Communications of the ACM
The news archive provides access to past news stories from Communications of the ACM and other sources by date.
September 2009
From ACM TechNews
Japanese Researchers Downplay Super Cpu Effect
Japanese researchers led by Waseda University computer scientist Hironori Kasahara will spend the next year planning for a project to develop a new software standard for multicore processors. The researchers will use Kasahara's…
From ACM TechNews
Code Breakthrough Delivers Safer Computing
Computer researchers at the University of New South Wales and NICTA say they have proven that an operating-system kernel was 100 percent free of bugs. The team verified the kernel known as the seL4 microkernel by mathematically…
From ACM TechNews
Spanish Scientists Develop the Intelligent Financial Search Engine
Researchers from Carlos III University of Madrid (UCM3), the University of Murcia, and the Business Institute have jointly created SONAR, a new search engine that examines financial news using semantic technology. The researchers…
From ACM TechNews
Intelligent Vehicles Tested Across European Roads
A European-wide research project slated to begin in 2010 should offer some answers about the real benefits that advanced driver assistance systems provide to drivers. As part of euroFOT, at least 1,000 vehicles will be outfitted…
From ACM TechNews
.s. To Share Internet Review Amid Worldwide Growth
The United States has announced that it intends to give other governments and businesses increased oversight in the governance of ICANN. While the U.S. government has not cut ties with ICANN entirely, it will establish advisory…
From ACM TechNews
Software Could Pave the Way to End Tune Plagiarism
A researcher from Goldsmiths, University of London, and an expert on cover versions and music re-mixes from the Institute of Musicology at the University of Hamburg have used cognitive similarity algorithms to predict the outcome…
From ACM TechNews
Industry Body Forming to Address It Graduate Skills
The World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) is creating the Open Web Education Alliance (OWEA), a new body designed to help ensure that educational institutions around the world are providing Web professionals and information technology…
From ICT Results
The Self-Managing, 'unbreakable' Internet?
High-powered Internet applications typically need teams of experts to maintain them. Not any more, say European researchers who have built a system to create applications that manage and fix themselves.
From ACM News
Researchers Break Vanish Security System
Researchers at the University of Texas at Austin, Princeton and the University of Michigan claim to have broken the Vanish security system, a research prototype that seeks to protect the privacy of online data and data communications…
From ACM TechNews
MIT Creating Microchip That Could Restore Vision
Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) researchers have developed a microchip that could be used with wireless technology and eyeglasses equipped with a camera to restore at least partial vision to people who suffer from…
From ACM TechNews
A Simpler, Gentler Robotic Grip
Harvard and Yale University researchers have designed a soft robotic hand that can pick up objects, suggesting a promising future in prosthetic arms. The new device uses just one motor, which opens and closes the hand, and each…
From ACM TechNews
Alliance Aims to Provide Mashup Interoperability
Eleven information technology companies are forming the Open Mashup Alliance (OMA) to promote and support the Enterprise Mashup Markup Language (EMML), which members hope will become a new standard for the industry.
From ACM TechNews
Icann Be Independent
ICANN has reached a new agreement with the U.S. government that will allow the organization to operate more independently, just before the expiration of the joint project agreement with the Department of Commerce.
From ACM TechNews
American Graduate Programs With Overseas Partners Are on the Rise
International joint- and dual-degree programs are becoming more numerous in Europe, but interest also is rising in the United States, according to presenters at the annual meeting of the European Association for International…
From ACM TechNews
Computer Code Gives Astrophysicists Full Simulation of Star's Final Hours
Researchers from the U.S. Department of Energy's Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory have developed the first full-star simulation of the conditions inside a white dwarf star in the hours before a Type Ia supernova. Type Ia…
From ACM TechNews
Greener Computing in the Cloud
Researchers say that custom data centers being built for cloud computing systems are very energy efficient. "There are issues with property rights and confidentiality that people are working out for mass migration of data to…
From ACM TechNews
Google Opens Voting on Ideas to Change the World
Google's Project 10
100 — a contest celebrating the company's 10th anniversary — asked participants in September 2008 to submit ideas that could help change the world. Google is giving the five winners a collective $10 million…From ACM News
Ants Vs. Worms: Computer Security Software Mimics Nature
In the never-ending battle to protect computer networks from intruders, security experts are deploying a new defense modeled after one of nature's hardiest creatures — the ant.
From ACM News
Thought-Controlled Wheelchair
Carmaker Toyota has teamed up with the Riken Brain Science Institute to create a computer the reads the brainwaves of a person seated in a wheelchair to control the chair's movement. The technology allows a person to move around…
From ACM TechNews
Pedestrian Crossings Could Be Monitored
A surveillance system for monitoring whether cars and pedestrians are acting normally at crosswalks has been developed by researchers at Spain's University of Castilla-La Mancha (UCLM). "We have developed an intelligence surveillance…
From ACM News
Fighting Botnets with Doc Savage
The poster outside the third-floor office in the University of California, San Diego's computer sciences building depicts Doc Savage, the big-muscled, bald-headed, fearsome-faced comic book hero. Inside the office sits a different…
From ACM News
Physicists Move Fast 'excitonic' Computers Closer to Reality
Physicists at UC San Diego have successfully created speedy integrated circuits with particles called "excitons" that operate at commercially cold temperatures, bringing the possibility of a new type of extremely fast computer…
From ACM TechNews
Supercomputers Often Run Outdated Software
Supercomputing experts discussed the issue of supercomputing software during a recent conference in Washington, D.C., celebrating the 20th anniversary of the Coalition for Academic Scientific Computation. Old software continues…
From ACM TechNews
Study Shows Improvements in Quality of Open Source Code
Code analysis vendor Coverity reports that the number of defects in open source projects is on the decline.
From ACM TechNews
'intelligent Car' Able to Learn and Warn Driver of Possible Hazard
Scientists from six European countries have designed a new automatic driving assistance program called DRIVSCO. The program studies the car owner's driving pattern over time and if the car moves unusually when approaching a…
From ACM TechNews
Michigan Students Develop Rfid-Enabled Blind Cane
The Smart Cane is a prototype device developed by Central Michigan University (CMU) engineering students to help visually-impaired people navigate and avoid obstacles through its incorporation of radio-frequency identification…
From ACM TechNews
k's Centre For Cyber-Security Opens at Queen's
The Centre for Secure Information Technologies (CSIT) recently opened at Queen's University Belfast. CSIT will create 80 new positions and serve as the United Kingdom's primary center for the development of technology to fight…
From ACM TechNews
New Russian Top50 Supercomputers List Released
The Research Computing Center of Lomonosov at Moscow State University (MSU) and the RAS Joint Supercomputer Center have released the latest Top50 list of the most powerful computers in Russia and the Commonwealth of Independent…
From ACM TechNews
Wolfram's Search Goal: Compute All
Stephen Wolfram has set the ambitious goal of converting the global corpus of knowledge into a computable format through WolframAlpha.com, a computational knowledge engine rather than a search engine. WolframAlpha.com computes…
From ACM News
State Educators Call For Technology Investment
In his first State of Education Address Thursday (Sept 24), Wisconsin State Superintendent of Public Instruction Tony Evers touched on budget cuts and problems in the Milwaukee School District, but he kept his message forward…