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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.


Automotive Black Boxes, Minus the Gray Area
From ACM News

Automotive Black Boxes, Minus the Gray Area

The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration will later this year propose a requirement that all new vehicles contain an event data recorder, known more...

Google Search Patterns Could Track Mrsa Spread
From ACM TechNews

Google Search Patterns Could Track Mrsa Spread

Google searches might enable public health experts to better fight drug-resistant staph infections, according to the University of Chicago's Diane Lauderdale.

Crazy Military Tracking Tech, From Super Scents to Quantum Dots
From ACM News

Crazy Military Tracking Tech, From Super Scents to Quantum Dots

Scents that make you trackable, indoors and out. Nanocrystals that stick to your body, and light up on night-vision goggles. Miniradar that maps your location...

Bin Laden Compound Now a Virtual Training Ground for Commandos
From ACM News

Bin Laden Compound Now a Virtual Training Ground for Commandos

To passers-by, T.J., a fit 20-something, is running around a red felt carpet about half the size of a basketball court inside a convention center. In his mind...

Quantum Calculations Can Make Atomic Clocks of the Future Far More Accurate
From ACM News

Quantum Calculations Can Make Atomic Clocks of the Future Far More Accurate

New calculations of how atoms swell when they’re warmed up can help make the next generation of atomic clocks 10 times more precise.

Why Google Does Not Own Skype
From ACM Opinion

Why Google Does Not Own Skype

So Microsoft is buying Skype for $8.5 billion, its biggest deal ever. It’s too soon to make a pronouncement on whether the purchase is an idiot move, a brilliant...

From ACM News

Domestic Surveillance Court Approved All 1,506 Warrant Applications in 2010

The secretive Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court approved all 1,506 government requests to electronically monitor suspected "agents" of a foreign power or...

From ACM News

Darpa Apes Nick Fury to Map Social Networks

If the military is going to disrupt insurgent cells or understand how revolutionary movements congeal, it needs to perceive the connections between people that...

May 5, 1992: Wolfenstein 3-D Shoots First-Person Shooter Into Stardom
From ACM News

May 5, 1992: Wolfenstein 3-D Shoots First-Person Shooter Into Stardom

Id Software releases Wolfenstein 3-D, launching a huge computer-game category.

From ACM News

Army Wants Its Computers Acting Like Human Brains

The brain is our body’s natural multi-system parallel processing organ. Its job, on a continuous basis, is to compute a huge onslaught of incoming data and spit...

Csi Bin Laden: Commandos Use Thumb, Eye Scans to Track Terrorists
From ACM News

Csi Bin Laden: Commandos Use Thumb, Eye Scans to Track Terrorists

The U.S. forces that killed Osama bin Laden in his Abbottabad compound were more than expert marksmen. Some of them were forensics experts as well, using sophisticated...

Hoops 2.0: Inside the Nba
From ACM News

Hoops 2.0: Inside the Nba

Outside Oracle Arena, it’s a balmy 65-degree spring day. But up in the building’s rafters, 80-odd feet above the hardwood floor, the air is crisp and the view...

Why Cisco's Flip Flopped in the Camera Business
From ACM News

Why Cisco's Flip Flopped in the Camera Business

Cisco is shutting down a business unit that it bought for over half-a-billion dollars: the Flip camcorder division. That's a shame, considering how high the Flip...

Military
From ACM News

Military

The Pentagon has spent decades and gazillions of dollars trying to build the perfect translation device. Now, its far-out research arm is looking at a new direction...

From ACM News

'predator' Smart Camera Locks Onto, Tracks Anything

Zdenek Kalal’s Predator object-tracking software is almost uncanny. Show anything to its all-seeing camera eye, and it will quickly learn to recognize it and...

Ancient Greek Computer Had Surprising Sun Tracker
From ACM News

Ancient Greek Computer Had Surprising Sun Tracker

The world's oldest astronomical calculator is famous for having intricate gear systems centuries ahead of their time. But new work shows the Antikythera mechanism...

Attack Code for SCADA Vulnerabilities Released Online
From ACM News

Attack Code for SCADA Vulnerabilities Released Online

The security of critical infrastructure is in the spotlight again this week after a researcher released attack code that can exploit several vulnerabilities found...

Tiny 3-D-Printed Insect Robots Take Flight
From ACM News

Tiny 3-D-Printed Insect Robots Take Flight

A team of roboticists at Cornell University have created tiny flying robotic insects using 3-D printing. The flapping wings of the hovering robotic insects (known...

Dissecting the Physics of Basketball Bank Shots
From ACM News

Dissecting the Physics of Basketball Bank Shots

Here’s the scenario: You’re a college basketball player and your team is down by one. You’ve got a trip to the NCAA men’s basketball tournament on the line, but...

Data as Art: 10 Striking Science Maps
From ACM News

Data as Art: 10 Striking Science Maps

The computer age triggered a seemingly endless stream of scientific data, but such incoming mountains of information come at a cost. The more data you amass,...
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