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dateMore Than a Year Ago
subjectPersonal Computing
authorIEEE Spectrum
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An edited collection of advanced computing news from Communications of the ACM, ACM TechNews, other ACM resources, and news sites around the Web.


Countries Debate Openness of Future National IDs
From ACM TechNews

Countries Debate Openness of Future National IDs

More than half of African countries are developing some form of biometric or digital national identification (ID).

Japanese Researchers Teaching Robots to Repair Themselves
From ACM TechNews

Japanese Researchers Teaching Robots to Repair Themselves

Researchers have demonstrated how to teach a PR2 robot to perform simple repairs on itself by tightening its own screws. 

Baidu's AI Can Do Simultaneous Translation Between Any Two Languages
From ACM News

Baidu's AI Can Do Simultaneous Translation Between Any Two Languages

Would-be travelers of the galaxy, rejoice: The Chinese tech giant Baidu has invented a translation system that brings us one step closer to a software Babel fish...

How Political Campaigns Weaponize Social Media Bots
From ACM News

How Political Campaigns Weaponize Social Media Bots

In the summer of 2017, a group of young political activists in the United Kingdom figured out how to use the popular dating app Tinder to attract new supporters...

DARPA Wants Brain Interfaces for Able-Bodied Warfighters
From ACM News

DARPA Wants Brain Interfaces for Able-Bodied Warfighters

Until now, the neuroscience programs at DARPA, the mad science wing of the Department of Defense, have focused on technologies for warfighters who have returned...

Hiding Information in Plain Text
From ACM News

Hiding Information in Plain Text

Computer scientists have now invented a way to hide secret messages in ordinary text by imperceptibly changing the shapes of letters.

How We Won Gold in the Cyborg Olympics' Brain Race
From ACM Opinion

How We Won Gold in the Cyborg Olympics' Brain Race

In October 2016, inside a sold-out arena in Zurich, a man named Numa Poujouly steered his wheelchair up to the central podium.

Blossom: A Handmade Approach to Social Robotics from Cornell and Google
From ACM Opinion

Blossom: A Handmade Approach to Social Robotics from Cornell and Google

As excited as we are about the forthcoming generation of social home robots (including Jibo, Kuri, and many others), it's hard to ignore the fact that most of them...

We Know What You're Watching (even If It's Encrypted)
From ACM News

We Know What You're Watching (even If It's Encrypted)

I stand firm in the opinion that it's my basic, human right to binge-watch six hours of trashy detective shows on a Friday night with a silent phone in my lap and...

The Surprising Story of the First Microprocessors
From ACM News

The Surprising Story of the First Microprocessors

Transistors, the electronic amplifiers and switches found at the heart of everything from pocket radios to warehouse-size supercomputers, were invented in 1947.

Nsa Can Legally Access Metadata of 25,000 Callers Based on a Single Suspect's Phone
From ACM News

Nsa Can Legally Access Metadata of 25,000 Callers Based on a Single Suspect's Phone

Despite changes to the law, the U.S. National Security Agency can still request metadata from tens of thousands of private phones if they are indirectly connected...

Neural Implant Enables Paralyzed Als Patient to Type Six Words Per Minute
From ACM News

Neural Implant Enables Paralyzed Als Patient to Type Six Words Per Minute

Typing six words per minute may not sound very impressive. But for paralyzed people typing via a brain-computer interface (BCI), it's a new world record.

Eben Upton: The Raspberry Pi Pioneer
From ACM TechNews

Eben Upton: The Raspberry Pi Pioneer

Eben Upton, the inventor of the Raspberry Pi computer, got his start coding games in BASIC on a BBC Micro when he was 10. 

The Highs and Hazards of Bitcoin
From ACM News

The Highs and Hazards of Bitcoin

Bitcoin, the leading online alternative currency, has attracted high-minded entrepreneurs and crooks alike.

Google Glass Features and Apps Still in Flux
From ACM TechNews

Google Glass Features and Apps Still in Flux

In an interview, Google Glass project leader Babak Parviz discusses where the wearable device is heading in the near future.

The Making of Arduino
From ACM News

The Making of Arduino

How five friends engineered a small circuit board that’s taking the DIY world by storm.

From ACM News

Cellphone Crime Solvers

Clues to crimes today are as likely to be found by examining the data stored in a cellphone or other mobile device as they are by dusting a crime scene. But the...

Sign Language By Cellphone
From ACM TechNews

Sign Language By Cellphone

Researchers at the University of Washington and Cornell University are working on the mobileASL project, which is developing a mobile phone that would enable deaf...
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