Communications of the ACM
The news archive provides access to past news stories from Communications of the ACM and other sources by date.
February 2018
From ACM News
If There's Life on Saturn's Moon Enceladus, It Might Look Like This
Saturn's moon Enceladus has become an alien-hunting hot spot, and not just for the tinfoil hat crowd.
From ACM News
Why .S. 'Cyber-Warriors' Can't Do Anything About Russian 'Cyber-Meddling'
In testimony before the US Senate Armed Services Committee on Tuesday, National Security Agency Director and US Cyber Command Commander Admiral Michael Rogers told senators that measures taken thus far by the US government in…
From ACM TechNews
How Do Teachers Integrate STEM Into K-12 Classrooms?
Michigan Technological University researchers conducted a study examining what makes science, technology, engineering, and math education integration practices work.
From ACM TechNews
New Algorithm Can Create Movies From Just a Few Snippets of Text
A new algorithm creates videos from text snippets.
From ACM TechNews
Private Browsing Gets More Private
The new Veil system is designed to improve private browsing by guaranteeing that any data the browser loads into memory remains encrypted until it is displayed on-screen.
From ACM TechNews
Edible Electronics Are Here Thanks to Researchers at Rice niversity
Researchers at Rice University say they have produced edible graphene.
From ACM TechNews
Augmented Reality Takes 3D Printing to Next Level
Researchers are using augmented reality to advance three-dimensional printing and three-dimensional modeling technologies
From ACM TechNews
Teaching Quantum Physics to a Computer
Researchers have used machine learning to teach a computer to predict the outcomes of quantum experiments.
From ACM News
Justices Struggle with .S. Demands for Overseas Data
The Supreme Court appeared to be divided Tuesday as it struggled to interpret whether a three-decade-old federal law gives the U.S. government the right to access Americans' emails stored overseas.
From ACM News
ncovering the Secrets of the 'Girl With a Pearl Earring'
"How did the 'Girl With a Pearl Earring' come to life? What steps did Vermeer take to make this painting?"
From ACM News
How Did Life Begin? It's Chemistry 101, but in Space
How did life start? There may not be a bigger question.
From ACM TechNews
Seeing the Brain's Electrical Activity
Researchers say they have developed a light-sensitive protein that can indicate how much voltage a particular nerve cell is experiencing.
From ACM TechNews
Researchers Creating an App to Track, Analyze Dangerous Chronic Wounds
Researchers will use a U.S. National Institutes of Health grant to develop a smartphone application to help patients and caregivers track and assess potentially dangerous chronic wounds.
From ACM TechNews
Purdue Prof: Future AI Advances Pose Problems for Police, Courts
A Purdue Polytechnic Institute professor says pursuing artificial intelligence advancements without considering their criminal implications is foolhardy.
From ACM News
Microsoft's Supreme Court Case Has Big Implications For Data
Five years ago, US law enforcement served Microsoft a search warrant for emails as part of a US drug trafficking investigation. In response, Microsoft handed over data stored on American servers, like the person's address book…
From ACM News
Can Neuroevolution Change Machine Learning?
Neuroevolution borrows techniques from natural evolution to push the boundaries of machine learning.
From ACM News
Apple Moves to Store iCloud Keys in China, Raising Human Rights Fears
When Apple Inc begins hosting Chinese users' iCloud accounts in a new Chinese data center at the end of this month to comply with new laws there, Chinese authorities will have far easier access to text messages, email and other…
From ACM News
Forecasts of Genetic Fate Just Got a Lot More Accurate
When Amit Khera explains how he predicts disease, the young cardiologist's hands touch the air, arranging imaginary columns of people: 30,000 who have suffered heart attacks here, 100,000 healthy controls there.
From ACM News
Seven Ways Mars InSight is Different
NASA's Mars InSight lander team is preparing to ship the spacecraft from Lockheed Martin Space in Denver, where it was built and tested, to Vandenberg Air Force Base in California, where it will become the first interplanetary…
From ACM TechNews
niversity Researcher nveils 'Creeper' Business Tool
Creeper is a new software program designed to protect businesses against a cybersecurity threat known as "permissions creep."
From ACM TechNews
Michigan's 'Marshall Plan for Talent' Aims to Become Model for Tech Education Nationwide
Michigan Gov. Rick Snyder recently unveiled a five-year, $100-million "Marshall Plan for Talent" to better prepare students for technology fields with the most job openings.
From ACM TechNews
Making Data Storage Personal With #MemoriesInDNA
Researchers at the University of Washington have teamed with Microsoft and Twist Bioscience to encode 10,000 digital images into DNA.
From ACM TechNews
Machine Learning With Limited Data
Researchers have developed a neural network system that requires fewer parameters and training images when working toward image-recognition technology.
From ACM TechNews
Star Wars Robots Like R2-D2, C3PO Could Help You in Real Life
Texas A&M University professor Robin Murphy thinks robots such those featured in the "Star Wars" movies could have practical communicative applications.
From ACM TechNews
Real-Time Captcha Technique Improves Biometric Authentication
The Real-Time Captcha is a new login authentication approach designed to enhance the security of current biometric methods that rely on video or images of users' faces.
From ACM News
AI Trained to Spot Heart Disease Risks sing Retina Scan
The idea behind using a neural network for image recognition is that you don't have to tell it what to look for in an image.
From ACM News
How ProPublica Became Big Tech’s Scariest Watchdog
The nonprofit is fighting fire with fire, developing algorithms and bots that hold Facebook and Amazon accountable.
From ACM News
The Myth of the Hacker-Proof Voting Machine
In 2011, the election board in Pennsylvania's Venango County—a largely rural county in the northwest part of the state—asked David A. Eckhardt, a computer science professor at Carnegie Mellon University, to examine its voting…
From ACM News
The Impact of C++
The C++ programming language is integral to a huge variety of computer systems.
From ACM News
Researchers Have Finally Created a Tool to Spot Duplicated Images Across Thousands of Papers
Computer software can now quickly detect duplicate images across large swathes of the research literature, three scientists say.