Communications of the ACM
The news archive provides access to past news stories from Communications of the ACM and other sources by date.
June 2016
From ACM News
Nasa's Juno Peers Inside a Giant
NASA's Juno spacecraft will make its long anticipated arrival at Jupiter on July 4. Coming face-to-face with the gas giant, Juno will begin to unravel some of the greatest mysteries surrounding our solar system's largest planet…
From ACM News
How Amazon Triggered a Robot Arms Race
An Amazon warehouse is a flurry of activity.
From ACM TechNews
Quantum Cryptographers Set 400k Distance Record
Researchers in China say they have demonstrated a form of device-independent quantum cryptography, sending a key over a distance of more than 100 kilometers at data rates measured in kilobits per second, and distances of more…
From ACM TechNews
Robots Come to Each Other's Aid When They Get the Signal
KTH Royal Institute of Technology researchers have completed work on RECONFIG, a European Union-funded project aimed at enabling robots to use body language to cooperate with one another on complex jobs.
From ACM TechNews
Standardizing Communications For the Internet of Things
Researchers at the Georgia Institute of Technology have developed a framework that standardizes communications for the Internet of Things.
From ACM TechNews
Software Improves Ability to Catalog Bacterial Pathogens
Washington State University researchers have developed a software tool that can track, manage, analyze, and catalogue the short, repeating sequences of bacterial DNA.
From ACM News
This New Device Can Visualize Your Thoughts (sort Of)
The idea of a device that can materialize one's memories out of thin air seems like it could only exist in science fiction. But in a new study, researchers were able to pretty accurately sketch out the thoughts of participants…
From ACM News
Drones Too Complicated? We'll Take Care of That
A new category of company is offering 'drones as a service' to customers who want to outsource the planning, compliance, and execution of commercial drone flights.
From ACM News
The Advent of Virtual Humans
Justine Cassell has taken her virtual assistant Sara on a road trip.
From ACM News
Recent Hydrothermal Activity May Explain Ceres' Brightest Area
The brightest area on Ceres, located in the mysterious Occator Crater, has the highest concentration of carbonate minerals ever seen outside Earth, according to a new study from scientists on NASA's Dawn mission.
From ACM News
Researchers Sue the Government Over Computer Hacking Law
In the age of big data analytics, the proprietary algorithms web sites use to determine what data to display to visitors have the potential to illegally discriminate against users.
From ACM TechNews
Obama Administration Releases $150m in Grants For Techhire
The Obama administration has issued $150 million in grants for 39 technology-related partnerships in 25 states and Washington, D.C. Awardees will use this money to develop tech talent as a way to retain and generate jobs in…
From ACM TechNews
Beyond Video Games: AI System Beats Tactical Experts in Combat Simulation
The ALPHA artificial intelligence created by a University of Cincinnati doctoral graduate is a milestone in the use of genetic-fuzzy systems with specific implementation in unmanned combat aerial vehicles in simulated air-combat…
From ACM Opinion
How to Stop Robocalls … or at Least Fight Back
"This is a final notice from the IRS."
From ACM TechNews
Software For Fmri Yield Erroneous Results
Researchers at Linkoping University and the University of Warwick have shown that common statistical methods used to analyze brain activity through images taken with magnetic resonance imaging scanners cannot be trusted.
From ACM Careers
Trump's Secret Data Reversal
Donald Trump has dismissed political data operations as "overrated," but his campaign is now bolstering its online fundraising and digital outreach by turning to GOP tech specialists who previously tried to stop him from winning…
From ACM TechNews
Harmonized Security Across Devices
The EU-funded SECURity at the network EDge (SECURED) project is focused on the design of a solution to offload the execution of security applications into a programmable device at a network's fringes.
From ACM TechNews
New, Better Way to Build Circuits For World's First seful Quantum Computers
A team at Penn State performed a single quantum operation on individual atoms on separate stacked planes. Professor David S. Weiss says the technique highlights the potential for using atoms as the building blocks of circuits…
From ACM News
Clever Attack ses the Sound of a Computer's Fan to Steal Data
In the past two years a group of researchers in Israel has become highly adept at stealing data from air-gapped computers—those machines prized by hackers that, for security reasons, are never connected to the internet or connected…
From ACM News
Nasa Rover Findings Point to a More Earth-Like Martian Past
Chemicals found in Martian rocks by NASA's Curiosity Mars rover suggest the Red Planet once had more oxygen in its atmosphere than it does now.
From ACM TechNews
Object and Scene Recognition Software Work Together to nderstand Video Content
A team from Disney Research and Shanghai's Fudan University has used deep-learning techniques to train computer software to recognize events in videos.
From ACM News
As It Searches For Suspects, the Fbi May Be Looking at You
The FBI has access to nearly 412 million photos in its facial recognition system—perhaps including the one on your driver's license.
From ACM News
Tour De France to se Thermal Imaging to Fight Mechanical Doping
They call it "mechanical doping," but the name simply doesn't do it justice.
From ACM TechNews
Visual Cloud Computing Methods Could Help First Responders in Disaster Scenarios
Researchers at the University of Missouri have developed a visual cloud computing architecture that streamlines the process of analyzing visual electronic data.
From ACM TechNews
Malware Can Steal Data From Air-Gapped Devices via Fans
Researchers from Ben-Gurion University of the Negev report data can be stolen from an air-gapped computer using the computer's fan to a nearby mobile phone equipped with a microphone.
From ACM News
Edward Snowden Denounces Russia's New 'big Brother' Surveillance Bill
Edward Snowden has been in exile in Russia since 2013, when he leaked classified documents about the National Security Agency's mass surveillance programs.
From ACM News
Nasa's Juno Spacecraft Closing in on Jupiter
Last Friday (6/24), at exactly 9:57 and 48 seconds a.m. PDT, NASA's Juno spacecraft was 5.5 million miles (8.9 million kilometers) from its July 4th appointment with Jupiter.
From ACM News
Expansion of Early niverse Modelled in nprecedented Detail
For the first time, cosmologists have used the full power of Albert Einstein's general theory of relativity to perform detailed calculations of the Universe's evolution.
From ACM TechNews
Artificial Intelligence's White Guy Problem
Artificial intelligence (AI) may be worsening inequality, given the biases being embedded within the underlying machine-learning algorithms, says Kate Crawford, a researcher at Microsoft and co-chair of a White House symposium…
From ACM TechNews
The Top 10 Emerging Technologies of 2016
The World Economic Forum has published its annual list of 2016's breakthrough technologies, with a specific focus on closing the gaps in investment and regulation.