Communications of the ACM
The news archive provides access to past news stories from Communications of the ACM and other sources by date.
April 2010
From ACM News
New Way to Operate Mobile Electronics
A new technology based on the sensor found in many computer mice makes interacting with a MP3 player or mobile phone as easy as flicking, twisting or tapping the device.
From ACM TechNews
One Billion Euros to nleash the Power of Information
A diverse group of European scientists are planning the FuturIcT knowledge accelerator, an effort to assemble expertise in all areas of science to develop supercomputing facilities on which future policies can be based.
From ACM TechNews
Self-Powered Flexible Electronics
Sungkyunkwan University and Samsung researchers have developed a way to capture the piezoelectric power generated when a touchscreen flexes under a user's touch.
From ACM TechNews
Lawmakers Renew Commitment to Science Spending, Despite Budget-Deficit Fears
The U.S. House of Representatives Science Committee has agreed to support a measure that would renew authorization for the America Competes Act, which sets funding levels for research and development at the main federal science…
From ACM TechNews
New Web Research Network Gets Off the Ground
The Web Science Trust has launched the Web Science Trust Network of Laboratories (WSTNet Labs), an international network to support Web science research and education.
From ACM TechNews
Monash 'tardis' Transports Research to the World
Monash University software engineer Steve Androulakis and biochemist Ashley Buckle have developed a tool designed to securely collect, store, and share research information.
From ACM TechNews
Wheelchairs That Listen
MIT researchers are developing a voice-operated robotic wheelchair for people with neurological disorders.
From ACM News
How Personal Genomics Could Change Health Care
Several months after deciphering his genetic code last year, Stanford bioengineer Stephen Quake approached a cardiologist colleague. Early analysis of his DNA had flagged a rare genetic variant as potentially linked to heart…
From ACM News
Today's Youngsters Prefer Computer Games to Holidays
A British survey has revealed that the young generation would rather stay at home and play computer games than go on a holiday. The report by Future of Free Time says they would prefer to play video games and visit chat rooms…
From ACM News
Data Mining Technology Applied to Hospitals' Infection Control Programs
Data mining technology is being used to spot trends in hospitals' data sets in order to combat healthcare associated infections.
From ACM News
The Legal Case For Robot War Gets Complicated
The legal debate over America's undeclared drone war in Pakistan is getting sharper: In a congressional hearing yesterday, a prominent law professor suggested that drone operators could, in, theory, be liable to criminal prosecution…
From ACM News
Teams Gear p For Two Robotic Competitions
NIST has announced that 11 university teams will square off next week in two contests designed to prove the viability of advanced technologies for robotic manufacturing automation and microrobotics.
From ACM News
Augmented-Reality Floor Tiling
Researchers at McGill University in Montreal, Canada have developed floor tiles that can simulate the look, sound and feel of snow, grass or pebbles underfoot. Such a tool could perhaps be used for augmented reality applications…
From ACM TechNews
.s. Needs New National Strategy in Era of Cyberaggression, Paper Concludes
The United States must take a more offensive stance to protect itself from cyberaggression, according to a new paper by University of Cincinnati researchers Richard Harknett, John Callaghan, and Rudi Kauffman.
From ACM TechNews
Commerce Department Scrutinizes Internet Privacy
The U.S. Commerce Department and various government agencies are creating an Internet Policy Task Force to examine policy frameworks and ways in which the "challenges of the new Internet economy and society" can be addressed…
From ACM News
Jobs: Why Apple Banned Flash from the Iphone
In a rare open letter published Thursday, Apple chief executive Steve Jobs has detailed the technological reasons why his company refuses to let Adobe Systems' Flash Player onto the iPhone: he thinks it's a relic, not the future…
From ACM News
Nist 'dimmer Switch' Set For Superconducting Quantum Computing
NIST has developed the first "dimmer switch" for a superconducting circuit linking a quantum bit and a quantum bus. The switch could speed up development of a practical quantum computer.
From ACM News
When Will We Be Able to Build Brains Like Ours?
When physicists puzzle out the workings of some new part of nature, that knowledge can be used to build devices that do amazing things--airplanes that fly, radios that reach millions of listeners. When we come to understand how…
From ACM TechNews
High-Tech Employment Grows
U.S. employment rose for three high-tech job categories in 2010's first quarter, according to IEEE-USA, citing data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
From ACM TechNews
Mastering Multicore
MIT researchers have developed software that makes computer simulations of physical systems run more efficiently on multicore chips.
From ACM TechNews
New Research Offers Security For Virtualization, Cloud Computing
North Carolina State University researchers have developed HyperSafe, software for resolving security concerns related to data privacy in virtualization and cloud computing.
From ACM TechNews
'smart' Cars Steer Towards Safety
University of Western Ontario researchers are developing smart cars that can see the conditions around them, assess the appropriateness of a driver's response, and take action if needed.
From ACM TechNews
Dynamic Nimbus Cloud Deployment Wins Grid5000 Challenge Award
The Argonne National Laboratory and University of Chicago's Nimbus toolkit, a set of software tools for cloud computing, implemented a distributed virtual cluster at the recent Grid5000 conference in France.
From ACM TechNews
Fixing Silicon Valley's Gender Gap One Pitch at a Time
Teams of high school girls recently pitched Android apps and business plans to business leaders at Microsoft's campus as part of an eight-week program that introduces girls to tech entrepreneurship.
From ACM News
Computing, Sudoku-Style
Though still in its infancy, the work of Alexey Radul as a postdoc at MIT could someday have consequences for artificial-intelligence research, parallel computing and the design of computer hardware.
From ACM News
What's in a Tweet?
Researchers at the Palo Alto Research Center (PARC) are developing new ways to deal with the torrent of information flowing from social media sites like Twitter.
From ACM News
Modeling Human Mobility
Increasingly, cell phones are equipped with GPS locational receivers and their bread crumb trails are opening up entirely new ways to study and predict the dynamics of travel.
From ACM News
National Tech Transfer Awards Recognize Sandia's Work with Cray, Stirling Energy
Sandia National Laboratories has won two national Federal Laboratory Consortium awards for its efforts to transfer technology to supercomputer manufacturer Cray Inc., and solar energy supplier Stirling Energy Systems Inc.
From ACM News
Researchers at Iowa State, Ames Lab Prepare For Blue Waters Supercomputer
They can't wait to do computational chemistry at a quadrillion calculations per second. Petascale computing will give three researchers at Iowa State University and Ames Laboratory the ability to run complex calculations and…
From ACM News
India It Spending to Rise 14 Percent in 2010, Gartner Says
Information technology spending in India will grow by 14 percent in 2010 to $67 billion on higher investments by retail and utility firms and government departments, research firm Gartner said.