Communications of the ACM
The news archive provides access to past news stories from Communications of the ACM and other sources by date.
July 2019
From ACM TechNews
Calls Mount to Ease Big Tech's Grip on Your Data
A growing number of academics, economists, technologists, and lawmakers are working to reimagine the current environment in which a few large technology companies control their users' data.
From ACM TechNews
Stanford Camera Can Watch Moving Objects Around Corners
Stanford University researchers have developed a camera system that can reassemble scenes and detect moving objects hidden around corners, by analyzing the reflections of individual light particles.
From ACM TechNews
'Deepfakes' Trigger a Race to Fight Manipulated Photos, Videos
Startups, government agencies, and academics are working to develop a method to combat doctored videos and photographs.
From ACM TechNews
The Fastest Growing U.S. City for Tech Pros Is Not Where You Think
Talent acquisition company iCIMS found that Raleigh, NC, was the top U.S. city for tech job growth, as the number of available tech jobs there grew 56.9% year over year.
From ACM TechNews
Capital One Data Breach Tied to Cloud Computing Vulnerability
Experts attribute the Capital One data breach to exploitation of a vulnerability in the firewall of Amazon Web Services (AWS), which the bank used to store its data trove.
From ACM News
A More Human Approach to Artificial Intelligence
Philosopher Andy Clark reflects on what it will take for artificially intelligent agents to become more capable.
From ACM TechNews
Microsoft Data Shows Hackers Still Targeting U.S. Elections
A recent blog post from Microsoft indicates that nearly 10,000 state-sponsored attacks have been detected globally in the past year.
From ACM TechNews
Ever Wonder How Much Tech Workers Get Paid in Your Town? This Map Might Have the Answer.
While San Jose and San Francisco remain the top U.S. cities in terms of salaries for technology professionals in 2019, smaller metro areas are becoming mini tech hubs.
From ACM TechNews
AI Radar System Can Spot Miniature Drones 3km Away
A new radar system can detect subminiature drones up to 3 kilometers (nearly 2 miles) away.
From ACM News
The Drive to Quantum Computing
The U.S. National Quantum Initiative will support the push towards a quantum computing infrastructure, ecosystem, and workforce.
From ACM TechNews
Barr Warns Time Is Running Out for Companies to Open Encryption
U.S. Attorney General William Barr said time may be running out for major technology companies to voluntarily provide law enforcement officials access to the encrypted communications of their users.
From ACM TechNews
Australia to Police Tech Giants' Algorithms
Australian regulators intend to launch the first office committed to policing algorithms used by technology giants like Facebook and Google, to better understand how the companies match ads to users.
From ACM TechNews
This Deep Neural Network Fights Deepfakes
A new deep neural network architecture can identify manipulated images at the pixel level with high precision.
From ACM TechNews
VR Helps Police Train for Active-Shooter Scenarios
The New York City Police Department is using virtual reality to help train officers for active-shooter scenarios.
From ACM TechNews
Study Addresses Low Female Participation in STEM Classrooms
Increasing class size has the greatest negative impact on female participation in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics classrooms.
From ACM TechNews
Phone Movement Predicts Personality Types
Researchers in Australia used data from the accelerometers in mobile phones to predict users' personalities.
From ACM TechNews
Improved Prosthetic Hand Has Lighter Touch, Easy Grip
Researchers have improved a commercially developed, three-dimensional printed robotic prosthetic arm, allowing an amputee to grasp his wife's hand and "feel" her touch.
From ACM TechNews
New Technology Sparks More Worry for Black, Hispanic Workers
A new survey found Black and Hispanic workers are more concerned about how they will be impacted by new technology in the workplace than white or Asian workers.
From ACM TechNews
Supercomputers Use Graphics Processors to Solve Longstanding Turbulence Question
Researchers have solved a longstanding question in turbulence using supercomputers running simulations on graphics processors originally developed for gaming.
From ACM TechNews
Johannesburg Ransomware Attack Leaves City Without Power
South Africa's financial capital, Johannesburg, has been hit by a ransomware attack that left some of its residents without electricity.
From ACM News
Unintended Consequences
Banning Huawei won't stop hardware trojan attacks.
From ACM TechNews
AI Can Lead to Lower Dentist Bills
Dental support organizations are starting to use artificial intelligence to analyze X-ray images and automate certain steps in common procedures.
From ACM TechNews
FaceApp Lets You 'Age' a Photo by Decades. Does It Also Violate Your Privacy?
Russia-based Wireless Lab's FaceApp recently saw a significant boost in popularity as celebrities used the app's age filter to provide realistic glimpses of what they could look like decades in the future.
From ACM TechNews
Exclusion in STEM Classrooms Lead to Lower Graduation Rates for Minority Students: UT Study
Black and Latinx students are more likely to leave science, technology, engineering, and math majors in college because of obstacles they face that their white peers do not, according to a new study.
From ACM TechNews
Famous Scottish Reformation Church Virtually Reconstructed After 500 years
Researchers combined computer technology with historical research to create a virtual reconstruction of how Scotland's St. Andrews Cathedral looked just before the Reformation of 1559.
From ACM News
Dr. Fei-Fei Li: The Benevolent Scientist
"Now we have a new generation of women professors. But this is far from enough."
From ACM TechNews
'Anonymized' Data Can Never Be Totally Anonymous, says Study
Researchers have developed a model to estimate how easy it would be to deanonymize an arbitrary dataset.
From ACM TechNews
With $1 Billion from Microsoft, an AI Lab Wants to Mimic the Brain
Microsoft has made a $1-billion investment in OpenAI, the artificial intelligence lab created by Elon Musk and Sam Altman in 2015.
From ACM TechNews
Computers Are the New Basketball Coaches
Professional basketball teams are starting to use computers and advanced data analytics to help perfect players' jump shots.
From ACM TechNews
Knight Foundation Invests $50 Million in Research on Tech's Impact on Democracy
The nonprofit John S. and James L. Knight Foundation will spend $50 million to fund research at 11 universities on how social media and technology impacts democracy.