago.
From ACM TechNews
Boosting Hispanic Share of Tech Workforce Could Be Key to Closing STEM Gap
Greater Hispanic participation could play a crucial role in reaching the Obama administration's goals for increased student exposure to opportunities in STEM fields.
From ACM TechNews
Sensors Everywhere Could Mean Privacy Nowhere, Expert Says
Purdue University professor Eugene Spafford says the Internet of Things will permanently record data on people, often without their knowledge.