Communications of the ACM
The news archive provides access to past news stories from Communications of the ACM and other sources by date.
December 2019
From ACM TechNews
Russia Announces 'Successful Test' of Its Unplugged Internet
Russia's Ministry of Communications announced a successful test of a nationwide alternative to the Internet and claimed ordinary users did not detect any changes.
From ACM TechNews
Scientists Demo Chip-to-Chip Quantum Teleportation in Silicon
Scientists at the University of Bristol and the Technical University of Denmark have developed chip-scale devices that are able to harness the applications of quantum physics by generating and manipulating single light particles…
From ACM TechNews
Apple Opens Public Bug Bounty Program, Publishes Rules
Apple has formally opened its bug bounty program to all researchers and outlined the program's rules on its website. The maximum available bounty is $1.5 million.
From ACM News
Israeli Government To Allocate $350 Million For Quantum Computing
Israel is entering the international quantum arms race, allocating approximately $350 million in an initiative to be a key quantum player over the next decade.
From ACM News
How Classroom Technology Is Holding Students Back
Data shows that education technology in the United States has a negative impact at a range of grade levels.
From ACM News
India to Build 11 New Supercomputers With Indigenous Processors
India's government has approved the building and installation of 11 new supercomputers at research institutes across the country based on indigenously developed processors.
From ACM News
Colleges Are Turning Students' Phones Into Surveillance Machines
Dozens of colleges across the United States are using short-range phone sensors and campuswide Wi-Fi networks to monitor students' academic performance, analyze their conduct, or assess their mental health.
From ACM News
Lasers Learn to Accurately Spot Space Junk
Chinese researchers have developed a set of algorithms that significantly improves the accuracy of detecting space junk in earth's orbit.
From ACM News
Apple Has Secret Team Working on Satellites to Beam Data to Devices
Apple Inc. has a secret team working on satellite technology that the iPhone maker could use to beam Internet services directly to devices, bypassing wireless networks, according to people familiar with the work.
From ACM News
Facebook Is Building An Operating System So It Can Ditch Android
Facebook is building an operating system from scratch so that its hardware is not at the mercy of Google and the Android operating system.
From ACM News
Video Games Are Causing a National Crisis in South Korea
The World Health Organization's decision in May 2019 to add "gaming disorder" to its official catalog of illnesses has been called a vindication by some, though others claim there is no evidence video games are inherently addictive…
From ACM TechNews
New Study Shows Just How Bad Vehicle Hacking Has Gotten
A report from Israeli security firm Upstream paints a grim picture of the state of vehicular cybersecurity.
From ACM TechNews
Password Meters Could Increase Risk of Cyberattack
A study evaluating 16 popular password meters found these tools offer "inconsistent and misleading" advice that could elevate the risk of cyberattack.
From ACM TechNews
Trump Picks Computer Scientist to Lead NSF
U.S. President Donald Trump nominated computer scientist and Arizona State University vice president Sethuraman Panchanathan to be director of the U.S. National Science Foundation.
From ACM TechNews
Apple, Google, Amazon Decide to 'Play Nice' Over Smart Home Tech
Apple, Google, and Amazon are partnering to improve smart home technology.
From ACM TechNews
Many Facial Recognition Systems Are Biased, Says U.S. Study
A study found most commercial facial recognition algorithms are biased, and falsely identify African-American and Asian faces 10 to 100 times more frequently than Caucasian faces.
From ACM TechNews
Tool Uses AI to Flag Fake News for Media Fact-Checkers
Researchers have developed an artificial intelligence tool that could help social media networks and news organizations screen out fake news.
From ACM News
Don’t Trust AI Until We Build Systems That Earn Trust
Progress in artificial intelligence belies a lack of transparency that is vital for its adoption, says Gary Marcus, coauthor of "Rebooting AI"
From ACM TechNews
Neural Network for Elderly Care Could Save Millions
Researchers have developed a risk adjustment model to predict how frenquently elderly people will seek treatment from a healthcare center or hospital.
From ACM TechNews
Princeton Researchers Listen In on the Chemical Conversation of the Human Microbiome
New computer algorithms that can detect biosynthetic gene clusters by analyzing and interpreting metagenomic sequencing data from the tissues or excretions of human subjects.
From ACM TechNews
City Incentivizes Car 'Connected' Technology for Study
The Columbus, OH, City Council approved a program that will ask 1,300 residents to equip their vehicles with "connected" technology that allows them to communicate with each other and with traffic signals.
From ACM TechNews
AI-Driven Robots Are Improving Solar Cells, Other Technologies
A new single-armed robotic system is equipped with an artificial intelligence algorithm, in order to perform materials science design tests.
From ACM News
Recognizing Kin
Researchers are using convolutional neural networks pre-trained on faces from the largest visual database of families to date, to identify people's relatives.
From ACM TechNews
Finland to Teach 5 Million Europeans the Basics of AI
Finland plans to teach 1% of the European Union population (more than 5 million people) basic artificial intelligence (AI) skills via a free online course.
From ACM TechNews
First 3D-Printed Neighborhood Being Built in Mexico
Social housing nonprofit New Story is using a giant three-dimensional (3D) printer to create the world’s first 3D-printed neighborhood in a rural section of Tabasco, Mexico.
From ACM TechNews
Santa Claus Visits are Going Digital, from 'Elfies' to Augmented Reality
Macerich, one of the largest mall operators in the U.S., is offering "Santa HQ 5.0" at 15 of its malls across the country.
From ACM TechNews
Twitter, Facebook Want to Shift Power to Users. Or Do They?
Major Internet companies have come to see bitcoin technology as a potential solution to many challenges.
From ACM TechNews
A Self-Driving Truck Delivered Butter from California to Pennsylvania in Three Days
Startup Plus.ai has completed the first commercial freight cross-country trip by an autonomous truck.
From ACM TechNews
Researchers Reconstruct Spoken Words as Processed in Nonhuman Primate Brains
Researchers used a brain-computer interface to reconstruct English words from neural signals recorded in the brains of rhesus macaque monkeys.
From ACM News
Washington Must Bet Big on AI or Lose Its Global Clout
A new report says $25 billion—and a more welcoming attitude toward foreign talent—is needed to keep the U.S. in the technology race with China.