Communications of the ACM
The news archive provides access to past news stories from Communications of the ACM and other sources by date.
October 2012
From ACM News
The 'copycat' War: Iran Strikes Back
The growing evidence that Iran was behind a number of recent cyber attacks against Western and Arab institutions has raised concerns in many quarters about how the Islamic Republic may employ its cyberwarfare capabilities in…
From ACM News
.s. Looks to Replace Human Surveillance with Computers
Computer software programmed to detect and report illicit behavior could eventually replace the fallible humans who monitor surveillance cameras.
From ACM News
A Spy-Gear Arms Race Transforms Modern Divorce
Danny Lee Hormann suspected his wife was having an affair.
From ACM TechNews
Automated Meter Reading Systems Make Life Easy For Intruders
Millions of analog meters that measure water, gas, and electricity consumption have been replaced by automated meter reading systems.
From ACM TechNews
World’s Top Supercomputer Simulates the Human Heart
LLNL researchers say they used Sequoia, currently ranked as the world's most powerful supercomputer, to develop the fastest computer simulation of the human heart.
From ACM TechNews
Researchers Launch Innovative, Hands-on Online Tool For Science Education
Two computer science graduate students have developed an online tool designed to teach science by requiring students to complete increasingly difficult problems at their own pace.
From ACM TechNews
In the Heart of Afghanistan, Entrepreneurs Innovate For Peace
Afghanistan's growing technology industry could be a way to help boost the economy and maintain peace, says INEX IT administrator Mahdi Rezaei, who recently established an ACM chapter in Kabul.
From ACM TechNews
Study Reveals Impact of Public Dns Services; Researchers Develop Tool to Help
Northwestern University researchers have found that public Domain Name System services could slow down users' Internet connections, and have developed namehelp, a solution that could speed up Web performance by as much as 40…
From ACM Opinion
The Consequences of Machine Intelligence
The question of what happens when machines get to be as intelligent as and even more intelligent than people seems to occupy many science-fiction writers.
From ACM Opinion
Rapture of the Nerds: Will the Singularity Turn S Into Gods or End the Human Race?
Hundreds of the world’s brightest minds—engineers from Google and IBM, hedge funds quants, and Defense Department contractors building artificial intelligence—were gathered in rapt attention inside the auditorium of the San Francisco…
From ACM News
Robots Get Around By Mimicking Primates
Give a friend directions, such as, "it's across the street from a petrol station, just after a red brick building on the right..." and you can be pretty sure they'll find what they are looking for. Robots, on the other hand,…
From ACM News
Nasa's Spitzer Sees Light of Lonesome Stars
A new study using data from NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope suggests a cause for the mysterious glow of infrared light seen across the entire sky.
From ACM TechNews
New Finding Could Pave Way to Faster, Smaller Electronics
University of California, Davis researchers are using a new technique to investigate the magnetic properties of gallium manganese arsenide, a type of dilute magnetic semiconductor that could lead to a new class of faster, smaller…
From ACM TechNews
Quantum Computing With Recycled Particles
A new demonstration by researchers at the University of Bristol shows how it is possible to recycle the particles inside a quantum computer, so that quantum factoring can be achieved with only one third of the particles normally…
From ACM TechNews
ahuntsville Students Hope Glove Keyboard Will Revolutionize se of Devices With One Hand
University of Alabama Huntsville engineering students have developed the generally accessible universal nomadic tactile low-power electronic typist keyboard, a glove-based device that functions as a wireless keyboard.
From ACM TechNews
S Gov't Agencies Embrace Collaborative Software Development
Several U.S. federal agencies are embracing the collaborative model of open source software development and are releasing code back to the general public.
From ACM Opinion
Cybercrime: Mobile Changes Everything—and No One's Safe
The FBI recently put out a mobile malware alert, providing us with a sobering reminder of this "evil software" for phones and tablets.
From ACM News
The End For Keyboards and Mice?
Apple's iPhone and its rivals may have introduced touchscreens to the masses, but now a raft of technologies promise to change the way we interact with computers forever.
From ACM News
Gps-Free Tech Can Track Miners' and Soldiers' Boots nderground
A mining crew is trapped deep underground after a cave-in. Firefighters run into a smoke-spewing high-rise to battle a violent blaze. A team of soldiers breaches a door and storms into a dark building.
From ACM News
Google's Street View Goes Into the Wild
Google's Street View maps are headed into the backcountry. Earlier this week, two teams from Google strapped on sophisticated backpacks jammed with cameras, gyroscopes and other gadgets, and descended to the bottom of the Grand…
From ACM TechNews
Federal Budget Limits Affect Scientific Conferences
The Obama administration recently imposed new guidelines that limit the amount of money federal agencies can spend on regional conferences. However, several science and technology organizations say the federal budget limits…
From ACM News
In Mobile World, Tech Giants Scramble to Get p to Speed
Intel made its fortune on the chips that power personal computers, and Microsoft on the software that goes inside. Google’s secret sauce is that it finds what you are looking for on the Internet.
From ACM TechNews
Faster Chips 'cut Cloud-Computing Bills'
Researchers at Deutsch Telekom Laboratories and Aalto University have found that customers of Amazon's EC2 cloud service do not receive the same level of performance.
From ACM TechNews
A Bandwidth Breakthrough
Academic researchers have developed coded Transmission Control Protocol, a method for improving wireless bandwidth by one order of magnitude that involves using algebra to overcome the network-clogging task of resending dropped…
From ACM TechNews
Intel Strives to Develop Tiny Chips to Run Wearable Computers
Intel researchers are developing tiny microprocessors that would power wearable computers.
From ACM TechNews
Fighting Cybercrime, Making the Future More Secure
The European Commission plans to publish a European cybersecurity strategy focusing on preparedness, prevention, and response, as well as a permanent Computer Emergency Response Team.
From ACM News
Google and Microsoft nder Threat from the March of the Mobiles
We're used to the idea of "peak oil"—that there's only a finite amount of that stuff in the ground. What's the equivalent in the computing field?
From ACM News
Virtues of the Virtual Autopsy
Once a common medical procedure, the standard autopsy is passing out of use.
From ACM News
Microsoft's Plan to Bring About the Era of Gesture Control
While most of the headlines about Microsoft this fall will concern its new operating system, Windows 8, and its new Surface tablet, the company is also working hard on a long-term effort to reinvent the way we interact with existing…
From ACM News
'live-Fire' Cyberwar-In-A-Box Tests Mettle of Military, It Pros
In August, a collection of military, government, and nongovernmental humanitarian organizations from 22 countries in the Pacific gathered in Singapore for Pacific Endeavor 2012, a joint exercise to test how quickly and how well…