Communications of the ACM
The news archive provides access to past news stories from Communications of the ACM and other sources by date.
February 2017
From ACM TechNews
Browser Fingerprinting Tech Works Across Different Browsers For the First Time
Researchers at Lehigh University have developed new browser fingerprinting software that identifies users across Web browsers more accurately than the most sophisticated single-browser techniques.
From ACM TechNews
National Science Foundation Funds Supercomputer Cluster at Penn State
The Pennsylvania State University Cyber-Laboratory for Astronomy, Materials, and Physics is acquiring a high-performance computer cluster that will support interdisciplinary research, training, and outreach programs.
From ACM TechNews
Nasa Preps For Space-Based Laser Communications
The U.S. National Aeronautics and Space Administration is preparing to demonstrate the feasibility of using high-capacity laser communications in space.
From ACM News
Nasa's Europa Flyby Mission Moves Into Design Phase
A mission to examine the habitability of Jupiter's ocean-bearing moon Europa is taking one step closer to the launchpad, with the recent completion of a major NASA review.
From ACM News
Smart Cities Begin To Face Security Concerns
"The attack surface is growing faster than the protections."
From ACM News
AI Learns to Write Its Own Code By Stealing from Other Programs
Out of the way, human, I've got this covered.
From ACM News
Collapse of Aztec Society Linked to Catastrophic Salmonella Outbreak
One of the worst epidemics in human history, a sixteenth-century pestilence that devastated Mexico's native population, may have been caused by a deadly form of salmonella from Europe, a pair of studies suggest.
From ACM TechNews
AI Beats Professional Players at Super Smash Bros. Video Game
Researchers trained an artificial intelligence system to play Nintendo's "Super Smash Bros. Melee" using deep-learning algorithms, and then challenged and defeated 10 highly ranked players.
From ACM TechNews
New Resource For Optical Chips
Researchers have demonstrated that silicon optical devices can reproduce physical phenomena used by high-end telecommunications optoelectronic components.
From ACM TechNews
Tricky Landing
University of Cincinnati researchers are using a U.S. National Science Foundation grant to test how fuzzy logic helps autonomous aerial drones overcome the difficulties of landing on a moving platform.
From ACM TechNews
Smartphones Are Revolutionizing Medicine
Researchers say smartphone add-ons and applications are turning the smartphones into revolutionary medical tools.
From ACM TechNews
Computer Bots Are Like Humans, Having Fights Lasting Years
Software robots designed to fix errors on Wikipedia often engage in online fights lasting years, with bots repeatedly undoing each other's edits.
From ACM TechNews
Hpc Technique Propels Deep Learning at Scale
Baidu's Silicon Valley Artificial Intelligence Lab has released a modified implementation of the ring all-reduce OpenMPI algorithm for the deep-learning community.
From ACM Careers
Trump Inspires Encryption Boom in Leaky D.c.
Poisonous political divisions have spawned an encryption arms race across the Trump administration, as both the president’s advisers and career civil servants scramble to cover their digital tracks in a capital nervous about …
From ACM News
Knight, Dr. John C.
John Charles Knight, 69, of Charlottesville, VA, passed away on Thursday, February 23, 2017, after a courageous battle with hypersensitivity pneumonitis.
From ACM Careers
Craig Venter Mapped the Genome. Now He's Trying to Decode Death
The world's most extreme physical exam starts in the world's plushest exam room, complete with a couch, a private bathroom and a teeming fruit plate.
From ACM News
Single Atom Feels the Quantum Heat
Thermal transport—the way heat is carried away from a processor, for instance—is very familiar to us.
From ACM TechNews
Can an Algorithm Detect a Speaker's Mood?
Researchers have developed an algorithm to determine a speaker's mood in real time by registering not only their speech, but also their vital signs.
From ACM TechNews
Here's Why Self-Driving Cars May Never Really Be Self-Driving
Researchers are exploring unpredictable issues with autonomous car technology that might be solved with embedded software to avoid accidents.
From ACM TechNews
Report: Reforming STEM Ed at Research niversities
Instructional methods for science, technology, engineering, and math undergraduate programs must change with education research, according to a new report.
From ACM TechNews
Rethinking Hpc Platforms For 'second Gen' Applications
Researchers in the U.K. are suggesting a new approach to high-performance computing infrastructure involving containerization is required by second-generation applications.
From ACM TechNews
Project Looks at Human Eye to Sharpen Sight of Robots and Drones
Researchers in the U.K. are working to develop advanced machine-to-machine communication systems that capture and transmit images from highly efficient vision sensors mimicking the human retina.
From ACM News
Malware Lets a Drone Steal Data By Watching a Computer's Blinking Led
A few hours after dark one evening earlier this month, a small quadcopter drone lifted off from the parking lot of Ben-Gurion University in Beersheba, Israel.
From ACM News
Cosmos Controversy: The niverse Is Expanding, but How Fast?
There is a crisis brewing in the cosmos, or perhaps in the community of cosmologists. The universe seems to be expanding too fast, some astronomers say.
From ACM TechNews
Is a Stretchable Smart Tablet in Our Future?
Michigan State University researchers have developed the first stretchable integrated circuit that is made using an inkjet printer.
From ACM TechNews
c Berkeley to Join Major Tech Companies in Advancing 5g Networks
The University of California, Berkeley is collaborating with several major technology companies in forming the 5G Innovators Initiative, which is focused on bringing technology and academia together to advance fifth-generation…
From ACM TechNews
Columbus, Ohio, Region Boosts Smart Mobility Research
The Columbus, OH, region is funding smart mobility and driverless vehicle research.
From ACM TechNews
Researchers Devise Efficient Power Converter For Internet of Things
Researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology's Microsystems Technologies Laboratories recently unveiled a power converter that stays efficient at currents between 500 picoamps and 1 milliamp.
From ACM News
Li-Fi Promises Two-Way Internet via Light Waves
But first, costs must tumble.
From ACM News
Brain-Computer Interface Allows Speediest Typing to Date
Ten years ago Dennis Degray's life changed forever when he slipped and fell while taking out the trash in the rain.