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 News
And The Winner Is...columbus!
Columbus, OH, claims the $50-million top spot in the U.S. Department of Transportation's Smart City Challenge.
From ACM TechNews
Setting Up a Decoy Network May Help Deflect a Hacker's Hits
Researchers have created a computer defense system that senses possible malicious probes of a network and redirects the attack to a virtual network.
From ACM TechNews
Speech Technology Enables Kids to Control Video Game
Researchers at Disney Research say their new keyword-spotting system works better with the video game "Mole Madness" than commercial speech-recognition systems.
From ACM News
AI Can Recognize Your Face Even If You're Pixelated
Pixelation has long been a familiar fig leaf to cover our visual media’s most private parts.
From ACM News
The Bizarre World of Bitcoin 'mining' Finds a New Home in Tibet
Inside a metal shed in the Tibetan highlands of western China, thousands of microprocessors flank narrow corridors, generating a constant hum and stifling waves of heat.
From ACM News
The Extraordinary Link Between Deep Neural Networks and the Nature of the niverse
In the last couple of years, deep learning techniques have transformed the world of artificial intelligence.
From ACM News
Scientific Visualizations: A Bridge to Knowledge
A conversation with Chris Johnson, founding director of the Scientific Computing and Imaging Institute.
From ACM TechNews
Self-Driving Cars Can Learn a Lot By Playing Grand Theft Auto
Several research groups are using the "Grand Theft Auto" video game to educate algorithms with potential application to self-driving vehicle navigation.
From ACM TechNews
Computers That Can Argue Will Be Satnav For the Moral Maze
Computers that formulate arguments could lead to "research engines" to inform decision-making across a wide range of fields.
From ACM TechNews
Are Fitness Trackers Fit For Security?
Researchers at the Technical University of Darmstadt in Germany investigating fraud opportunities within fitness trackers have detected serious security vulnerabilities.
From ACM TechNews
Virginia Tech Initiative With Qualcomm to Expose Students to STEM
Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University and chip manufacturer Qualcomm have are opening a new Thinkabit lab at the university's Northern Virginia campus.
From ACM TechNews
CMU Algorithm Detects Online Fraudsters
Carnegie Mellon University researchers say they have developed an algorithm that can perceive fraudsters hiding behind a digital veneer of legitimacy.
From ACM TechNews
Smartphone Hacks 3D Printer By Measuring 'leaked' Energy and Acoustic Waves
State University of New York at Buffalo researchers say anyone with a smartphone could potentially steal intellectual property from a business' three-dimensional printer.
From ACM News
Your Car's New Software Is Ready. Update Now?
Tired of your vehicle and its aging, limited features? Don’t trade it in just yet. Download new software instead.
From ACM Opinion
Microsoft's Top Lawyer Becomes a Civil Rights Crusader
When Apple CEO Tim Cook refused to help the FBI get into a mass murderer's iPhone last winter, he was hailed for his boldness in fighting the government on a matter of principle.
From ACM News
Mars Rover Views Spectacular Layered Rock Formations
The layered geologic past of Mars is revealed in stunning detail in new color images returned by NASA's Curiosity Mars rover, which is currently exploring the "Murray Buttes" region of lower Mount Sharp.
From ACM TechNews
Beam Me p to the Video Conference
Researchers have created a technique for virtually transmitting a fully-sized, three-dimensional image of a person that viewers can see from different angles.
From ACM TechNews
Judging a Book Through Its Cover
Massachusetts Institute of Technology researchers and colleagues at the Georgia Institute of Technology are designing an imaging system that can read closed books.
From ACM TechNews
Team of Robots Learns to Work Together, Without Colliding
New algorithms created by Georgia Institute of Technology researchers enable robots to move within inches of each other, without colliding, to complete their task.
From ACM TechNews
New 'gel' May Be Step Toward Clothing That Computes
A team of researchers from the University of Pittsburgh has designed a model of a material capable of computational pattern recognition using an oscillating gel.
From ACM TechNews
Science Makes First Study of Know-It-All Internet Commenters
Researchers at Stanford University and Microsoft have conducted the first study of intransigent commenters in social networks.
From ACM News
Titan's Dunes and Other Features Emerge in New Images
New scenes from a frigid alien landscape are coming to light in recent radar images of Saturn's largest moon, Titan, from NASA's Cassini spacecraft.
From ACM News
How Satellite Imaging Will Revolutionize Everything from Stock Picking to Farming
When people say knowledge is power, they usually mean "money." Even the great scientist and innovator Galileo Galilei knew that.
From ACM News
Google's Clever Plan to Stop Aspiring Isis Recruits
Google has built a half-trillion-dollar business out of divining what people want based on a few words they type into a search field.
From ACM TechNews
Research Examines Global Security and Surveillance Technologies
Government efforts to fight crime using surveillance and information technologies often yield poor results, says University of Colorado Denver professor Keith Guzik.
From ACM TechNews
For First Time, Carbon Nanotube Transistors Outperform Silicon
Researchers at the University of Wisconsin-Madison have created carbon nanotube transistors that offer performance superior to their silicon counterparts.
From ACM TechNews
A Data-Cleaning Tool For Building Better Prediction Models
Researchers at Columbia University and the University of California, Berkeley have developed software to replace humans in the most error-prone steps of cleaning big data.
From ACM TechNews
Iowa State Engineers Treat Printed Graphene With Lasers to Enable Paper Electronics, Devices
An Iowa State University team says it has developed a new way to use inkjet printers to print multi-layer graphene circuits and electrodes.
From ACM News
Nasa Aims at an Asteroid Holding Clues to the Solar System's Roots
For the next two years, NASA's latest robotic spacecraft will be chasing down an asteroid near Earth in the hopes of scooping up some of the most primordial bits of the solar system.
From ACM News
It's Official: You're Lost in a Directionless niverse
Ever peer into the night sky and wonder whether space is really the same in all directions or if the cosmos might be whirling about like a vast top?