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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

And The Winner Is...columbus!

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

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

New Computer Chip Manufacturing Method Squeezes More Onto Limited Wafer Space

New Computer Chip Manufacturing Method Squeezes More Onto Limited Wafer Space

Researchers at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and the University of Chicago have developed a new method for packing more transistors in less space.


From ACM News

AI Can Recognize Your Face Even If You're Pixelated

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

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

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

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

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 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?

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 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

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

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?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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'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

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

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

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

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

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

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?