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Latest News News Archive Refine your search:
subjectCommunications / Networking
authorThe Atlantic
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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.


Y ­ No Go Viral: The Emerging Science of Memes
From ACM TechNews

Y ­ No Go Viral: The Emerging Science of Memes

Scientists are beginning to study how memes are created, which ones fail, and how certain memes go viral. 

What the Digital Brains of the Future Might Be Like
From ACM Opinion

What the Digital Brains of the Future Might Be Like

It is the rare entrepreneur who hits it truly big twice. Those who do—such as Ev Williams, Ted Turner, and Elon Musk—tend to stay within the original industry that...

Where Rich People Live (AKA Maps of iPhone Use)
From ACM News

Where Rich People Live (AKA Maps of iPhone Use)

Our stuff often says a lot about us, whether we own a hybrid car or a station wagon, a MacBook Pro or an ancient desktop.

Is This Virtual Worm the First Sign of the Singularity?
From ACM News

Is This Virtual Worm the First Sign of the Singularity?

For all the talk of artificial intelligence and all the games of SimCity that have been played, no one in the world can actually simulate living things. Biology...

Chatting in Code on Walkie-Talkies in Pakistan's Restive Tribal Areas
From ACM News

Chatting in Code on Walkie-Talkies in Pakistan's Restive Tribal Areas

Sharif loves using his mukhabera. "I use it daily, mostly at night time, because signals are clear at that time," he says. "I am in touch with most of my friends...

Paul Otellini's Intel: Can the Company That Built the Future Survive It?
From ACM Opinion

Paul Otellini's Intel: Can the Company That Built the Future Survive It?

Forty-five years after Intel was founded by Silicon Valley legends Gordon Moore and Bob Noyce, it is the world's leading semiconductor company.

How Facebook Designs the 'perfect Empty Vessel' For Your Mind
From ACM News

How Facebook Designs the 'perfect Empty Vessel' For Your Mind

One day in March, I was sitting across from Facebook's design director, Kate Aronowitz, at 1 Hacker Way in Menlo Park when she told me, "It takes a lot of work...

How the Boston Pd Could Examine the Videos From the Bombing
From ACM News

How the Boston Pd Could Examine the Videos From the Bombing

As investigators try to figure out what happened during the bombings at the Boston Marathon, they'll turn to video taken at the scene of the explosions.

How Augmented-Reality Content Might Actually Work
From ACM Opinion

How Augmented-Reality Content Might Actually Work

Augmented reality is very exciting. The promise of it is this: all the information on the Internet overlaid on the real world exactly where and when you need it...

Why Google Maps Is Better Than Apple Maps
From ACM Opinion

Why Google Maps Is Better Than Apple Maps

There's a simple answer: people.

In China, 25 Million People ­se Only Their Cell Phones to Read Books
From ACM Opinion

In China, 25 Million People ­se Only Their Cell Phones to Read Books

On vacation in China earlier this month, I stopped by Shanghai's seven-story downtown "Book City," bustling with activity on a weekday afternoon that, as a publisher...

An Amazon Engineer Had a Little Idea That Turned Into a Billion-Dollar Business
From ACM News

An Amazon Engineer Had a Little Idea That Turned Into a Billion-Dollar Business

Once upon a time, Amazon was a dot-com-era technology company best known for selling books.

The World Is Not Enough: Google and the Future of Augmented Reality
From ACM News

The World Is Not Enough: Google and the Future of Augmented Reality

It is The Future. You wake up at dawn and fumble on the bedstand for your (Google) Glass. Peering out at the world through transparent screens, what do you see?

The Consequences of Machine Intelligence
From ACM Opinion

The Consequences of Machine Intelligence

The question of what happens when machines get to be as intelligent as and even more intelligent than people seems to occupy many science-fiction writers.

Iphone 5? Yawn. What Will the 'phone' of 2022 Look Like?
From ACM Opinion

Iphone 5? Yawn. What Will the 'phone' of 2022 Look Like?

The near-term future of phones is fairly well-established. The iPhone 5 was released Wednesday and its similarity to every Apple phone since 2007 serves as a reminder...

How Google Builds Its Maps—and What It Means For the Future of Everything
From ACM News

How Google Builds Its Maps—and What It Means For the Future of Everything

Behind every Google Map, there is a much more complex map that's the key to your queries but hidden from your view.

The Jet Propulsion Lab Is Way Weirder (and Awesomer) Than You Even Imagined
From ACM Opinion

The Jet Propulsion Lab Is Way Weirder (and Awesomer) Than You Even Imagined

For a center of cutting-edge scientific research, Caltech's Jet Propulsion Lab seems to be a pretty wacky place. Luke Johnson, a graphic designer at the lab, set...

The Robot of the Future That's About to Explore the Deep Past of Mars
From ACM News

The Robot of the Future That's About to Explore the Deep Past of Mars

I want to tell you about a special place on the surface of Mars. Back in the solar system's early days, a large object slammed into the red planet, leaving behind...

Inside Google's Plan to Build a Catalog of Every Single Thing, Ever
From ACM Opinion

Inside Google's Plan to Build a Catalog of Every Single Thing, Ever

The ugly truth is that computers don't know anything. They have no common sense.

Get Ready, Because Voyager I Is *this Close* to Leaving Our Solar System
From ACM News

Get Ready, Because Voyager I Is *this Close* to Leaving Our Solar System

Last week, in the corners of the Internet devoted to outer space, things started to get a little, well, hot. Voyager 1, the man-made object farthest away from Earth...
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