Communications of the ACM
The news archive provides access to past news stories from Communications of the ACM and other sources by date.
May 2016
From ACM News
Tech Turns to Biology as Data Storage Needs Explode
Researchers have decoded the genomes of mammoths and a 700,000-year-old horse using DNA fragments extracted from fossils in the past few years. DNA clearly persists far longer than the bodies for which it carries the genetic…
From ACM News
Rosetta's Comet Contains Ingredients For Life
Ingredients regarded as crucial for the origin of life on Earth have been discovered at the comet that ESA's Rosetta spacecraft has been probing for almost two years.
From ACM News
Nasa Radar Finds Ice Age Record in Mars' Polar Cap
Scientists using radar data from NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO) have found a record of the most recent Martian ice age recorded in the planet's north polar ice cap.
From ACM News
Two-Hundred-Terabyte Maths Proof Is Largest Ever
Three computer scientists have announced the largest-ever mathematics proof: a file that comes in at a whopping 200 terabytes1, roughly equivalent to all the digitized text held by the US Library of Congress.
From ACM TechNews
Self-Driving Truck Acts Like an Animal
The traditional way of developing vehicles may not work when developing future autonomous vehicles.
From ACM TechNews
The Pipes Powering the Internet Are Nearly Full--What Do We Do?
The optical fibers that transmit data throughout the Internet have almost reached their capacity limits.
From ACM TechNews
Shoot an Atom Into Silicon, and You May Have the Beginnings of a Quantum Computer
Researchers at Sandia National Laboratories say they have devised a possible first step toward the creation of a practical quantum computer.
From ACM TechNews
sing Cellphone Data to Study the Spread of Cholera
Researchers recently led a study showing how human mobility patterns contributed to the spread of a cholera epidemic in Senegal in 2005.
From ACM TechNews
The Algorithm That Can Predict When a Tsunami Will Strike
Australian National University researchers have developed an algorithm that can recreate the movements of a typical tsunami to determine its threat level.
From ACM News
Push For Encryption Law Falters Despite Apple Case Spotlight
After a rampage that left 14 people dead in San Bernardino, key U.S. lawmakers pledged to seek a law requiring technology companies to give law enforcement agencies a "back door" to encrypted communications and electronic devices…
From ACM News
Google Beats Oracle as .s. Jury Declares ‘fair se’ of Java in Android
A U.S. jury handed Alphabet’s Google a major victory in a long-running copyright lawsuit against Oracle Corp.
From ACM News
Artificial Intelligence Is Far From Matching Humans, Panel Says
Never mind Terminator-like killer robots. Artificial intelligence researchers are grappling with more realistic questions like whether their creations will take too many jobs from humans.
From ACM News
On Your Mark. Get Set. Print!
Athletic footwear is about to be customized in the extreme, through a combination of computer vision-enabled scanning and three-dimensional printing.
From ACM News
Illuminating Life's Building Blocks
Biophysicist Joerg Bewersdorf says that 2006 was fluorescence microscopy's annus mirabilis—a 'miraculous year' as momentous in its own way as 1905, when Albert Einstein revolutionized physics in the realms of relativity, quantum…
From ACM News
Meet Terrapattern, Google Earth's Missing Search Engine
"Why don't you click on the tennis court?" Golan Levin, an associate professor of art at Carnegie Mellon University, suggested.
From ACM TechNews
Japanese-Language Myshake App Crowdsources Earthquake Shaking
Researchers have released a Japanese version of an application that crowdsources ground-shaking information from smartphones to detect earthquakes.
From ACM TechNews
Mental Health Alerts via Facebook?
Social media data could be used to detect and track at-risk youth and mental health patients.
From ACM TechNews
Shortened rls May Open a Window on Your Life
The trend of using shortened URLs offers a new opportunity for hackers to invade users' privacy, according to Cornell Tech researchers.
From ACM TechNews
Scientists Create 'rewritable Magnetic Charge Ice'
Researchers have created rewritable magnetic charge ice, which could lead to new computing technologies.
From ACM Careers
How the Constant Threat of War Shaped Israel's Tech Industry
Unit 8200 is Israel's most mysterious agency. No one outside knows exactly how it operates, who works there, or how they learn.
From ACM News
IBM Memory Advances Could Speed p Your Phone
Ever wanted to pound your PC as it crawls through a restart or fumed that your phone takes much too long to launch an e-book app?
From ACM News
Face Recognition App Taking Russia By Storm May Bring End to Public Anonymity
If the founders of a new face recognition app get their way, anonymity in public could soon be a thing of the past.
From ACM TechNews
East Meets West: 'we Are Alfred'
An interactive virtual reality simulation allows users to inhabit the perspective of a 74-year-old man with sensory impairments.
From ACM TechNews
Computing a Secret, nbreakable Key
Researchers say they have developed the first available software to evaluate the security protocol for Quantum Key Distribution.
From ACM TechNews
Study Reveals Only 1 in 6 Drivers Want Fully-Autonomous Vehicles
Most U.S. drivers do not want to own a fully self-driving car in the future, according to a University of Michigan survey.
From ACM TechNews
Researchers Teaching Robots to Feel and React to Pain
Researchers are developing an "artificial robot nervous system to teach robots how to feel pain" and quickly react in order to avoid potential damage.
From ACM News
1,500 Scientists Lift the Lid on Reproducibility
More than 70% of researchers have tried and failed to reproduce another scientist's experiments, and more than half have failed to reproduce their own experiments. Those are some of the telling figures that emerged from Nature…
From ACM TechNews
Automatic Bug Finder
Researchers have moved closer to enabling symbolic execution of applications written via programming frameworks.
From ACM TechNews
Checklist of Worst-Case Scenarios Could Help Prepare For Evil AI
University of Louisville researcher Roman Yampolskiy and hacktivist Federico Pistono are examining worst-case scenarios for a potential malevolent artificial intelligence.
From ACM News
Four Wild Technologies Lawmakers Want Nasa to Pursue
Imagine a tissue-box sized device, with blades a few feet long, whirring to life after charging for a full Sol on Mars.