Communications of the ACM
The news archive provides access to past news stories from Communications of the ACM and other sources by date.
November 2017
From ACM News
4 Strange New Ways to Compute
With Moore's Law slowing, engineers have been taking a cold hard look at what will keep computing going when it's gone.
From ACM News
The Genesis of Kuri, the Friendly Home Robot
Over the course of thousands of years, dogs have evolved alongside humans to be awesome.
From ACM TechNews
Hades Creates Alternate Reality to Mislead Hackers
Researchers at Sandia National Laboratories have developed an alternative reality that tells hackers what they want to believe.
From ACM TechNews
Scientists Release a How-To For Building a Smartphone Microscope
Researchers have released an open source dataset offering instructions to anyone interested in building their own smartphone microscope.
From ACM TechNews
Computer Modeling Offers Insight Into What Causes Sudden Cardiac Death
A new computer model replicates the biological activity within the heart that precedes sudden cardiac death.
From ACM TechNews
Microwave-Based Test Method Can Help Keep 3D Chip Designers' Eyes Open
Researchers at the U.S. National Institute of Standards and Technology have developed a new way to test multilayered, three-dimensional computer chips.
From ACM News
A Taste of the Virtual
Consumers are sampling virtual reality systems and software, without needing to buy them.
From ACM News
'alien' Dna Makes Proteins in Living Cells For the First Time
Life has spent the past few billion years working with a narrow vocabulary. Now researchers have broken those rules, adding extra letters to biology's limited lexicon.
From ACM News
Nasa Builds Its Next Mars Rover Mission
In just a few years, NASA's next Mars rover mission will be flying to the Red Planet.
From ACM TechNews
Beetle With Tiny Computer Backpack Is World's Smallest Cyborg Insect
Researchers in Singapore have developed the world's smallest cyborg insect, which they can control to move in four directions at the click of a button.
From ACM TechNews
Three Quarters of Android Apps Track sers With Third Party Tools
More than 75% of Android applications contain at least one third-party tracking tool.
From ACM TechNews
Artificial Muscles Give Soft Robots Superpowers
Researchers have developed origami-inspired muscles that strengthen soft robots, enabling them to lift objects up to 1,000 times their own weight using air or water pressure.
From ACM TechNews
Pipefish Robot Patrols City Pipes to Detect nderground Water Leaks
PipeFish is an autonomous robot that can quickly and inexpensively detect damage in municipal water pipes.
From ACM TechNews
Cracking Genomic Codes With the Cloud
A team at Australia's Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organization has developed a machine-learning library that analyzes genomic data in real time.
From ACM TechNews
Artificial Intelligence Goes Bilingual--Without a Dictionary
Researchers in Spain and Facebook have separately developed unsupervised machine-learning techniques for teaching neural networks to translate between languages with no parallel texts.
From ACM News
Can Police Track You Through Your Cellphone Without a Warrant?
The U.S. Supreme Court confronts the digital age again on Wednesday when it hears oral arguments in a case that promises to have major repercussions for law enforcement and personal privacy.
From ACM Opinion
How an nderwater Sensor Network Is Tracking Argentina's Lost Submarine
On 15 November, Argentina's Navy lost contact with the ARA San Juan, a small diesel-powered submarine that had been involved in exercises off the east coast of Patagonia.
From ACM News
To Build the World's Smallest Atomic Clock, Trap a Nitrogen Atom in a Carbon Cage
For Fridtjof Nansen, 13 April 1895 started well.
From ACM TechNews
Google's AI Can Now Spot Shoulder-Surfers Peeking at Your Screen
Google researchers have developed an "electronic screen protector" application that can immediately spot people glancing at a user's handheld screen.
From ACM TechNews
nl Researchers Explore the Complexities, Dangers of Deep Learning
Researchers at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln are on the cutting edge of machine-learning development.
From ACM TechNews
Lawrence Livermore's Newest and Fastest Supercomputer Is Taking Shape
Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory's Livermore Computing Complex will be the home of the lab's newest high-performance supercomputer, scheduled for acceptance in fiscal 2018.
From ACM News
Battling AI Biases
Machine learning mimics human biases; addressing the problem is complicated.
From ACM News
AI-Controlled Brain Implants For Mood Disorders Tested in People
Brain implants that deliver electrical pulses tuned to a person's feelings and behaviour are being tested in people for the first time. Two teams funded by the US military's research arm, the Defense Advanced Research Projects…
From ACM News
How the Pentagon Is Preparing For the Coming Drone Wars
More than a decade after the improvised explosive device became the scourge of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, the Pentagon is battling another relatively rudimentary device that threatens to wreak havoc on American troops:…
From ACM TechNews
This AI Can Spot Art Forgeries By Looking at One Brushstroke
Researchers have developed an artificial intelligence system that can identify an art forgery by examining the piece's brush strokes.
From ACM TechNews
niversities Band Together to Protect Scotland From Cyberattacks
The Scottish Informatics and Computer Science Alliance has launched a project aiming to make Scotland a world leader in cybersecurity and cyber resilience.
From ACM TechNews
tc Students' Research Project Controls Drones sing Brainwaves
Researchers are developing a system in which a person can control multiple drones by thought alone.
From ACM TechNews
South Korea Developing AI System to Keep Journalism Alive
Researchers in South Korea are developing an artificial intelligence system to help the journalism industry regain the public trust and recoup lost earnings.
From ACM TechNews
Scientists Have Built a 'hallucination Machine' For a Drug-Free Brain Trip
Researchers say they can replicate hallucinatory experiences by combining virtual reality technology and Google's Deep Dream neural network system into a "Hallucination Machine."
From ACM TechNews
Driverless Cars Promise Far Greater Mobility For the Elderly and People With Disabilities
Autonomous vehicles stand to benefit mobility-challenged seniors and other people with physical, cognitive, and mental disabilities.