Communications of the ACM
The news archive provides access to past news stories from Communications of the ACM and other sources by date.
March 2011
From ACM News
Social-Media Tools sed to Target Corporate Secrets
Not long after airstrikes began in Libya earlier this month, certain attorneys at four U.S. law firms, known for having high-profile clients in the oil industry, each received a personally addressed email message.
From ACM TechNews
Silicene: It Could Be the New Graphene
Japanese researchers have created atom-thin sheets of silicon, called silicene, that resemble graphene and could have electronic applications.
From ACM TechNews
Deciphering Old Texts, One Woozy, Curvy Word at a Time
Completely Automated Public Turing Test to Tell Computers and Humans Apart (CAPTCHAS) are being used to transform old texts riddled with smudges, crooked type, and other distortions into searchable files. Optical character recognition…
From ACM TechNews
Dhs Seeks to Grow Antibodies in Cyberspace
The U.S. Department of Homeland Security recently released a white paper describing a tripartite approach to cybersecurity based on automation, interoperability, and authentication designed to make networks fundamentally more…
From ACM News
Companies Hope to 'program' the Internet
Most data networks could be faster, more energy efficient, and more secure. But network hardware—switches, routers, and other devices—is essentially locked down, meaning network operators can't change the way they function…
From ACM News
Can Google Reinvent Web Video?
An ambitious attempt by Google to shift the Web over to a new, royalty-free video format has taken significant strides. New software has been released that can build the format into dedicated chips for cell phones and other…
From ACM News
The Secret to Some of Lucasfilm's Magic: Nvidia's Gpu Chips
Like the visual effects you've been seeing in movies these days? Of course, you already know that in most cases they're computer-generated. And as you've seen over the last few days during my visit to Lucasfilm's Industrial…
From ACM News
.s. Spy Agency Is Said to Investigate Nasdaq Hacker Attack
The National Security Agency, the top U.S. electronic intelligence service, has joined a probe of the October cyber attack on Nasdaq OMX Group Inc. amid evidence the intrusion by hackers was more severe than first disclosed…
From ACM TechNews
Online 3D Insect Sleuth Tells Friend From Foe
A new online system could make it easier for Australia to identify invasive fire ants, which were accidentally imported into the country two decades ago.
From ACM News
Flying Robots Team p to Juggle
Our flying robot overlords seem to have a fun side after all. In this video, watch two quadrocopters team up to skillfully juggle a ball, thanks to software developed by Sergei Lupashin and colleagues at ETH Zurich. The machines…
From ACM News
'gamifying' The System To Create Better Behavior
Say you're zooming down the highway, when you spot one of those speed-limit enforcement cameras from the corner of your eye. You hit the brakes, but not before the camera's flash catches you breaking the law.
From ACM News
In a New Web World, No Application Is an Island
The Web is poised for a comeback. How’s that? Isn’t the Web already the crucial utility of online commerce, information and entertainment? In many ways, it certainly is. The Web’s importance is indisputable—but there are signs…
From ACM News
First Image Ever Obtained from Mercury Orbit
At 5:20 am EDT on Mar. 29, 2011, Messenger captured this historic image of Mercury, the first ever obtained from a spacecraft in orbit about the Solar System's innermost planet. Over the subsequent six hours, Messenger acquired…
From ACM News
Kaashoek Wins Acm's Prize For Young Researchers
Frans Kaashoek, a professor in the MIT Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science and associate director of the Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory, has won the Association for Computing…
From ACM TechNews
Multicore Coding Standards Aim to Ease Programming
The Multicore Association has established specifications for a programming model designed to make it easier to write software for multicore chips, particularly for those used in smartphones, tablets, and embedded systems.
From ACM News
China 'to Overtake .s. on Science' in Two Years
China is on course to overtake the U.S. in scientific output possibly as soon as 2013—far earlier than expected. That is the conclusion of a major new study by the Royal Society, the U.K.'s national science academy.
From ACM News
Benchmark Battle: Chrome vs. Ie vs. Firefox
There's no doubt the latest crop of stable browsers from Google, Microsoft, and Mozilla are the best the companies have ever produced. But how do they perform when tested under identical conditions?
From ACM News
It
A favorite pastime of Internet users is to share their location: services like Google Latitude can inform friends when you are nearby; another, Foursquare, has turned reporting these updates into a game.
From ACM News
Spiders and Crabs Inspire Robot Locomotion
The walking patterns of crabs, lobsters and spiders are helping to inspire new ways of getting robots to move around.
From ACM News
With Google's Gift, . of Oregon Expands International Cyberinfrastructure
A University of Oregon nonprofit that has provided networking technology and training to some of the world’s poorest nations has received a $1.25 million check to scale up its efforts.
From ACM TechNews
Microsoft Scheme Sniffs Out nused Wireless Spectrum
Microsoft researchers have developed SpecNet, an architecture for measuring whether licensed radio frequencies are being used so that unlicensed devices can utilize the unused white space.
From ACM TechNews
The First Plastic Computer Processor
European researchers have developed a computer processor and memory chip made from plastic semiconductors. "Compared to using silicon, this has the advantage of lower price and that it can be flexible," says IMEC's Jan Genoe…
From ACM TechNews
Yahoo Working on Hadoop Mapreduce 2
The next generation of Apache Hadoop will likely be released this year, says Yahoo!'s Todd Papaioannou. Apache Hadoop enables batch processing of petabytes of data, but it does not effectively manage resources across thousands…
From ACM TechNews
Researchers Find a New Way to Mix Computers and Neurons
Nerve cell tendrils recently grew through tiny tubes made of semiconductor material in groundbreaking research conducted by University of Wisconsin, Madison graduate students.
From ACM TechNews
Ornl Simulating Japan Nuke Crisis
Researchers at the U.S. Department of Energy's Oak Ridge National Laboratory are using supercomputer clusters to run simulations that could help resolve the nuclear crisis in Japan.
From ACM TechNews
In a Country Known For Robots, Their Chief Tasks Didn't Include Nuclear Safety
Japan's focus on building humanoid robots that perform tasks that humans can already do, instead of building robots that can go where humans cannot, has made it more difficult to respond to the nuclear disaster that followed…
From ACM News
How a Robot Can Replace You at Work
As telepresence robots begin to appear in more and more offices and factories, they are poised to transform the way we work and interact with our colleagues.
From ACM News
New Approach to Programming May Boost 'green' Computing
Yu David Liu, a Binghamton University computer scientist with an interest in "green" software development, has received a five-year, $448,641 grant from the National Science Foundation.
From ACM News
Cloud Computing, Data Policy on Track to 'democratize' Satellite Mapping
Far-sighted data policy and cloud computing are leading to the "democratization of satellite mapping," one expert says — and the payoff will be wider access to information about the earth via platforms such as the new Google…
From ACM News
A New Tool For .s. Intelligence: Google?
Traditionally, intelligence agencies have relied on top-secret information to track changes in other countries. But wiretaps and secret intercepts didn't help U.S. officials predict the Arab Spring that has brought revolution…