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Communications of the ACM

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The news archive provides access to past news stories from Communications of the ACM and other sources by date.

September 2016


From ACM News

­S Sharpens Surveillance of Crippling Solar Storms

­S Sharpens Surveillance of Crippling Solar Storms

In the fight to protect Earth from solar storms, the battle lines are drawn in space at a point 1.6 million kilometres away.


From ACM News

Hubble: Possible Water Plumes on Jupiter's Moon Europa

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

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

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

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

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

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

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 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

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

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

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'

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

­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'

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

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

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

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

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 TechNews

Nokia's Terabit Fiber Internet Breakthrough Points to Even Faster Internet Speeds

Nokia's Terabit Fiber Internet Breakthrough Points to Even Faster Internet Speeds

Researchers have developed a data-tranmission technique that will have the capacity to provide speeds 1,000 times faster than Google Fiber.


From ACM TechNews

73% of Coding Bootcamp Graduates Employed Full-Time, Earn Salary Lift

73% of Coding Bootcamp Graduates Employed Full-Time, Earn Salary Lift

Coding bootcamps have surged in popularity because they are accelerated programs that attract technology-minded students looking to learn a range of skills.


From ACM TechNews

How Quantum Computing Could ­npick Encryption to Reveal Decades of Online Secrets

How Quantum Computing Could ­npick Encryption to Reveal Decades of Online Secrets

The advent of a universal quantum computer could herald the end of effective data encryption.


From ACM TechNews

Researchers Find Common Traits That Account For Strong STEM Outcomes in Schools

Researchers Find Common Traits That Account For Strong STEM Outcomes in Schools

Researchers have identified 14 components common to exceptional high schools with science, technology, engineering, and math programs.