Communications of the ACM
The news archive provides access to past news stories from Communications of the ACM and other sources by date.
July 2013
From ACM News
Testing the Future: Astronaut in Space Remote-Controls Robot in California
On a pebbled field built next to a parking lot, a small rover scoots forward and expels a long sheet of polyimide plastic from its backside, the third film the probe has deployed.
From ACM Careers
The Bell Labs of Quantum Computing
Raymond Laflamme can't yet sell you a quantum computer. But he'll sell you a $13,000 logic board for measuring entangled photons.
From ACM TechNews
Q&a: Tiffani Williams, Computer Scientist, on Creating an Open Source Tree of Life
The Open Tree of Life project aims to develop an open source compendium of existing knowledge on thousands of plant and animal species.
From ACM TechNews
Studies at the ji Advance in Recognizing People By the Way They Walk
A new biometric security technique is based on the way people walk and their silhouette.
From ACM TechNews
Researchers Build Jumping, Flipping, Hand-Standing Robot
The X-Rhex Lite robot can do a handstand, jump over gaps, and climb over rocks, all movements that could be used in hazardous situations.
From ACM TechNews
Kindergarten Coders Can Program Before They Can Read
Researchers are studying the ability of kindergarten-aged children to program computers using a graphics-based coding language called ScratchJr.
From ACM TechNews
Make It Yourself and Save--a Lot--With 3D Printers
A typical family can save a lot of money by making things with a 3D printer instead of buying them off the shelf.
From ACM TechNews
Facebook Invents a Php Virtual Machine
Facebook says it has developed a virtual machine that can run the PHP Web programming language nine times as fast as PHP natively on large systems.
From ACM News
Government Can Grab Cell Phone Location Records Without Warrant, Appeals Court Says
In a major victory for the Justice Department over privacy advocates, a federal appeals court ruled Tuesday that government agencies can collect records showing the location of an individual's cell phone without obtaining a warrant…
From ACM News
Apps That Know What You Want, Before You Do
In Hollywood, there are umbrella holders. Outside corner offices, there are people who know exactly how much cream to pour in the boss's coffee. In British castles, royals have their valets.
From ACM News
Zeroing In on nbreakable Computer Security
The news out of Moscow of late has been dominated by Edward Snowden, the American leaker of secret state documents who is currently seeking temporary asylum in Russia.
From ACM TechNews
Prace Demonstrates Strong Support For European High-Impact Science
As a result of PRACE’s 7th Regular Call for Proposals to use Europe's high-performance computing resources, just 42 proposals were awarded.
From ACM TechNews
Yale Grad's 'prism' Program Turns Text Metadata Into Wavy Art
The Prism application analyzes a user's own SMS messages and displays them in a colorful diagram with a timeline.
From ACM TechNews
Cheap Monitoring Highlights Dangers of Internet of Things
CreepyDOL is a new monitoring system that uses a network of inexpensive sensors to track people by their mobile devices.
From ACM News
Rethinking How We Watch Tv
To understand how much television could soon change, it helps to visit an Intel Corp. division here that runs like a startup.
From ACM News
How a Satellite Called Syncom Changed the World
In the fall of 1957, the Soviet Union's newly launched Sputnik satellite would regularly streak across the Los Angeles sky, a bright dot in the black night.
From ACM Opinion
Could the Government Get a Search Warrant For Your Thoughts?
We don't have a mind reading machine.
From ACM Opinion
I'm Still Waiting For My Phone to Become My Wallet
During the sweltering heat wave earlier this month, it seemed too hot to wear much, carry much or do much of anything at all.
From ACM News
Your Body Is the Computer
The last few years have presented an unprecedented shift in the computing world as PCs are being replaced with mobile devices. But now that a large portion of the market has already shifted, what comes after it?
From ACM TechNews
Computer Can Infer Rules of the Forest
A recently published study describes a computer algorithm that enables machines to infer stochastic reaction models without human intervention.
From ACM TechNews
Notre Dame Researchers Develop System That ses a Big Data Approach to Personalized Health Care
Researchers have developed a computer-aided method that uses electronic medical records to provide rapid advances in health care.
From ACM TechNews
Google Boosts Handwriting Feature in Google Translate
With Google Translate's new handwriting tool, users can draw an unfamiliar word or character on their Android smartphone or tablet and get a translation.
From ACM TechNews
Msu Collaboration Aims to Recruit More Women Into Engineering, Computer Fields
A new program seeks to boost the number of women in computing and engineering programs.
From ACM TechNews
Supercomputing Heads For the Cloud
A new cloud computing facility in Australia will be used for research in areas that require big-data analysis, such as climate change and earth system science.
From ACM TechNews
Emerging Technologies at Siggraph 2013 Could Yield New Markets Tomorrow
This year's SIGGRAPH conference featured SIGGRAPH 2013 Studio, which provided an opportunity for attendees to explore a wide array of new techniques and media.
From ACM TechNews
Emergency Alert Study Reveals Metadata’s Better Side
Cellphone metadata offers real-time information in emergency situations that could help first responders and protect the public.
From ACM News
Software Experts Attack Cars, to Release Code As Hackers Meet
Car hacking is not a new field, but its secrets have long been closely guarded.
From ACM News
Jer Thorp: Data Artist, Question Farmer
Digital artist and designer Jer Thorp finds the art in data.
From ACM Careers
Want to Be a Professor? Choose Math
Are you an aspiring scientist with quantitative chops and a strong desire for a faculty career?
From ACM News
Nsa Growth Fueled By Need to Target Terrorists
Twelve years later, the cranes and earthmovers around the National Security Agency are still at work, tearing up pavement and uprooting trees to make room for a larger workforce and more powerful computers.