Communications of the ACM
The news archive provides access to past news stories from Communications of the ACM and other sources by date.
June 2010
From ACM TechNews
Computing Careers: The Future Is Bright
"The Market for Computing Careers," a new report from Calvin College professor Joel Adams, suggests a bright future for people pursuing computing careers.
From ACM TechNews
The Idea Incubator Goes to Campus
The Massachusetts Institute of Technology is one of a handful of universities that work closely with investors to make sure promising ideas are nurtured into successful startups.
From ACM TechNews
Synthetic Dna Could Revolutionize Information Processing
A synthetic form of DNA developed by University of Reading chemists has the potential to revolutionize the way digital information is processed and stored.
From ACM TechNews
Flash! Supercomputing Goes Solid-State
A prototype system at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory's Hyperion Data Intensive Testbed uses more than 100 terabytes of flash memory to demonstrate how flash can be used in supercomputing.
From ACM TechNews
Nanoscale Random Number Circuit to Secure Future Chips
Intel engineers have created computer processors with circuits capable of random behavior, a development that could lead to secure cryptography keys.
From ACM News
How Microsoft Crowdsourced the Making of Office 2010
For several years, Denise Carlevato has studied millions of mouse clicks and keystrokes made by anonymous computer users from all over the world. Her objective: to make Microsoft Office better fit the way millions of people work…
From ACM TechNews
Quantifying Human Behavior With Motion-Capture Technology
The University of Southern California is using improvisation and motion-capture technology to study expressive human behavior "to be able to build technologies to mimic aspects of human behavior," says professor Shri Narayanan…
From ACM TechNews
Steming the Tide
Many recent studies have shown that cultural attitudes are a problem for women in STEM fields.
From ACM News
A Marriage of Origami and Robotics
Researchers at Harvard and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology are learning to reshape the landscape of programmable matter by devising self-folding sheets that rely on the ancient art of origami.
From ACM TechNews
Program Finds Patterns in Social Networks
University of Maryland researchers have developed the COSI program, an algorithm that supports subgraph pattern matching in very large social networks containing billions of links.
From ACM News
Google Faces Pressure As China to Decide on License
Google Inc. could face further pressure for its other products in China as Beijing is due to decide whether or not to renew a license for the firm's flagship search engine in the world's largest Internet market.
From ACM News
Star Pitchers in a Duel? Tickets Will Cost More
When the San Francisco Giants noticed a sudden surge in ticket sales for the team’s Memorial Day game with the Colorado Rockies, they did something seemingly more befitting a ticket broker than a professional baseball team: they…
From ACM News
Supreme Court Relaxes Limits on Innovations That Can Be Patented
The Supreme Court on Monday loosened the limits on the kinds of inventions that are eligible for patent protection in a case that was closely watched for its impacts on innovation. At issue was a bid by two inventors to patent…
From ACM News
Barrier to Faster Integrated Circuits May Be Surmounted, Scientists Say
Integrated circuits are constantly being made smaller, faster, and cheaper, but circuit scaling is perpetually in danger of hitting a wall that must be maneuvered around.
From ACM News
Sony Says 535,000 Vaio Laptops at Risk of Overheating
More than half a million Sony Vaio F and C series laptops sold this year contain a software bug that could lead them to overheat, the company said. A bug in the heat management system of the BIOS software is to blame.
From ACM News
Scholarships Will Enable Women Students to Attend Computing Conferences
Wipro Technologies and ACM have announced an agreement wherein Wipro will fund scholarships that enable women students majoring in computer science and related programs to attend research conferences around the world.
From ACM TechNews
Seeing the Science in Our Surroundings
Schoolchildren in Nottingham, United Kingdom, are using a new computer toolkit to start assignments in the classroom and continue them outdoors or at home.
From ACM TechNews
Beyond the Petaflop: DARPA Wants Quintillion-Speed Computers
DARPA announced an initiative to realize a quintillion calculations/second computer to "meet the relentlessly increasing demands for greater performance, higher energy efficiency, ease of programmability, system dependability…
From ACM News
Japan to Build 2.4 Petaflop Supercomputer
The Tokyo Institute of Technology will build Japan's first 2.4-petaflop supercomputer, the TSUBAME 2.0, a world-class research tool for users in both the industrial and academic world.
From ACM News
Divorce Lawyers: Facebook Tops in Online Evidence
Forgot to de-friend your wife on Facebook while posting vacation shots of your mistress? Her divorce lawyer will be thrilled.
From ACM News
Computer Modeling to Build Better Mud Bricks
University of Illinois at Chicago assistant professor Craig Foster received a U.S. National Science Foundation grant to create computer models that analyze physical characteristics of mud block and rammed earth walls.
From ACM News
Swf Examines New National Space Policy
President Obama's new National Space Policy calls for greater international cooperation in outer space activities and opens the door for potential international agreements to enhance the sustainability and stability of outer…
From ACM News
Obama nveils New National Space Policy
President Obama announced the administration's new National Space Policy on Monday (June 28).
From ACM News
Google in 'new Approach' on China
Until recently, the firm automatically redirected Chinese users to its unfiltered search site in Hong Kong to get round censorship issues. Google has said it will now stop this after Beijing warned it could lose its licence to…
From ACM News
Pentagon
Even for the Pentagon’s science-fiction division, it seemed like a stretch. But in 2007, Darpa really did launch an effort to build programmable matter that could reconfigure itself on command. Then, two years later, Harvardself…
From ACM News
In Faulty-Computer Suit, Window to Dell Decline
After the math department at the University of Texas noticed some of its Dell computers failing, Dell examined the machines. The company came up with an unusual reason for the computers’ demise: the school had overtaxed the machines…
From ACM News
Drone Alone: How Airliners May Lose Their Pilots
Would you fly in an airliner knowing there were no pilots in the cockpit? This is no mere hypothetical question. The U.S. Federal Aviation Administration is taking steps to study the use of unmanned aerial vehicles.
From ICT Results
Framework Adapts to Pervasive Network Changes
As computer networks become more pervasive, and their development in constant flux, their management by human intervention is becoming increasingly unfeasible. An EU-funded project is looking for a way to to deal automatically…
From ACM News
Cellphone Crime Solvers
Clues to crimes today are as likely to be found by examining the data stored in a cellphone or other mobile device as they are by dusting a crime scene. But the issues involved in getting that data out properly are complex, and…
From ACM News
Supreme Court: 'business Method' and Software Patents Ok
This morning, the Supreme Court decided the long-running Bilski case on business method patents--a case with broad applicability to software patents. As expected, the Court struck down the Bilski patent itself as an unpatentable…