Communications of the ACM
The news archive provides access to past news stories from Communications of the ACM and other sources by date.
February 2016
From ACM News
Pentagon Starts Aggressive Cyberwar Against Is
Not long after Defense Secretary Ash Carter prodded his cyber commanders to be more aggressive in the fight against Islamic State, the U.S. ramped up its offensive cyberattacks on the militant group.
From ACM News
Opportunity Mars Rover Goes Six-Wheeling up a Ridge
NASA's senior Mars rover, Opportunity, is working adeptly in some of the most challenging terrain of the vehicle's 12 years on Mars, on a slope of about 30 degrees.
From ACM TechNews
Automatic Programming Makes Swarm Robots Safer and More Reliable
An automated programming method previously used in manufacturing could make swarm robots more user-friendly and more reliable.
From ACM TechNews
Computers Can Tell If You're Bored, Shows New Bsms Study
University of Sussex researchers have found computers can read a user's body language to tell whether they are bored or interested in what is on the screen.
From ACM TechNews
Internet2 at 20: Alive and Kicking
Nearly two decades since its launch, Internet2 continues to run on U.S. university campuses.
From ACM TechNews
Building Living, Breathing Supercomputers
McGill University researchers says the substance that provides energy to human cells also could be used to power the next generation of supercomputers.
From ACM TechNews
Research Meets Light Art in This Microsoft Installation
An installation at Microsoft's headquarters uses an open source software development kit to transform a room into a space of audiovisual elements to stimulate the senses.
From ACM News
Exoplanet Census Suggests Earth Is Special After All
More than 400 years ago Renaissance scientist Nicolaus Copernicus reduced us to near nothingness by showing that our planet is not the center of the solar system.
From ACM News
The Promise of Artificial Intelligence nfolds in Small Steps
Venture capital investors poured $8.5 billion into artificial intelligence start-ups last year.
From ACM News
Report Cites Dangers of Autonomous Weapons
The report warns about a range of real-world risks associated with weapons systems that are completely autonomous.
From ACM News
Wesley A. Clark, Made Computing Personal, Dies at 88
Clark’s computer designs built a bridge from the era of mainframe systems to personal computers.
From ACM News
The Frozen Canyons of Pluto's North Pole
This ethereal scene captured by NASA's New Horizons spacecraft tells yet another story of Pluto's diversity of geological and compositional features—this time in an enhanced color image of the north polar area.
From ACM News
Google nveils Neural Network with 'superhuman' Ability to Determine the Location of Almost Any Image
Here's a tricky task. Pick a photograph from the Web at random. Now try to work out where it was taken using only the image itself.
From ACM News
Facebook Is Making a Map of Everyone in the World
Americans inhabit an intricately mapped world.
From ACM TechNews
Will the Nsa Finally Build Its Superconducting Spy Computer?
The U.S. National Security Agency vision of a superconducting supercomputer may leap forward with the Cryogenic Computing Complexity program.
From ACM TechNews
Chameleon Adapts to Secure the Cloud
A minority-led group of researchers is looking to the U.S. National Science Foundation-funded Chameleon cloud platform as a tool for developing cyberattack prevention.
From ACM TechNews
A New Algorithm From MIT Could Protect Ships From 'rogue Waves' at Sea
Massachusetts Institute of Technology researchers have developed a predictive tool that could give ships a two- to three-minute advance warning of approaching rogue waves.
From ACM TechNews
IBM Watson Machine Learns the Art of Writing a Good Headline
The latest milestone for IBM researchers in their development of the Watson platform is the creation of a system for automatically abstracting documents.
From ACM TechNews
Big-Data Visualization Experts Make sing Scatter Plots Easier For Today's Researchers
A new study found outcomes acquired via algorithmic methods do not always correlate to human perception assessments when grouping scatter plots according to similarity.
From ACM News
Apple Encryption Stand Highlights Mobile Operators' Dilemma
Apple Inc's stance on privacy in the face of a U.S. government demand to unlock an iPhone belonging to one of the San Bernardino attackers has raised awkward questions for the world's mobile network operators.
From ACM News
The Secret History of America's Cyber War
Two months earlier, Edward Snowden, a contractor with the National Security Agency, had leaked tens of thousands of highly classified documents, revealing that the NSA was intercepting phone calls and emails of millions of Americans…
From ACM News
Should Self-Driving Cars Have Drivers Ready to Take Over?
The day when you'll be chauffeured to work by your car may not be far off.
From ACM News
Apple Is Said to Be Trying to Make It Harder to Hack Iphone
Apple engineers have begun developing new security measures that would make it impossible for the government to break into a locked iPhone using methods similar to those now at the center of a court fight in California, according…
From ACM TechNews
Flaws in Wireless Mice and Keyboards Let Hackers Type on Your Pc
Bastille researchers warn of a new hacking technique in which malefactors armed with antennas can hijack wireless keyboards and mice from seven companies.
From ACM TechNews
Autonomous Vehicle Technology Will Keep Soldiers Safer on Air, Land, Sea
Carnegie Mellon Robotics Institute researchers are developing autonomous warfare technology, including an unmanned air vehicle and an unmanned ground vehicle.
From ACM TechNews
sing Plasmonics to Transmit More Data
Northwestern University researchers have developed a means to modulate light signals in the near-infrared wavelength region.
From ACM TechNews
rop Student's Project: a Thinking Robot
Boston University engineering student Emily Fitzgerald has developed a robot that can recognize specific objects and steer around obstacles without human guidance.
From ACM News
Planet Nine Hunters Enlist Big Bang Telescopes and Saturn Probe
The fate of an entire world is at stake. Astronomers are enlisting every telescope and space probe they can think of in the hunt for the solar system's potential ninth planet, and some unlikely sources may be key to tracking…
From ACM Careers
What Role Should Silicon Valley Play in Fighting Terrorism?
On Friday, January 8, several high-level officials from the Obama administration—including the attorney general, the White House chief of staff, and the directors of the FBI and the NSA—met at a federal office in San Jose with…
From ACM News
Should You Edit Your Children's Genes?
Ruthie Weiss's basketball team seemed to be minutes away from its fourth straight loss.