Communications of the ACM
The news archive provides access to past news stories from Communications of the ACM and other sources by date.
January 2010
From ACM News
Supercomputer Breakthrough Allows Astronomers to Share niverse Simulations
Supercomputing has helped astrophysicists create massive models of the universe, but such simulations remain out of reach for many in the United States and around the world. That could all change after a successful test allowed…
From ACM News
Computing Pioneer Herbert Grosch, Dead at 91
Herbert R.J. Grosch, a computing pioneer who served as ACM president from 1976-1978, died on January 18 at the age of 91.
From ACM TechNews
Nsf Earmarks $30m For Game-Changing Internet Research
The U.S. National Science Foundation (NSF) will award $30 million across two to four projects to redesign the Internet via new security, reliability, and collaborative applications, under the aegis of its Future Internet Architectures…
From ACM TechNews
Nasa to Boost Speed of Deep Space Communications
The U.S. National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) wants to combine three space-based communication networks into a much faster, more efficient data network.
From ACM TechNews
Female Teachers Can Transfer Fear of Math and ndermine Girls' Math Performance
University of Chicago researchers have found that female elementary school teachers can pass on their anxiety and stereotypes about math to female students.
From ACM TechNews
Major Step Towards Low-Power All-Optical Switching For Optical Communications
A key breakthrough involving optical random access memory has been achieved by Interuniversity Microelectronics Center (IMEC) and Ghent University. Researchers have created a super-fast and small optical random access memory…
From ACM TechNews
How Crowdsourcing Is Helping in Haiti
The revolution in texting, social networking, and crowdsourcing has enabled innovations such as the 4636 texting service, which is aiding the disaster relief efforts in Haiti by recruiting scores of volunteers to help translate…
From ACM TechNews
No Catastrophes Please, It's Software Modeling
Thales Research and Technology (TRT) researchers have created a development platform that enables applications to tackle the increasing complexity of modern computer systems. Model driven engineering is emerging as the most…
From ACM TechNews
Researchers Criticize 3D Secure Credit Card Authentication
University of Cambridge Computer Laboratory researchers Steven J. Murdoch and Ross Anderson contend in a paper that the 3D Secure credit card authentication system branded as the MasterCard SecureCode and Verified by Visa schemes…
From ACM News
Engineering Team Explores How Thoughts Can Operate Computers and More
On any given day, John LaRocco can be found in front of a computer in a lab in the College of Engineering at Rowan University, electrodes poking out from the black Lycra-like cap that covers his head, Velcroed securely under…
From ACM News
The Web Way to Learn a Language
The young woman seated next to us at the sushi bar exuded a vaguely exotic air; her looks and style, we thought, made it likely that she was not American born.
But then she spoke in perfect American English, even ending her …From ACM News
Eff Reveals How Your Digital Fingerprint Makes You Easy to Track
Think that turning off cookies and turning on private browsing makes you invisible on the web? Think again.
The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) has launched a new web app dubbed Panopticlick that reveals just how scarily…From ACM TechNews
It Skills Volatility Stabilizing, Report Finds
Volatility in market values for information technology (IT) skills is stabilizing, despite remaining high over the past few months, Foote Partners reports. Volatility values for individual IT skills and certifications remained…
From ACM TechNews
Tim Berners-Lee nveils Government Data Project
Sir Tim Berners-Lee has unveiled a new venture for the U.K. government, a Web site at http://data.gov.uk designed to provide the public with better access to official data, ranging from traffic statistics to crime figures, for…
From ACM TechNews
Computers Do Better Than Humans at Measuring Some Radiology Images
Ohio State University researchers have developed software that can analyze images of knee ligaments much faster and just as reliably as humans.
From ACM News
Innovative Technique Can Spot Errors in Key Technological Systems
An innovative computational technique that draws on statistics, imaging, and other disciplines has the capability to detect errors in sensitive technological systems ranging from satellites to weather instruments. The patented…
From ACM News
Quantum Computer Simulates Hydrogen Molecule Just Right
Almost three decades ago, Richard Feynman — known popularly as much for his bongo drumming and pranks as for his brilliant insights into physics — told an electrified audience at MIT how to build a computer so powerful that its…
From ACM News
Networking Formula Could Predict Research Success
A Texas Tech University economist Miaomiao Wang has found that a fairly simple networking formula could increase the odds that policymakers will fund dynamic and productive research partnerships.
From ACM News
Report Reveals Critical Infrastructure nder Constant Cyber Attack
The staggering cost and impact of cyber attacks on critical infrastructure such as electrical grids, oil and gas production, telecommunications and transportation networksis revealed in a report released Thursday (January 28)…
From ACM News
As Devices Pull More Data, Patience May Be Required
Could Apple's new iPad end up being too much of a good thing? Steven P. Jobs, Apple's chief executive, played up the iPad's ability to stream live baseball games and hit movies during his demonstration Wednesday. But people willing…
From ACM News
Forty Students Named Finalists in the Intel Science Talent Search 2010
Forty high school seniors from across the United States were named finalists in the Intel Science Talent Search 2010, a program of Society for Science & the Public. Finalists will gather in Washington, D.C. in March to compete…
From ACM TechNews
China Set For Global Lead in Scientific Research
China has demonstrated the most growth in scientific research of any country in the past three decades and is on pace to overtake the United States as the world's scientific leader by 2020, according to a recent Thomson Reuters…
From ACM TechNews
Safety in Numbers: A Cloud-Based Immune System For Computers
Researchers at Switzerland's Ecole Polytechnique Federale de Lausanne (EPFL) have incorporated cloud computing technology into Dimmunix, a new tool designed to make programs immune to future recurrences of bugs.
From ACM TechNews
Colleges Look For New Ways to Help Women in Science
Colleges have developed programs to support women in science and engineering through the use of federal grants such as those offered under the U.S. National Science Foundation's Advance program. Advance offers "institutional…
From ACM TechNews
To Beat Spam, Turn Its Own Weapons Against It
Researchers from the International Computer Science Institute and the University of California, San Diego have developed a method for blocking the most common type of spam. The researchers used a trick that spammers employ to…
From ACM TechNews
Estonians Put Roboswarm Technology to the Test
A swarm robot demonstrator has been successfully tested by a European collaboration that brought together nine research and industry partners from seven countries. Part of the ROBOSWARM project, the demonstrator consisted of…
From ACM TechNews
Computer Mimics Nature By sing Tv
University of Bath researchers led by professor Peter Hall and Ph.D. candidate Chris Li have developed software that enables a computer to process video of a tree and then generate lifelike computer animations of trees and the…
From ACM TechNews
World Wide Web May Split p Into Several Separate Networks
The recent dispute between the Chinese government and Google, and the latter's subsequent threat to leave China, has some analysts worried that the World Wide Web may fracture into several regional fiefdoms.
From ACM News
Apple Wins Patent For "proximity Sensing" Multi-Touch Display
Apple has been granted a patent for a multi-touch display that can sense when and where a finger is near the screen. The patent was one of 13 granted to Apple, and revealed on the eve of Wednesday's expected announcement of a…
From ACM News
Supercomputer Center Pursuing Hpc-Based Radiation Therapy
Researchers from the San Diego Supercomputer Center at UC San Diego have joined forces with the Department of Radiation Oncology in the university's School of Medicine, its Department of Mathematics, and the Lawrence Livermore…