Communications of the ACM
The news archive provides access to past news stories from Communications of the ACM and other sources by date.
May 2009
From ACM TechNews
Faster Internet on the Road
Researchers at Rutgers University's Winlab and NEC Laboratories have developed R2D2, a system designed to improve Wi-Fi wireless Internet access when traveling. R2D2 features special antennas and software that integrate directionality…
From ACM TechNews
Personal Discrimination on the Web
Researchers in India and Japan say they have discovered an automatic way of differentiating between Web sites that express personal opinions and corporate marketing Web sites that were designed to trick users into thinking they…
From ACM TechNews
Pentagon Plans New Arm to Wage Computer Wars
The U.S. Pentagon is planning to establish a new cyberwarfare command as a complement to a soon-to-be-announced civilian computer network safety overhaul, according to administration officials. They say President Obama will…
From ACM TechNews
Craigslist Founder to Keynote Computer Policy Conference
Craigslist founder Craig Newmark will give the keynote address at ACM's 2009 Conference on Computers, Freedom and Privacy (CFP), which takes place from June 1-4 at George Washington University in Washington, D.C. In addition…
From ACM TechNews
FCC Develops Strategy For Rural Broadband
The U.S. Federal Communications Commission (FCC) has released a broadband strategy for the rural United States that cautions against relying on a single technology. "Rural broadband likely will include a variety of different…
From ACM TechNews
In Search of a Do-It-Yourself Wall-E
There has been an explosion in hobbyist or do-it-yourself (DIY) robotics, with one recent example being a 16,000-member community attempting to individually create a live version of the robot Wall-E from the movie of the same…
From ACM News
Computex to Present Design Awards
Computex Taipei will present awards in five different categories on Monday (June 1) to top international innovators and designers in the field of information technology, the Taiwan External Trade and Development Council (TAITRA)…
From ACM News
Japan niversity Gives Away Iphones to Nab Truants
A prestigious Japanese university is giving away hundreds of iPhones, in part to use its Global Positioning System to nab students that skip class. Aoyama Gakuin University in Tokyo is giving Apple Inc.'s iPhone 3G to 550 students…
From ACM TechNews
Web 2.0 Application Developed to Recommend Television Programs
Researchers from the Interactive Digital Television Laboratory at Spain's University of Vigo have developed queveo.tv, a Web 2.0 application that filters the programming schedules of hundreds of TV channels to identify and recommend…
From ACM TechNews
Tech Field Seeks More Women
Although more women are pursuing degrees in math, physics, computer science, engineering, biochemistry, and other technology-centric fields than ever before, enrollment rates are still not as high as some expected after decades…
From ACM TechNews
Nasa Launches 'nebula' Compute Cloud
NASA is developing Nebula, an open source-based cloud computing initiative that would support space missions and as well as an overhaul of the agency's Web sites. "It provides high-capacity computing, storage, and network connectivity…
From ACM News
Siggraph 2009 Papers Focus on Technology, Advanced Techniques
The SIGGRAPH 2009 Technical Papers program is the premier global forum presenting groundbreaking research from today's leading international organizations. Topics will feature the latest computer graphic innovations from a detailed…
From ACM TechNews
Computer Simulation Captures Immune Response to Flu
Researchers at the Center for Biodefense Immune Modeling (CBIM) at the University of Rochester Medical Center have tested a computer simulation of major portions of the body's immune reaction to influenza type A, potentially…
From ACM TechNews
How IBM Plans to Win Jeopardy!
IBM researchers are developing Watson, a natural-language processing system that will compete against human players in a game of Jeopardy! Demonstrations of the system will take place throughout the year, and a final televised…
From ACM TechNews
Europe's Fastest Computer nveiled in Julich
The German supercomputing center in Julich has added three supercomputers, including the fastest machine in Europe. The new supercomputer at Forschungszentrum Julich, JUGENE, is capable of performing 1 petaflop/second, or a trillion…
From ACM TechNews
Online Life Can Be Convenient as Well as Dangerous
The rapid growth of technology and the cyberworld has made today's youth excellent technological multitaskers, and created entirely online businesses, but cyberspace also presents dangers to unwary users. Nielsen Online and…
From ACM TechNews
Viral Epidemics Poised to Go Mobile
A research team led by Northeastern University Center for Complex Network Research director Albert-Laszlo Barabasi set out to investigate why smartphone and mobile device users have been largely unaffected by computer viruses…
From ACM News
Sluggish Data Transport Is Faster Than Adsl
Researchers in Israel have concluded that their SNAP (snail-based data transfer protocol) system is the fastest available "last-mile" communications technology in terms of bit-per-second performance. Cognitive limitations have…
From ACM News
Could Budget Cuts Cost Pentagon Its High-Tech Edge?
Futuristic military projects outlined in the just-issued Strategic Plan 2009 of the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (Darpa) include planes that stay aloft for five years, vaccines that take only weeks to develop, and…
From ACM TechNews
New Memory Material May Hold Data For One Billion Years
Alex Zettl and colleagues say enclosing an iron nanoparticle in a hollow carbon nanotube could serve as the foundation for a memory material for the next generation of iPods, smartphones, and other mobile devices. The scientists…
From ACM TechNews
Hi-Tech Aims to Improve Lifestyle
A three-year project is exploring how people react and behave when information on their energy use and activity levels are presented to them through mobile phones, energy meters, and online social networks. Previous research…
From ACM TechNews
Tongue in Check
The growth of the Web has facilitated a revolution in translation technologies that are primarily based not on language rules but on vast volumes of text translated by humans into different languages. For example, Google's Translate…
From ACM TechNews
Robot Warriors Will Get a Guide to Ethics
Georgia Institute of Technology professor Ronald Arkin is developing what he calls "ethical governor" software and hardware that will tell military robots when to use their weapons. Arkin argues that not only can robots be programmed…
From ACM TechNews
Openvibe: French Software Program Enables 'action Through Thought'
French research agencies have perfected a brain-computer interface four years after launching the OpenViBE project. INRIA, the French national institute for research in computer science and control, and Inserm, the French national…
From ACM TechNews
Obama Set to Create a Cybersecurity Czar With Broad Mandate
U.S. President Barack Obama is expected to announce that he will create a cyberczar position, adding a senior White House official who will have broad authority to develop strategy to protect the U.S.'s government-run and private…
From ACM News
Fake Web Traffic Can Hide Secret Chat
The Internet's underlying technology can be harnessed to let people exchange secret messages, perhaps allowing free, coded speech under oppressive regimes. So says a team of steganographers at the Institute of Telecommunications…
From ACM News
New Puzzles That Tell Humans From Machines
To stay one jump ahead of fraudsters and their automated rogue programs, researchers are devising more versions of CAPTCHA (Completely Automated Public Turing test to tell Computers and Humans Apart) puzzles to help Web sites…
From ACM News
Every Move You Make: Smart Phone App Helps Burn Calories
Thanks to a University of Houston professor, the iPhone can now count how many calories you've burned in a given day. A new, free download called Walk n' Play is available from Apple's "App Store" that allows users to have fun…
From ACM News
It's Not Just Tv Anymore: The Promises and Perils of Children's Technological Environments
Today's children are coming of age immersed in video gaming, Web browsing, and instant messaging. Many have cell phones, laptops, and hand-held video games. Others have created avatars of themselves, and some are raising robot…
From ICT Results
Mobile Services Made Simple
European researchers believe they have achieved what has remained an almost impossible dream in the wireless world: powerful mobile services that work simply, seamlessly and intuitively. They have developed a mobile services…