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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.


Best Microscope Photos of the Year Bring Tiny, Amazing Worlds to Light
From ACM News

Best Microscope Photos of the Year Bring Tiny, Amazing Worlds to Light


Why Facebook Is Teaching Its Machines to Think Like Humans
From ACM TechNews

Why Facebook Is Teaching Its Machines to Think Like Humans

Facebook is turning to deep learning to teach computers to more closely imitate the human brain, with the goal of gaining greater insight into individual users. ...

Court Rules Probable-Cause Warrant Required For Gps Trackers
From ACM News

Court Rules Probable-Cause Warrant Required For Gps Trackers

An appellate court has finally supplied an answer to an open question left dangling by the Supreme Court in 2012: Do law enforcement agencies need a probable-cause...

Killer Robots With Automatic Rifles Could Be on the Battlefield in 5 Years
From ACM News

Killer Robots With Automatic Rifles Could Be on the Battlefield in 5 Years

Robots armed with automatic weapons, anti-tank missiles and even grenade launchers are marching, er, rolling ever closer to the battlefield now that they’ve shown...

Predicting the Future Could Improve Remote-Control of Space Robots
From ACM TechNews

Predicting the Future Could Improve Remote-Control of Space Robots

A new system could make robotic space exploration faster and more efficient by predicting the robot's future movements. 

The Future of Prosthetics Could Be This Brain-Controlled Bionic Leg
From ACM News

The Future of Prosthetics Could Be This Brain-Controlled Bionic Leg

About a year ago, Zac Vawter climbed all 103 flights of stairs of the Willis Tower in Chicago.

Big Data Is Too Big For Scientists to Handle Alone
From ACM TechNews

Big Data Is Too Big For Scientists to Handle Alone

Experts say big data can only be leveraged in future scientific endeavors with a combination of science, statistics, computers, mathematics, and leadership. 

Quantum Computer Passes Math Test, But Doesn't Answer the Big Question
From ACM News

Quantum Computer Passes Math Test, But Doesn't Answer the Big Question

Is the world's first commercial quantum computer the real deal or not?

Interstellar 8-Track: How Voyager's Vintage Tech Keeps Running
From ACM News

Interstellar 8-Track: How Voyager's Vintage Tech Keeps Running

NASA's Voyager 1 spacecraft has gone interstellar.

How Ios 7 Will Spark a Boom in App Design
From ACM Opinion

How Ios 7 Will Spark a Boom in App Design

You probably feel strongly about iOS 7.

Rsa Tells Its Developer Customers: Stop Using Nsa-Linked Algorithm
From ACM News

Rsa Tells Its Developer Customers: Stop Using Nsa-Linked Algorithm


NASA's Plutonium Problem Could End Deep-Space Exploration
From ACM News

NASA's Plutonium Problem Could End Deep-Space Exploration

In 1977, the Voyager 1 spacecraft left Earth on a five-year mission to explore Jupiter and Saturn. Thirty-six years later, the car-size probe is still exploring...

The Man Who Would Build a Computer the Size of the Entire Internet
From ACM TechNews

The Man Who Would Build a Computer the Size of the Entire Internet

Solomon Hykes has started an open source software project called Docker that aims to use the Internet as one enormous computer.

This Augmented-Reality Sandbox Turns Dirt Into a ­i
From ACM News

This Augmented-Reality Sandbox Turns Dirt Into a ­i

We've seen how kids take to touchscreens. To them, our unfathomably sophisticated smartphones and tablets are about as hard to figure out as a bucket full of blocks...

Twitter 'joke Bots' Shame Human Sense of Humor
From ACM TechNews

Twitter 'joke Bots' Shame Human Sense of Humor

Two Twitter bots generate phrases that are funny by virtue of not being particularly funny, to poke fun at human tweeters' own attempts at humor. 

The Science Behind the Netflix Algorithms That Decide What You'll Watch Next
From ACM News

The Science Behind the Netflix Algorithms That Decide What You'll Watch Next

If you liked 1960s Star Trek, the first non-Trek title that Netflix is likely to suggest to you is the original Mission: Impossible series (the one with the cool...

A Videogame That Recruits Players to Map the Brain
From ACM News

A Videogame That Recruits Players to Map the Brain

I'm no neuroscientist, and yet, here I am at my computer attempting to reconstruct a neural circuit of a mouse’s retina.

Testing the Future: Astronaut in Space Remote-Controls Robot in California
From ACM News

Testing the Future: Astronaut in Space Remote-Controls Robot in California

On a pebbled field built next to a parking lot, a small rover scoots forward and expels a long sheet of polyimide plastic from its backside, the third film the...

MIT Whiz Wants to Turn Your Skin Into a Computer Interface
From ACM News

MIT Whiz Wants to Turn Your Skin Into a Computer Interface

According to Lynette Jones, a senior research scientist in MIT's Department of Mechanical Engineering, your skin has about as many sensory receptors as your eyeballs...

The End of Digital Tyranny: Why the Future of Computing Is Analog
From ACM Opinion

The End of Digital Tyranny: Why the Future of Computing Is Analog

Our world is ruled by 1s and 0s.
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