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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.


This Real-Life Pixar Lamp Cutely Refuses to Let You Turn It Off
From ACM Opinion

This Real-Life Pixar Lamp Cutely Refuses to Let You Turn It Off

Design-class projects have come a long way. That's the only conclusion I can draw from this brilliant video of a robotic desk lamp that squeaks, swivels, and mugs...

How Apple Really Invented the Iphone
From ACM News

How Apple Really Invented the Iphone

Like many of Apple's inventions, the iPhone began not with a vision, but with a problem.

How Governments and Telecom Companies Work Together on Surveillance Laws
From ACM News

How Governments and Telecom Companies Work Together on Surveillance Laws

When Americans are displeased with their politicians, they like to threaten to move to Canada. But if you're tempted to move north—or even further afield—to get...

Obama Was Right: The Government Invented the Internet
From ACM Opinion

Obama Was Right: The Government Invented the Internet

Earlier this month, President Obama argued that wealthy business people owe some of their success to the government's investment in education and basic infrastructure...

Research Reveals Why Spammers Claim They're Nigerian
From ACM News

Research Reveals Why Spammers Claim They're Nigerian

Most of us know the signs: stilted English, "Dear Sir/Madam," a particular fondness for exclamation points.

Free, Browser-Based 'wolfenstein 3d' Released By Bethesda
From ACM News

Free, Browser-Based 'wolfenstein 3d' Released By Bethesda

Bethesda Softworks has released a free, browser-based version of the iconic first-person shooter, Wolfenstein 3D.

Google's Grand Plan
From ACM News

Google's Grand Plan

In a typical month, David Lawee meets two dozen founders of new companies. He grills them on their businesses, their ambitions, their funding, and their clever...

Your Kinect Is Watching You
From ACM News

Your Kinect Is Watching You

There is a wave of concern—completely justified, to my mind—over the privacy implications of our increasing reliance on Facebook and Google. What most people don’t...

The DIY Copyright Revolution
From ACM News

The DIY Copyright Revolution

It is something of a fluke that copyright law has become so intertwined with our online lives. For most people, the first things that were easy to create and distribute...

How Twitter Traffic Follows Air Traffic
From ACM News

How Twitter Traffic Follows Air Traffic

Twitter has a reputation for linking people through interests rather than geography. But while the little blue bird lets us connect with people all around the world...

From ACM News

Project Dreamcatcher

How cutting-edge text analytics can help the Obama campaign determine voters' hopes and fears.

From ACM News

Eyeball-Movement-Based Navigation Shifting From Helping the Disabled to Mainstream ­se?

That Kindle Fire you got for Christmas may be pretty cool, but what if it could flip the book pages without requiring you to lift a finger?

Twitter of Terror
From ACM News

Twitter of Terror

Al-Shabaab, the Somali militant group heretofore best known for stoning teenage girls, blowing up soccer fans, and blocking food aid to their starving countrymen...

A Picture of Democracy
From ACM News

A Picture of Democracy

How digital cameras and smartphones might reduce corruption in Afghanistan and elsewhere.

From ACM News

Captcha Talks Back

What if CAPTCHA messed with you even more than it already does?

From ACM News

The Death of Booting ­p

Remember "booting up"? It was the first thing you did every morning—you waited two minutes, three minutes, sometimes even longer while your computer ran through...

Building Robots that Understand Human Emotions and Make People Healthier
From ACM News

Building Robots that Understand Human Emotions and Make People Healthier

 For most of us, the closest we get to a robot in daily life is a Roomba. But Dr. Cynthia Breazeal, director of the Personal Robots Group at the MIT Media Lab...

Has Facebook Peaked?
From ACM News

Has Facebook Peaked?

Facebook's active user base grew by only 1.7% in May. That's about half its usual growth rate, and it came after similarly slow growth in April. According to Inside...

From ACM News

Wiring in a Wireless Age

Is Intel's Thunderbolt cable a brilliant innovation or a worthless grasp at the past?

An Html For Numbers
From ACM News

An Html For Numbers

The Age of Data is just around the corner, right where it has been for years. As someone who spends a lot his time creating visualizations, I've been hoping for...
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