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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.


An Easy Way For Hackers to Remotely Burn Industrial Motors
From ACM News

An Easy Way For Hackers to Remotely Burn Industrial Motors

Hacks that cause physical destruction are so rare they can be counted on one hand.

Prediction Machines Will See the Future For Hedge Funds, CIA
From ACM News

Prediction Machines Will See the Future For Hedge Funds, CIA

Every time a new year rolls in, lots of people make predictions. Most will either be obvious (Apple will put out some new products) or wrong (still waiting for...

Philae Lander Fails to Respond to Last-Ditch Efforts to Wake It
From ACM News

Philae Lander Fails to Respond to Last-Ditch Efforts to Wake It

Farewell, Philae. The space lander that touched down on comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko (and in our hearts) in November 2014 has not responded to a last-ditch attempt...

2015 Was the Best Year Ever in Space
From ACM Opinion

2015 Was the Best Year Ever in Space

With 2015 now behind us, what truly stands out?

The New Way Police Are Surveilling You: Calculating Your Threat 'score'
From ACM News

The New Way Police Are Surveilling You: Calculating Your Threat 'score'

While officers raced to a recent 911 call about a man threatening his ex-girlfriend, a police operator in headquarters consulted software that scored the suspect's...

Insurers Brace For the Self-Driving Future and Fewer Accidents
From ACM News

Insurers Brace For the Self-Driving Future and Fewer Accidents

As autonomous driving technology advances, perhaps the most notable benefit is the promise of a striking reduction in accidents.

­.s. Meets Tech Leaders, Forms Task Force to Fight Online Militants
From ACM News

­.s. Meets Tech Leaders, Forms Task Force to Fight Online Militants

The Obama administration on Friday sent its top national security officials to meet tech industry leaders in Silicon Valley and announced a new task force to counter...

MIT Researchers Want to Teach Robots How to Wash Dishes
From ACM News

MIT Researchers Want to Teach Robots How to Wash Dishes

The robots arrived years ago. They help build stuff in factories. They shuttle packages and products across the massive warehouses that drive Amazon’s worldwide...

Rebooted Kepler Spacecraft Hauls in the Planets
From ACM News

Rebooted Kepler Spacecraft Hauls in the Planets

In the second phase of its life as a planet hunter, NASA's Kepler spacecraft is raking in exoplanet discoveries that are surprisingly different from those found...

What We've Learned About Pluto So Far
From ACM News

What We've Learned About Pluto So Far

NASA's New Horizons spacecraft concluded its tightly choreographed flyby of Pluto, back in July, with a pirouette, pointing its antenna toward Earth.

What Does the Internet Actually Look Like?
From ACM News

What Does the Internet Actually Look Like?

It’s difficult to define "the cloud." Even more difficult, perhaps, is photographing it. But that's precisely what Peter Garritano set out to do with his photoThe...

In 2016, Terror Suspects and 7-Eleven Thieves May Bring Surveillance to Supreme Court
From ACM Opinion

In 2016, Terror Suspects and 7-Eleven Thieves May Bring Surveillance to Supreme Court

It has now been 2.5 years since the first Snowden revelations were published. And in 2015, government surveillance marched on in both large (the National Security...

Science Can Tell If North Korea's Test Was Really an H-Bomb
From ACM News

Science Can Tell If North Korea's Test Was Really an H-Bomb

It was the whomp felt 'round the world.

Enzyme Tweak Boosts Precision of Crispr Genome Edits
From ACM News

Enzyme Tweak Boosts Precision of Crispr Genome Edits

A powerful technique for editing genomes is now more precise.

Andromeda Galaxy Scanned with High-Energy X-Ray Vision
From ACM News

Andromeda Galaxy Scanned with High-Energy X-Ray Vision

NASA's Nuclear Spectroscopic Telescope Array, or NuSTAR, has captured the best high-energy X-ray view yet of a portion of our nearest large, neighboring galaxy,...

Dutch Government: Encryption Good, Backdoors Bad
From ACM News

Dutch Government: Encryption Good, Backdoors Bad

The Dutch government has released a statement in which it says that "it is currently not desirable to take restricting legal measures concerning the development...

How 'do Not Track' Ended Up Going Nowhere
From ACM News

How 'do Not Track' Ended Up Going Nowhere

Back in 2010, the Federal Trade Commission pledged to give Internet users the power to determine if or when websites were allowed to track their behavior.

The Physics of Life
From ACM News

The Physics of Life

First, Zvonimir Dogic and his students took microtubules—threadlike proteins that make up part of the cell's internal 'cytoskeleton'—and mixed them with kinesins...

The Big Data of Bad Driving, and How Insurers Plan to Track Your Every Turn
From ACM News

The Big Data of Bad Driving, and How Insurers Plan to Track Your Every Turn

For years, insurance companies have used estimates of your annual mileage to determine your car insurance rates.

Full-Circle Panorama Beside 'namib Dune' on Mars
From ACM News

Full-Circle Panorama Beside 'namib Dune' on Mars

NASA's Curiosity Mars rover, partway through the first up-close study ever conducted of extraterrestrial sand dunes, is providing dramatic views of a dune's steep...
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