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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.


Transparent Paper Produces Power With Just a Touch
From ACM News

Transparent Paper Produces Power With Just a Touch

A new transparent-paper device can generate electrical power from a user's touch (ACS Nano 2015, DOI: 10.1021/acsnano.5b02414).

Welcome to the AI Conspiracy: The 'canadian Mafia' Behind Tech's Latest Craze
From ACM Careers

Welcome to the AI Conspiracy: The 'canadian Mafia' Behind Tech's Latest Craze

In the late '90s, Tomi Poutanen, a precocious computer whiz from Finland, hoped to do his dissertation on neural networks, a scientific method aimed at teaching...

Minecraft Shows Robots How to Stop Dithering
From ACM News

Minecraft Shows Robots How to Stop Dithering

The computer game Minecraft, which depicts a world made up of retro, pixelated blocks that can be modified and rearranged in endless architectural configurations...

Virtual Medical Training: Don’t Call It Virtual Reality
From ACM News

Virtual Medical Training: Don’t Call It Virtual Reality

Medical professionals prefer to reference the technology with terms that are "less sci-fi."

An Algorithmic Sense of Humor? Not Yet.
From ACM News

An Algorithmic Sense of Humor? Not Yet.

In recent months, artificial-intelligence researchers have made giant strides in matching human performance in all kind of tasks that had, until recently, been...

The Social Security Number's Insecurities
From ACM Opinion

The Social Security Number's Insecurities

In both the Anthem insurance hack and the two Office of Personnel Management hacks this year, attackers gained access to Social Security numbers, affecting 80 million...

Screen Addiction Is Taking a Toll on Children
From ACM News

Screen Addiction Is Taking a Toll on Children

Excessive use of computer games among young people in China appears to be taking an alarming turn and may have particular relevance for American parents whose children...

The Rapid Rise of Neural Networks and Why They'll Rule Our World
From ACM TechNews

The Rapid Rise of Neural Networks and Why They'll Rule Our World

Neural network technology has advanced to the point where it underpins cutting-edge speech, text, and image-recognition systems, and scientists such as the University...

Here Are the 12 Most Influential Programmers Working Today
From ACM Opinion

Here Are the 12 Most Influential Programmers Working Today

The apps and games you use every day don't exist in a vacuum—someone, somewhere, wrote the code.

There May Be Infinite ­niverses—and Infinite Versions of You
From ACM Opinion

There May Be Infinite ­niverses—and Infinite Versions of You

In another universe you might have become the president of Micronesia. Or a pauper, subsisting on ketchup.

Toss Your Manual Overboard; Augmented Reality Aims at Big Industry
From ACM Careers

Toss Your Manual Overboard; Augmented Reality Aims at Big Industry

For better or for worse, augmented reality (AR) is charging forward in the consumer space—but there's a place for AR in the industrial world as well.

Nasa's New Horizons: A 'heart' from Pluto as Flyby Begins
From ACM News

Nasa's New Horizons: A 'heart' from Pluto as Flyby Begins

After a more than nine-year, three-billion-mile journey to Pluto, it's show time for NASA's New Horizons spacecraft, as the flyby sequence of science observations...

IBM Discloses Working Version of a Much Higher-Capacity Chip
From ACM News

IBM Discloses Working Version of a Much Higher-Capacity Chip

IBM said on Thursday that it had made working versions of ultradense computer chips, with roughly four times the capacity of today's most powerful chips.

Introducing the Astronaut Clothing of the Future
From ACM News

Introducing the Astronaut Clothing of the Future

A crew member aboard the International Space Station (ISS) is performing routine maintenance.

Almost Time For Pluto's Close-Up
From ACM News

Almost Time For Pluto's Close-Up

The pictures coming back from Pluto are still a bit fuzzy. But just wait.

Code Specialists Oppose U.S. and British Government Access to Encrypted Communication
From ACM News

Code Specialists Oppose U.S. and British Government Access to Encrypted Communication

An elite group of code makers and code breakers is taking American and British intelligence and law enforcement agencies to task in a new paper that evaluates government...

Leap Motion's Augmented-Reality Computing Looks Stupid Cool
From ACM News

Leap Motion's Augmented-Reality Computing Looks Stupid Cool

We have a habit of filling new technologies with old ideas.

Car Dashboards That Act Like Smart Phones Raise Safety Issues
From ACM News

Car Dashboards That Act Like Smart Phones Raise Safety Issues

When it comes to dashboard displays that are more like smart phones, two things are clear: Customers want them, and automakers are intent on supplying them.

Google's Deep Learning Machine Learns to Synthesize Real World Images
From ACM News

Google's Deep Learning Machine Learns to Synthesize Real World Images

Google Street View offers panoramic views of more or less any city street in much of the developed world, as well as views along countless footpaths, inside shopping...

Machine Ethics: The Robot's Dilemma
From ACM News

Machine Ethics: The Robot's Dilemma

In his 1942 short story 'Runaround', science-fiction writer Isaac Asimov introduced the Three Laws of Robotics—engineering safeguards and built-in ethical principles...
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