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subjectHuman Computer Interaction
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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.


New System ­ses Low-Power Wi-Fi Signal to Track Moving Humans—even Behind Walls
From ACM News

New System ­ses Low-Power Wi-Fi Signal to Track Moving Humans—even Behind Walls

The comic-book hero Superman uses his X-ray vision to spot bad guys lurking behind walls and other objects.

Seeing the Human Pulse
From ACM News

Seeing the Human Pulse

Researchers at MIT's Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory have developed a new algorithm that can accurately measure the heart rates of people...

Making Quantum Encryption Practical
From ACM News

Making Quantum Encryption Practical

One of the many promising applications of quantum mechanics in the information sciences is quantum key distribution (QKD) in which the counterintuitive behavior...

Valuing Versatility
From ACM News

Valuing Versatility

It's often said that we live in an age of increased specialization: physicians who treat just one ailment, scholars who study just one period, network administrators...

Practicing Medicine at the Nanoscale
From ACM News

Practicing Medicine at the Nanoscale

Modern medicine is largely based on treating patients with "small-molecule" drugs, which include pain relievers like aspirin and antibiotics such as penicillin.

Teaching Robots Lateral Thinking
From ACM News

Teaching Robots Lateral Thinking

Many commercial robotic arms perform what roboticists call "pick and place" tasks: The arm picks up an object in one location and places it in another.

Predicting What Topics Will Trend on Twitter
From ACM News

Predicting What Topics Will Trend on Twitter

Twitter's home page features a regularly updated list of topics that are "trending," meaning that tweets about them have suddenly exploded in volume.

3 Questions: A Web For Everyone
From ACM Opinion

3 Questions: A Web For Everyone

During the opening ceremonies of this summer’s Olympic games in London, a musical performance culminated with a stage-set house rising into the rafters to reveal...

Automatic Building Mapping Could Help Emergency Responders
From ACM News

Automatic Building Mapping Could Help Emergency Responders

MIT researchers have built a wearable sensor system that automatically creates a digital map of the environment through which the wearer is moving.

Making Web Applications More Efficient
From ACM News

Making Web Applications More Efficient

Most major Websites these days maintain huge databases: Shopping sites have databases of inventory and customer ratings, travel sites have databases of seat availability...

New Router Enhances the Precision of Woodworking
From ACM News

New Router Enhances the Precision of Woodworking

Anyone who has tried to build a piece of furniture from scratch knows the frustration of painstakingly cutting pieces of wood, only to discover that they won't...

Researchers Amplify Variations in Video, Making the Invisible Visible
From ACM News

Researchers Amplify Variations in Video, Making the Invisible Visible

At this summer's Siggraph—the premier computer-graphics conference—researchers from MIT's Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory will present new...

The Robot Revolution Is Just Beginning
From ACM News

The Robot Revolution Is Just Beginning

When industrial robots were first introduced in the early 1960s initially on automobile assembly lines—computers were still in their infancy, so the robots were...

Self-Sculpting Sand
From ACM News

Self-Sculpting Sand

Imagine that you have a big box of sand in which you bury a tiny model of a footstool.

From ACM News

Guiding Robot Planes with Hand Gestures

Aircraft-carrier crew use a set of standard hand gestures to guide planes on the carrier deck. But as robot planes are increasingly used for routine air missions...

Sometimes the Quickest Path Is Not a Sraight Line
From ACM News

Sometimes the Quickest Path Is Not a Sraight Line

Sometimes the fastest pathway from point A to point B is not a straight line: for example, if you're underwater and contending with strong and shifting currents...

Hail to the Geeks
From ACM News

Hail to the Geeks

Basketball dominates the American sports landscape in March. So perhaps it’s fitting that the sixth annual MIT Sloan Sports Analytics Conference, held last week...

Mitx Prototype Course Opens For Enrollment
From ACM Careers

Mitx Prototype Course Opens For Enrollment

In December, MIT announced the launch of an online learning initiative called "MITx." Starting this week, interested learners can now enroll for free in the initiative’s...

From ACM News

The Mathematics of Taste

The design of aromas—the flavors of packaged food and drink and the scents of cleaning products, toiletries and other household items—is a multibillion-dollar business...

From ACM News

Speed Limit For Birds

The northern goshawk is one of nature’s diehard thrill-seekers.
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