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subjectData / Storage And Retrieval
authorThe New Yorker
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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.


The Day the Dinosaurs Died
From ACM News

The Day the Dinosaurs Died

If, on a certain evening about sixty-­six million years ago, you had stood somewhere in North America and looked up at the sky, you would have soon made out what...

Have Aliens Found ­s? A Harvard Astronomer on the Mysterious Interstellar Object 'Oumuamua
From ACM Opinion

Have Aliens Found ­s? A Harvard Astronomer on the Mysterious Interstellar Object 'Oumuamua

On October 19, 2017, astronomers at the University of Hawaii spotted a strange object travelling through our solar system, which they later described as "a red...

How the Artificial-Intelligence Program AlphaZero Mastered Its Games
From ACM News

How the Artificial-Intelligence Program AlphaZero Mastered Its Games

A few weeks ago, a group of researchers from Google's artificial-intelligence subsidiary, DeepMind, published a paper in the journal Science that described an A...

The Friendship That Made Google Huge
From ACM News

The Friendship That Made Google Huge

One day in March of 2000, six of Google's best engineers gathered in a makeshift war room.

In the Age of A.I., Is Seeing Still Believing?
From ACM News

In the Age of A.I., Is Seeing Still Believing?

In 2011, Hany Farid, a photo-forensics expert, received an e-mail from a bereaved father.

Are We Already Living in Virtual Reality?
From ACM News

Are We Already Living in Virtual Reality?

Thomas Metzinger had his first out-of-body experience when he was nineteen.

The Olympics' Never-Ending Struggle to Keep Track of Time
From ACM News

The Olympics' Never-Ending Struggle to Keep Track of Time

At precisely three minutes and thirty seconds before two o'clock on the afternoon of Friday, April 10, 1896, on a bridge in the Greek town of Marathon, an army...

Estonia, the Digital Republic
From ACM News

Estonia, the Digital Republic

Up the Estonian coast, a five-lane highway bends with the path of the sea, then breaks inland, leaving cars to follow a thin road toward the houses at the water's...

Welcoming Our New Robot Overlords
From ACM Careers

Welcoming Our New Robot Overlords

When David Stinson finished high school, in Grand Rapids, Michigan, in 1977, the first thing he did was get a job building houses.

O.k., Computer, Tell Me What This Smells Like
From ACM News

O.k., Computer, Tell Me What This Smells Like

Our sense of smell is gloriously specific.

A Field Farmed Only By Drones
From ACM News

A Field Farmed Only By Drones

Across the United Kingdom, the last of the spring barley has been brought in from the fields, the culmination of an agricultural calendar whose rhythm has remained...

Our Weather-Prediction Models Keep Getting Better, and Hurricane Irma Is the Proof
From ACM News

Our Weather-Prediction Models Keep Getting Better, and Hurricane Irma Is the Proof

By Wednesday of last week, even as Tropical Storm Harvey continued to rain devastation on the Gulf Coast, a new storm, Irma, was taking shape in the eastern Atlantic...

Seeing with Your Tongue
From ACM News

Seeing with Your Tongue

The climbers at Earth Treks gym, in Golden, Colorado, were warming up: stretching, strapping themselves into harnesses, and chalking their hands as they prepared...

Could Ms. Pac-Man Train the Next Generation of Military Drones?
From ACM News

Could Ms. Pac-Man Train the Next Generation of Military Drones?

Thirty-five years ago, while Martin Amis was writing "Money," one of the novels that defined the 1980s, he admitted to a distracting dalliance with another contemporary...

Silicon Valley's Quest to Live Forever
From ACM News

Silicon Valley's Quest to Live Forever

On a velvety March evening in Mandeville Canyon, high above the rest of Los Angeles, Norman Lear's living room was jammed with powerful people eager to learn the...

A Computer to Rival the Brain
From ACM News

A Computer to Rival the Brain

More than two hundred years ago, a French weaver named Joseph Jacquard invented a mechanism that greatly simplified textile production.

The Many-Moons Theory
From ACM News

The Many-Moons Theory

Unbeknownst to most earthlings, the moon is experiencing a crisis.

Rewriting the Code of Life
From ACM News

Rewriting the Code of Life

Early on an unusually blustery day in June, Kevin Esvelt climbed aboard a ferry at Woods Hole, bound for Nantucket Island.

Will Driverless-Car Makers Learn to Share?
From ACM News

Will Driverless-Car Makers Learn to Share?

Last Monday, the Obama Administration released a hundred-and-twelve-page policy tome, "Federal Automated Vehicles Policy," which, despite its sleep-inducing title...

Catching Dust
From ACM News

Catching Dust

The ancient Egyptians believed that the universe emerged from an ocean called Nun, boundless and inert.
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