Communications of the ACM
A Healthy Dose of AI
Building artificial intelligence into medical devices can speed diagnoses and potentially improve treatments and outcomes.
From ACM NewsAn edited collection of advanced computing news from Communications of the ACM, ACM TechNews, other ACM resources, and news sites around the Web.
From ACM TechNews
Robots With Skin Enter Our Touchy-Feely World
A team at the Italian Institute of Technology (IIT) in May will circulate to various labs the first components of a touch-sensitive skin for their iCub humanoid...
From ACM News
Robots Look to the Cloud for Enlightenment
With the phrase "web 2.0" falling out of vogue, the most exciting new uses of the internet are now all about the cloud, a term for servers invisibly doing smart...
From ACM TechNews
Hand-Held Projector Images Respond to the Real World
A prototype of a handheld projector created virtual characters that interacted with the real world at the recent Virtual Reality 2010 meeting in Waltham, MA.
From ACM News
Entangle Qubits for a True Random Number Machine
Pure randomness is surprisingly difficult to create, even if you draw on the inherent randomness of quantum mechanics. Now, though, a "true" random number generator...
From ACM News
Touch Floors Could Be Next Step in Computer Interfaces
Imagine entering your living room and sliding your foot purposefully over a particular stretch of floor. Your hi-fi system springs to life, pumping out the sounds...
From ACM News
Visual Tricks Can Make Downloads Seem Quicker
Twiddling our thumbs while waiting for files to download is one of the great frustrations of our high-speed, technologically interconnected world. Computer scientists...
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Look, No Hands: Cars That Drive Better Than You
With his jeans, white trainers and stripy top, Bob is every inch the well-dressed 6-year-old. He's standing in the middle of a hotel car park and, scarily, I'm...
From ACM News
Are Machines Ready to Break Down Language Barriers?
Even in an era of global networks and cheap travel, international communication still faces one great barrier: we don't all speak the same language. But that gap...
From ACM News
Amputees Could Get a Helping Hand in the Virtual World
What is the best way to for someone to get used to their artificial limb? Put them in a virtual environment. So says Anthony Steed, a computer scientist at University...
From ACM TechNews
Safety Issues Loom as Humanoid Invasion Approaches
As robot technology advances, and their use puts them in closer contact with humans, safety has become a top priority for some researchers.
From ACM TechNews
Body Acoustics Can Turn Your Arm Into a Touchscreen
Researchers from Carnegie Mellon University and Microsoft have developed Skinput, a skin-based interface that turns the human body into a touchscreen.
From ACM TechNews
Boring Conversation? Let Your Computer Listen For You
Researchers are developing software that can make conversing with a computer more productive. Existing automatic speech recognition technology is unreliable.
From ACM News
Cellphone Traces Reveal You're So Predictable
We may all like to consider ourselves free spirits. But a study of the traces left by 50,000 cellphone users over three months has conclusively proved otherwise...
From ACM News
.s. Networks and Power Grid nder (mock) Cyber-Attack
Unknown hackers have taken out U.S. cellphone networks in an ongoing cyber-attack that will soon knock out parts of the nation's electricity grid – say the officials...
From ACM News
Smart Dust Could Give Early Warning of Space Storms
A SWARM of "smart dust" spacecraft, positioned at a sweet spot between the Earth and the sun, could alert us to the approach of dangerous space storms well before...
From ACM News
Unplugged: Goodbye Cables, Hello Energy Beams
LET'S face it: power cables are unsightly dust-traps. PCs, TVs and music players are becoming slicker every year, but the nest of vipers in the corner of everyAn...
From ACM News
Touchscreen Merges the Real and Digital Worlds
For all the advances in table-top and tablet computing, some design professionals will always prefer the feel of pen on paper to stylus on glass. A new device could...
From ACM TechNews
How Touch Screens Could Shrug Off Shoulder Surfers
Users of touch-screen gadgets must contend with snoopers, and researchers at Britain's Newcastle University and elsewhere are working on alternative input mechanisms...
From ACM News
Microsoft's Body-Sensing, Button-Busting Controller
A LONG-lived videogaming skill could be on the way out this year as Microsoft hones an add-on to its Xbox 360 console aimed at making button-studded games controllers...
From ACM TechNews