Communications of the ACM
The news archive provides access to past news stories from Communications of the ACM and other sources by date.
December 2014
From ACM News
Dawn Spacecraft Begins Approach to Dwarf Planet Ceres
NASA's Dawn spacecraft has entered an approach phase in which it will continue to close in on Ceres, a Texas-sized dwarf planet never before visited by a spacecraft. Dawn launched in 2007 and is scheduled to enter Ceres orbit…
From ACM News
Our Brains Are Being 'continuously Reshaped' By Smartphone se
Extensive use of smartphone touchscreens is changing the sensory relationship between our brains and our thumbs, a study published in Current Biology has revealed.
From ACM News
The Scoreboards Where You Can't See Your Score
The characters in Gary Shteyngart's novel "Super Sad True Love Story" inhabit a continuously surveilled and scored society.
From ACM News
Mars Rover Opportunity Suffers Worrying Bouts of 'amnesia'
Mars Exploration Rover Opportunity has been exploring the Martian surface for over a decade, an amazing 10 years longer than the 3-month primary mission it began in January 2004.
From ACM News
2014 in Computing: Breakthroughs in Artificial Intelligence
The holy grail of artificial intelligence—creating software that comes close to mimicking human intelligence—remains far off. But 2014 saw major strides in machine learning software that can gain abilities from experience.
From ACM News
This Year's 8 Smartest i Design Ideas
When your family gathered for the holidays this year, did you take note of the technology everyone was using?
From ACM News
The Search For Et: How Close Are We?
In 1950, Nobel prizewinning physicist Enrico Fermi posed his famous paradox: if extraterrestrial intelligence exists, why haven't we found it?
From ACM TechNews
One Day, Robots May Work in Zones Too Dangerous For Humans
Teams of roboticists from around the world will be competing in the DARPA Robotics Challenge next year, seeking a $2 million prize for advancements that one day could yield robots capable of carrying out rescue and recovery activities…
From ACM TechNews
Stanford Computer Scientists Extend Web Browsers to Make the Internet Safer
Stanford University researchers have added a security system called COWL to Firefox and Chrome to manage how data is shared, which prevents malicious computer code from leaking sensitive information.
From ACM TechNews
Santa (well, Santa Tracker) Helps Google Test Its Dev Tools
Google again this year enabled kids of all ages to use its Santa Tracker website and app to follow St. Nick and his elves as they deliver presents around the world. Google also uses the software to test other development tools…
From ACM TechNews
Spider's Web Weaves Way to Advanced Networks and Displays
The structures of spider webs and leaves could serve as a design model for next-generation light-manipulating networks, according to researchers at Boston College and South China Normal University.
From ACM TechNews
Big Data May Be Fashion Industry's Next Must-Have Accessory
Pennsylvania State University researchers have used data analytics to identify a network of influence among major fashion designers and track how style trends move through the industry.
From ACM News
A Common Logic to Seeing Cats and Cosmos
When in 2012 a computer learned to recognize cats in YouTube videos and just last month another correctly captioned a photo of "a group of young people playing a game of Frisbee," artificial intelligence researchers hailed yet…
From ACM Opinion
A Q&a With the Hackers Who Say They Helped Break Into Sony's Network
Lizard Squad. That's the hacker group whose name is suddenly on everyone's lips after it took credit for ruining Christmas for PlayStation and Xbox gamers everywhere.
From ACM News
Google Lunar Xprize: Astrobotic's Rover Rakes in $750,000
It's been a little while since we checked in with Team Astrobotic.It's been a little while since we checked in with Team Astrobotic.
From ACM News
How To Change Your Past
"Too late" might be the two most tragic words in English, but what if you could rewind the clock?
From ACM Opinion
Are These the Five Craziest Space Missions?
The landing of the Philae Lander—on a comet travelling at 135,000km/h (84,000mph)—has been hailed as the start of a new chapter in space exploration.
From ACM TechNews
New Discovery Opens Door For Radical Reduction in Energy Consumed By Digital Devices
University of California, Berkeley researchers say they have made the first direct observation of a phenomenon known as "negative capacitance."
From ACM TechNews
6 Technologies that Will Change Pcs in 2015
Six disruptive technologies could change the face of computing in 2015.
From ACM TechNews
Bots Now Outnumber Humans on the Web
Automated code or bots currently account for 56 percent of all of website visits, and a recent analysis of 20,000 websites found bot traffic can run as high as 80 percent.
From ACM News
Downing North Korea's Internet Not Much of a Scalp
If someone did just knock North Korea off the Internet for half a day, it wouldn't have taken much.
From ACM News
Sun Sizzles in High-Energy X-Rays
For the first time, a mission designed to set its eyes on black holes and other objects far from our solar system has turned its gaze back closer to home, capturing images of our sun.
From ACM News
The 12 Missions of Christmas
In July 1965, Mariner 4 became the first space probe to send back pictures of another world from space. Fifty years on, not only do several spacecraft orbit the same red planet, but there are also two active rovers on the Martian…
From ACM TechNews
6 Aging Protocols That Could Cripple the Internet
The biggest threat to the Internet is that it evolved over time with various protocols, very few of which were designed with security in mind.
From ACM TechNews
Switching to Spintronics
Researchers have successfully used an electric field to reverse the magnetization direction in a multiferroic spintronic device at room temperature.
From ACM TechNews
First Steps For Hector the Robot Stick Insect
Bielefeld University researchers have developed Hector, a robot based on a stick insect that has passive elastic joints and an ultralight exoskeleton.
From ACM TechNews
In One Aspect of Vision, Computers Catch p to Primate Brain
Massachusetts Institute of Technology researchers have found the most recent version of deep neural networks match the primate brain.
From ACM TechNews
Google Seeks Partners For Self-Driving Car
Google is seeking auto industry partners in its efforts to produce a fully autonomous car.
From ACM News
What Does a Cyber Counterattack Look Like?
President Barack Obama promised at his year-end news conference Friday that the U.S. will respond "proportionally" to North Korea's cyberattack against Sony Pictures Entertainment, but the conventional options available to him…
From ACM Careers
The Anti-Plagiarism Machine
Every day, researchers add hundreds of new papers to ArXiv, the massive public database of scientific writing and research.