Communications of the ACM
The news archive provides access to past news stories from Communications of the ACM and other sources by date.
September 2016
From ACM TechNews
Why Human Brains Hold the Key to Smarter Artificial Intelligence
The European Union-funded INSIGHT project has gained a new understanding of how people solve problems, which one day could lead to smarter robots.
From ACM News
Hubble: Possible Water Plumes on Jupiter's Moon Europa
Astronomers using NASA's Hubble Space Telescope have imaged what may be water vapor plumes erupting off the surface of Jupiter's moon Europa.
From ACM News
The New Face of Biometrics
Advances in biometric authentication are finally pushing the technology into the mainstream.
From ACM TechNews
Automated Screening For Childhood Communication Disorders
Researchers have used machine learning to develop a computer system that can automatically screen young children for speech and language disorders.
From ACM TechNews
Ibm and Mit Partner p to Create AI That nderstands Sight and Sound the Way We Do
The new IBM-Massachusetts Institute of Technology Laboratory for Brain-inspired Multimedia Machine Comprehension will research computer vision and audition.
From ACM TechNews
Meet Rutgers' Radical Supercomputing Guru
Shantenu Jha and the Rutgers Advanced Distributed Cyberinfrastructure and Applications Laboratory team work at the intersection of computing and science.
From ACM Opinion
Online Trackers Follow Our Digital Shadow By 'fingerprinting' Browsers, Devices
As we surf from website to website, we are being tracked—that's not news. What is news, revealed in a recent paper by researchers at Princeton University, is that the tracking is no longer just about the "cookies" that record…
From ACM News
Hacking, Cryptography, and the Countdown to Quantum Computing
Given the recent ubiquity of cyber-scandals—Colin Powell’s stolen e-mails, Simone Biles's leaked medical records, half a billion plundered Yahoo accounts—you might get the impression that hackers can already break into just about…
From ACM TechNews
Researchers Restore First-Ever Computer Music Recording Generated on Alan Turing's Computer
Researchers from the University of Canterbury in New Zealand have restored the first recording of computer-generated music.
From ACM TechNews
Germany to Create World's First Highway Code For Driverless Cars
The first legal framework for autonomous vehicles was outlined in a recently proposed bill in Germany governing how such cars perform in potentially deadly crashes.
From ACM TechNews
New Language Expands on Google's Go
Polish developer Marcin Wrochniak has introduced Have, a computer language that transpiles to and expands on Google's Go.
From ACM TechNews
Vint Cerf's Dream Do-Over: 2 Ways He'd Make the Internet Different
Google chief Internet evangelist and former ACM president Vint Cerf said he would change a few things about the Internet's creation if he could do it over again.
From ACM TechNews
Stealing an AI Algorithm and Its nderlying Data Is a 'high-School Level Exercise'
Cornell Tech researchers have shown they can reverse-engineer machine-learning algorithms, essentially stealing artificial intelligence products and using them for free.
From ACM TechNews
A New 3d Viewer For Improved Digital Geoscience Mapping
Researchers from Norway and the U.K. have collaborated on software designed for virtual model interpretation and visualization.
From ACM News
Daring Chinese Telescope Is Poised to Transform Astronomy
Set in a remote natural depression in the mountainous region of Guizhou, China, the world's largest single-dish telescope is on the brink of sparking a new era in radio astronomy.
From ACM News
Building a Bionic Spine
Australian neurologist Tom Oxley was on vacation in the US in November 2010 when he decided to do a bit of work.
From ACM News
Alan Turing's Homosexual Court Files Go on Display
Turing's 1952 conviction meant he lost his security clearance and had to stop work at GCHQ, the post-war successor to Bletchley Park.
From ACM TechNews
In a Lab in Poland, Plastic That Can Crawl
Researchers at Poland's University of Warsaw have developed a robotic caterpillar that can move across a surface by itself when exposed to a specific shade of green laser light.
From ACM TechNews
We Have to Start Thinking About Cybersecurity in Space
U.K.-based researchers are studying the cybersecurity of space-related technologies.
From ACM TechNews
Modern Technology nlocks Secrets of a Damaged Biblical Scroll
Biblical scholars in Israel used technology developed by University of Kentucky computer scientists to examine an ancient charred scroll virtually with a digital model.
From ACM TechNews
niversity of Calgary Physicists Create Nano-Sized Device With Huge Potential in Field of Quantum Computing
Researchers say they have made the first-ever nano-sized optical resonator, or optical cavity, from a single crystal of diamond that is also a mechanical resonator.
From ACM TechNews
Brain to Robot: 'move, Please'
Researchers in Switzerland are developing robots that can help paralyzed stroke victims regain the use of their arms and hands.
From ACM Careers
The Wikipedia Bots that Are Engaged in Spats that Never End
Is. Isn't. Is. Isn’t. Is. Isn't.
From ACM News
Worldwide Brain-Mapping Project Sparks Excitement, and Concern
Worries include how to coordinate research programs and resources from different countries.
From ACM News
Google's Internet-Beaming Balloon Gets a New Pilot: AI
This summer, the Google X lab launched a balloon into the stratosphere over Peru, and it stayed there for 98 days.
From ACM News
A Single Migration From Africa Populated the World, Studies Find
Modern humans evolved in Africa roughly 200,000 years ago. But how did our species go on to populate the rest of the globe?
From ACM News
Hacker-Proof Code Confirmed
Computer scientists can prove certain programs to be error-free with the same certainty that mathematicians prove theorems.
From ACM News
Send Secret Messages Hidden in the Dna of Bacterial Spores
Humble bacterial spores are taking us closer to an age of DNA information storage, thanks to new ways of protecting archived data from corruption as well as from hackers.
From ACM News
Lasers Create Tiny, Flexible Power Sources
Researchers are developing more flexible power sources for wearable technologies, in new and different shapes.
From ACM News
Tech Giants Team p to Fix Typography's Biggest Problem
Fonts have a serious image problem.