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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.


­nbridled Ingenuity at Maker Faire
From ACM News

­nbridled Ingenuity at Maker Faire

Around noon this past Sunday, I found myself asking a young girl why, even though the music-producing device she and her family had made was called "Slugophone...

From ACM News

Quantum Minds: Why We Think Like Quarks

The fuzziness and weird logic of the way particles behave applies surprisingly well to how humans think.

Mapping the Most Complex Object in the Known ­niverse
From ACM News

Mapping the Most Complex Object in the Known ­niverse

It's paint-by-numbers for neuroscientists. At the Max-Planck Institute for Medical Research in Heidelberg, Germany, researchers have devised a faster way of computing...

'Fluid Cloak' to Help Submarines Leave No Wake
From ACM News

'Fluid Cloak' to Help Submarines Leave No Wake

Super-stealthy submarines may one day glide through the water without creating a wake, if a plan to channel fluid intelligently around objects can be made to...

From ACM News

Welcome to the Age of the Splinternet

Openness is the Internet's great strength—and weakness. With powerful forces carving it up, is its golden age coming to an end?

From ACM News

Robots ­se Kinect to ­nderstand Our World

Picture the scene, a few years from now. "Robot, fetch me that pillow over there," you say to your ever-willing butlerbot. "Certainly sir," it replies. "What's...

From ACM News

How to Be in Two Places at the Same Time

An ambitious experiment to make a glass sphere exist in two places at once could provide the most sensitive test of quantum theory yet.

Mining Social Networks to Predict Your App Choices
From ACM TechNews

Mining Social Networks to Predict Your App Choices

Researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology's Media Lab have analyzed the smartphone use of students on social networks in an attempt to determine...

Autopiloted Glider Knows Where to Fly For a Free Ride
From ACM News

Autopiloted Glider Knows Where to Fly For a Free Ride

Hawks and albatrosses soar for hours or even days without having to land. Soon robotic gliders could go one better, soaring on winds and thermals indefinitely...

The Million-Dollar Puzzle That Could Change the World
From ACM TechNews

The Million-Dollar Puzzle That Could Change the World

The single biggest problem in computer science, for which the Clay Mathematics Institute is offering a $1 million prize, is determining whether P equals NP, which...

From ACM News

Covert Hard Drive Fragmentation Embeds a Spy's Secrets

Good news for spies. There is now a way to hide data on a hard drive without using encryption. Instead of using a cipher to scramble text, the method involves...

From ACM News

The Search Engine That Predicts What You Want

In the future the news will find you—at least according to Futureful, a Finnish startup building a predictive discovery iPad app that will deliver personalised...

From ACM News

Evolutionary Babel Was in Southern Africa

Where did humanity utter its first words? A new linguistic analysis attempts to rewrite the story of Babel by borrowing from the methods of genetic analysis—and...

Bye-Bye Electrons? Circuit Made From Flowing Atoms
From ACM TechNews

Bye-Bye Electrons? Circuit Made From Flowing Atoms

Kevin Wright and colleagues at NIST chilled 100,000 sodium atoms then used lasers to shape the blob of atoms into a torus and give it enough energy to circulate...

Quantum Trickery Could Lead to Stealth Radar
From ACM News

Quantum Trickery Could Lead to Stealth Radar

Stealthy radar systems and the ability to transmit large amounts of data over long distances are a step closer thanks to a technique that could improve the efficiency...

From ACM News

Flying Robots Team ­p to Juggle

Our flying robot overlords seem to have a fun side after all. In this video, watch two quadrocopters team up to skillfully juggle a ball, thanks to software developed...

Surveillance Robots Know When to Hide
From ACM News

Surveillance Robots Know When to Hide

The spy approaches the target building under cover of darkness, taking a zigzag path to avoid well-lit areas and sentries. He selects a handy vantage point next...

Invisible Wi-Fi Signals Caught on Camera
From ACM News

Invisible Wi-Fi Signals Caught on Camera

Computer icons can give you an idea of your Wi-Fi signal strength. But now Timo Arnall and a team of designers from the Oslo School of Architecture & Design have...

Better Than Human? What's Next for Jeopardy! Computer
From ACM News

Better Than Human? What's Next for Jeopardy! Computer

A medical robot; a Google-killer; a financial advisor; a tool for trawling legal documents; an aide for the intelligence services. These are just some of the...

From ACM News

First Silicon Entanglement Will Aid Quantum Computing

The state of entanglement has been created in silicon for the first time. The feat could lead to quantum computers made like ordinary computer chips.
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