Communications of the ACM
The news archive provides access to past news stories from Communications of the ACM and other sources by date.
September 2019
From ACM TechNews
Artificial Leg with Sensors Helps People Feel Every Step
A new artificial leg is equipped with sensors that allow users to feel when the leg flexes and lands on the ground.
From ACM TechNews
AI Facial Recognition Software Now Works for Wild Chimpanzees, Too
A new facial recognition artificial intelligence program can detect and identify individual chimpanzees captured in video footage recorded in the wild.
From ACM TechNews
2020 IT Budgets Increase as Priorities Grow
A TechRepublic Premium survey found that information technology budgets plans for 2020 continue to grow year over year.
From ACM TechNews
Crime Prevention Through Crime Prediction
Students in a Louisiana State University computer science class developed a crime-prediction software program.
From ACM News
Head in the Clouds
Brain-computer interfaces, like so much else, may be migrating to the cloud.
From ACM TechNews
Objects Can Now Change Colors Like a Chameleon
A new system uses reprogrammable ink to allow objects to change colors when exposed to ultraviolet (UV) and visible light sources.
From ACM TechNews
Computer Model Turns Text Into Animation
Scientists have developed a computer model that can directly render text describing physical movements as computer-generated animation, an initial step toward creating movies directly from scripts.
From ACM TechNews
Realistic Robots Provide Clues to Lizard Interaction
Researchers have developed an interactive robot that responds to the immediate actions of live lava lizards on the Galapagos Islands.
From ACM TechNews
AIs That Deblur Faces Could Make People on CCTV Easier to Identify
A new artificial intelligence system can automatically deblur photographs of people's faces.
From ACM TechNews
Scientists Find the Skull of Humanity's Ancestor, on a Computer
Researchers reconstructed a virtual skull of the last common human ancestor using computerized-tomography scans of 260 modern-day skulls from various populations, and 100,000-year-old skulls from Israel.
From ACM TechNews
States Boost Computer Science Education Efforts
A new study found that only 45% of U.S. high schools offer classes in computer science, and that girls and minorities are underrepresented in those classes.
From ACM News
Making AI Systems Fairer Will Require Time, Guidelines
Director Christoph Lütge on the new Institute for Ethics in Artificial Intelligence at the Technical University of Munich.
From ACM TechNews
The Next Hot Job: Pretending to Be a Robot
Many robotic systems are not fully autonomous and require, at the very least, humans monitoring them from afar.
From ACM TechNews
How a Zebrafish Model May Hold a Key to Biology
Harvard University reseaerchers used open-source software tools to build a neural network with an architecture different from that of a zebrafish brain, for comparison purposes.
From ACM TechNews
Avast, French Police Take Over Malware Botnet, Disinfect 850,000 Computers
Antivirus maker Avast and the French National Police neutralized the back-end infrastructure of a malware botnet.
From ACM News
COBOL Turns 60: Why It Will Outlive Us All
In the beginning, there was machine languages and assembler. Neither was easy to use, but then along came COBOL, and everything changed.
From ACM TechNews
The Top Programming Languages 2019
IEEE Spectrum's 2019 roster of leading programming languages once again ranks Python in the top slot.
From ACM TechNews
Get Ready for More Humanlike Bots, Better Deep-Fake Videos, Wall-to-Wall Disinformation in 2020 Race
Two new studies anticipate that foreign and domestic actors will ramp up efforts to disseminate disinformation and fake news in order to manipulate voters in the 2020 election.
From ACM TechNews
Why Mastercard Is Betting on Middle School Girls to Detect Cyberthreats
Mastercard's Girls4Tech program aims to inspire middle school girls worldwide to pursue careers in cybersecurity and artificial intelligence, with the goal of recruiting 1 million girls by 2025.
From ACM TechNews
Schools Pushed for Tech in Every Classroom. Now Parents Are Pushing Back.
U.S. schools have made huge technology investments in the last 10 years, but now parents and educators question whether the effect of technology on education has been beneficial.
From ACM TechNews
Robot Pilot That Can Grab the Controls Gets Its License
The ROBOpilot Unmanned Aircraft Conversion System passed the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) Practical Test for piloting light aircraft and completed its first flight on August 9.
From ACM TechNews
One in Five U.K. Schools Says Students Have Broken Into Computer Systems
A cybersecurity audit found 21% of 430 U.K. schools had their computers, networks, or servers hacked by students.
From ACM News
Coming Soon to a Battlefield: Robots That Can Kill
Tomorrow's wars will be faster, more high-tech, and less human than ever before. Welcome to a new era of machine-driven warfare.
From ACM News
Google Wants to Help Tech Companies Know Less About You
By releasing its homegrown differential privacy tool, Google will make it easier for any company to boost its privacy bona fides.
From ACM TechNews
Amazon Tests Tool That Scans Your Hand to Let You Pay at Whole Foods
Amazon is reportedly testing a hand-scanning payments system to enable shoppers to pay for groceries at Whole Foods markets.
From ACM TechNews
How America's First Digitally Operated Reactor Could Push Nuclear Technology Forward
The Purdue University Reactor Number One nuclear plant has switched over from analog to all-digital operation as a testbed for the technology.
From ACM TechNews
MIT's Fleet of Autonomous Boats Can Now Shapeshift
Scientists have upgraded a fleet of autonomous boats to autonomously disconnect and reassemble into different forms of floating platforms, in the canals of Amsterdam.
From ACM TechNews
An AI First: Voice-Mimicking Software Reportedly Used in a Major Theft
A French insurance company said one of its clients had been victimized by thieves using voice-mimicking software to imitate a company executive and dupe an employee into sending money to a secret account.
From ACM TechNews
British Farm Moo-ves into New Tech with 5G Collars on Cows
Researchers at the Agricultural Engineering Precision Innovation Center in the U.K. are testing next-generation 5G mobile technology aimed at helping make dairy farming more efficient.
From ACM News
Sally Floyd, Who Helped Things Run Smoothly Online, Dies at 69
In the early 1990s, Floyd was one of the inventors of Random Early Detection, which continues to play a vital role in the stability of the internet.