Communications of the ACM
The news archive provides access to past news stories from Communications of the ACM and other sources by date.
June 2019
From ACM TechNews
Harnessing Public Smartphones to Track Drones
A new method of tracking unfamiliar drones leverages consumer smartphones to detect the Wi-Fi signals of nearby drones.
From ACM TechNews
Researchers Develop 'Vaccine' Against Attacks on Machine Learning
New techniques can "vaccinate" algorithms against adversarial attacks.
From ACM TechNews
Gender Gap in Computer Science Won't Close for 100 Years
A study by the nonprofit Allen Institute predicts women writing published computer science research will not achieve gender equality in this century.
From ACM TechNews
Florida's Latest Oddity: Semi Trucks With Nobody Inside
Startup Starsky Robotics is testing unmanned semi trucks on public roads in Florida.
From ACM TechNews
Astronomy Bot Speeds Search for Jupiter's Twins
A new astronomy algorithm can help identify stars around which planets may revolve.
From ACM News
New AI Programming Language Goes Beyond Deep Learning
General-purpose language works for computer vision, robotics, statistics, and more.
From ACM TechNews
NASA Hack sed Raspberry Pi
A federal review of a 2018 data breach at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory discovered an unauthorized Raspberry Pi computer was exploited to access the network, and steal 500 megabytes of data from mission systems.
From ACM TechNews
Quantum Internet Emerging, One Experiment at a Time
Recent milestones in transmitting, storing, and manipulating quantum data have some physicists expecting the imminent creation of a proof-of-principle quantum network.
From ACM TechNews
Robotic Fish Powered by Electronic Blood Can Swim for 36 Hours
Researchers at Cornell University have developed a robotic fish that is powered by its own artificial circulatory system.
From ACM TechNews
SoNIC Program Empowers Diverse CS Students
Cornell University's SoNIC workshop, now in its ninth year, has exposed hundreds of minority students from across the U.S. to computer science, and to the prerequisites and rewards of advanced degrees.
From ACM TechNews
CM Among First to Pilot New 'Perlmutter' Supercomputer
Carnegie Mellon University's Zachary Ulissi will be among the first scientists to use the U.S. National Energy Research Scientific Computing Center's Perlmutter supercomputer, a pre-exascale system which will be delivered next…
From ACM TechNews
Phones, Wearables Combine to Assess Worker Performance
Dartmouth University researchers have developed a mobile-sensing system that judges employee performance using smartphones, wearable fitness trackers, and a custom app.
From ACM TechNews
Java, JavaScript Remain Most Popular Programming Languages
Java and JavaScript continue to be the most-used programming languages, with the former the most popular primary coding language, and the latter the most used overall, according to The State of Developer Ecosystem 2019 report…
From ACM TechNews
Parents Don't Know Enough About Cyber Careers
Parents don't know enough about cybersecurity to encourage their children to pursue careers in the field, a SANS Institute study found.
From ACM TechNews
Plants Are Oldest Sensors in the World. Could They Be the Future of Computers?
MIT's Harpreet Sareen suggests using plants as a new building material for computer circuits.
From ACM TechNews
Keeping Children Safe in 'Internet of Things' Age
Researchers at Lancaster University have developed guidelines to help designers build safeguards into connected devices used by children.
From ACM TechNews
MIT Develops a System to Give Robots More Human Senses
Researchers at MIT's Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory have developed a system that could give robots the ability to link multiple senses. The AI can learn to see by touching, and learn to feel by seeing…
From ACM TechNews
Samsung TVs Should Be Regularly Virus-Checked, Company Says
Samsung said owners of its newest smart TV models should check for malware "every few weeks" to "prevent malicious software attacks."
From ACM News
Finding the Paradigms Underlying Computing in the Brain
James E. Smith presented "A Roadmap for Reverse-Architecting the Brain's Neocortex" today at ACM's Federated Computing Research Conference in Phoenix.
From ACM TechNews
Process Rapidly Develops Bespoke Liners for Prosthetics
Researchers at the University of Bath have integrated advanced three-dimensional scanning to generate digital models for affordable and more personalized lower-limb prosthetic liners.
From ACM TechNews
It's Surprisingly Easy to Hack the Precision Time Protocol
Researchers at Marist College and IBM have identified a simple but effective way to hack a PTP network, altering the timing of slave clocks by 2,149.5 minutes after just a 37-second attack.
From ACM TechNews
California Tests a Digital 'Fire Alarm' for Mental Distress
Mindstrong, a Silicon Valley-based venture co-founded by a former director of the U.S. National Institute of Mental Health, is developing an early-warning system that would flag smartphone users when an emotional crisis seemed…
From ACM TechNews
M2 Computing System Makes Android, iOS Apps Sharable on Multiple Devices
Researchers at Columbia University have developed a new computing system that enables current, unmodified mobile apps to combine and share multiple devices across multiple smartphones and tablets.
From ACM TechNews
From One Brain Scan, More Information for Medical AI
Researchers at MIT have developed a system to gather more information from images used to train machine-learning models, including those that can analyze medical scans to help diagnose and treat brain conditions.
From ACM TechNews
Investors rge AI Startups to Inject Early Dose of Ethics
Artificial intelligence startup investors are urging companies to improve their products from an ethical perspective.
From ACM TechNews
Software to Protect World's Most Endangered Species
Researchers are integrating genetic and environmental databases to help identify species threatened by climate change more accurately.
From ACM TechNews
First 'Quantum Drone' Takes Off
Researchers at Nanjing University in China have developed a quantum drone to serve as an airborne node in a future quantum network.
From ACM TechNews
Your Phone Can Become a Robot That Does the Boring Work
A new smartphone app allows a user to easily program any robot to perform a basic activity.
From ACM TechNews
Florida City Agrees to Pay Hackers $600,000
The city council of Riviera Beach, FL, agreed to pay almost $600,000 in bitcoin to ransom back their computer systems, held hostage by malware for the past three weeks.
From ACM TechNews
Car Companies Sharpen Focus on Curbing Distracted Driving
Automakers are accelerating initiatives to address distracted driving by equipping vehicles with monitoring technology.