acm-header
Sign In

Communications of the ACM

News


bg-corner

An edited collection of advanced computing news from Communications of the ACM, ACM TechNews, other ACM resources, and news sites around the Web.


Machine Learning's 'Amazing' Ability to Predict Chaos
From ACM News

Machine Learning's 'Amazing' Ability to Predict Chaos

Half a century ago, the pioneers of chaos theory discovered that the "butterfly effect" makes long-term prediction impossible.

Machine Learning’s ‘Amazing’ Ability to Predict Chaos
From ACM News

Machine Learning’s ‘Amazing’ Ability to Predict Chaos

In new computer experiments, artificial-intelligence algorithms can tell the future of chaotic systems.

Smart Swarms Seek New Ways to Cooperate
From ACM TechNews

Smart Swarms Seek New Ways to Cooperate

Researchers are developing cooperative swarms of tiny robots called smarticles that can collectively perform complex behaviors.

Quantum Algorithms Struggle Against Old Foe: Clever Computers
From ACM News

Quantum Algorithms Struggle Against Old Foe: Clever Computers

The quest for "quantum supremacy" – unambiguous proof that a quantum computer does something faster than an ordinary computer – has paradoxically led to a boom...

The Era of Quantum Computing Is Here. Outlook: Cloudy
From ACM News

The Era of Quantum Computing Is Here. Outlook: Cloudy

After decades of heavy slog with no promise of success, quantum computing is suddenly buzzing with almost feverish excitement and activity.

Mathematicians Find Wrinkle in Famed Fluid Equations
From ACM News

Mathematicians Find Wrinkle in Famed Fluid Equations

The Navier-Stokes equations capture in a few succinct terms one of the most ubiquitous features of the physical world: the flow of fluids.

Newfound Wormhole Allows Information to Escape Black Holes
From ACM News

Newfound Wormhole Allows Information to Escape Black Holes

In 1985, when Carl Sagan was writing the novel Contact, he needed to quickly transport his protagonist Dr. Ellie Arroway from Earth to the star Vega. He had her...

Best-Ever Algorithm Found For Huge Streams of Data
From ACM TechNews

Best-Ever Algorithm Found For Huge Streams of Data

Researchers have  created a near-perfect streaming algorithm that operates by recalling only enough of what it has seen to relate what it has observed most often...

A Brain Built From Atomic Switches Can Learn
From ACM TechNews

A Brain Built From Atomic Switches Can Learn

Researchers are constructing a device "inspired by the brain to generate the properties that enable the brain to do what it does."

New Theory Cracks Open the Black Box of Deep Learning
From ACM News

New Theory Cracks Open the Black Box of Deep Learning

A new idea called the "information bottleneck" is helping to explain the puzzling success of today's artificial-intelligence algorithms—and might also explain how...

For Astronomers, a Neutron Star Merger Could Eclipse the Eclipse
From ACM News

For Astronomers, a Neutron Star Merger Could Eclipse the Eclipse

Late last week, as some staff astronomers embarked on trips to see Monday's solar eclipse, two of NASA's space-based observatories—Hubble and Chandra X-ray—and...

Discoveries Fuel Fight Over Universe's First Light
From ACM News

Discoveries Fuel Fight Over Universe's First Light

Not long after the Big Bang, all went dark.

Complexity Theory Problem Strikes Back
From ACM News

Complexity Theory Problem Strikes Back

The legendary graph isomorphism problem may be harder than a 2015 result seemed to suggest.

Hacker-Proof Code Confirmed
From ACM News

Hacker-Proof Code Confirmed

Computer scientists can prove certain programs to be error-free with the same certainty that mathematicians prove theorems. 

Computing's Search For Quantum Questions
From ACM TechNews

Computing's Search For Quantum Questions

Scientists are plotting out benchmark problems, classes of problems that are specifically appropriate to hybrid quantum computers. 

Mapping the Brain to Build Better Machines
From ACM News

Mapping the Brain to Build Better Machines

Take a three year-old to the zoo, and she intuitively knows that the long-necked creature nibbling leaves is the same thing as the giraffe in her picture book.

Scientists Debate Signatures of Alien Life
From ACM News

Scientists Debate Signatures of Alien Life

Huddled in a coffee shop one drizzly Seattle morning six years ago, the astrobiologist Shawn Domagal-Goldman stared blankly at his laptop screen, paralyzed.

Landmark Algorithm Breaks 30-Year Impasse
From ACM TechNews

Landmark Algorithm Breaks 30-Year Impasse

Computer scientists are calling a new algorithm a breakthrough in mapping how hard computational problems are to solve. 

‘outsiders’ Crack 50-Year-Old Math Problem
From ACM News

‘outsiders’ Crack 50-Year-Old Math Problem

Three computer scientists have solved a problem central to a dozen far-flung mathematical fields.

A Magical Answer to an 80-Year-Old Puzzle
From ACM News

A Magical Answer to an 80-Year-Old Puzzle

Can you devise a series of steps to avoid hazards two paces to either side of you, even if you are forced to take every second, third or Nth step in your series...
Sign In for Full Access
» Forgot Password? » Create an ACM Web Account