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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.


Seafloor Fiber Optic Cables Can Work Like Seismometers
From ACM News

Seafloor Fiber Optic Cables Can Work Like Seismometers

There are enough seismometers around these days to detect and locate nearly all earthquakes on land, except the most minuscule ones.

Colliding Wormholes May Be Causing Gravitational Waves
From ACM News

Colliding Wormholes May Be Causing Gravitational Waves

One of the most significant scientific developments of recent times has been the five separate observations of the elusive ripples in space-time known as gravitational...

Cosmic Ray Showers Crash Supercomputers. Here's What to Do About It
From ACM News

Cosmic Ray Showers Crash Supercomputers. Here's What to Do About It

The Cray-1 supercomputer, the world's fastest back in the 1970s, does not look like a supercomputer.

The ­niverse Is Not a Simulation, but We Can Now Simulate It
From ACM News

The ­niverse Is Not a Simulation, but We Can Now Simulate It

In the early 2000s, a small community of coder-cosmologists set out to simulate the 14-billion-year history of the universe on a supercomputer.

AI Could Get 100 Times More Energy-Efficient with IBM's New Artificial Synapses
From ACM News

AI Could Get 100 Times More Energy-Efficient with IBM's New Artificial Synapses

Neural networks are the crown jewel of the AI boom. They gorge on data and do things like transcribe speech or describe images with near-perfect accuracy (see "10...

To Build the Best Bots, NASA Happily Looks to Others Here on Earth
From ACM Opinion

To Build the Best Bots, NASA Happily Looks to Others Here on Earth


Why Emergency Braking Systems Sometimes Hit Parked Cars and Lane Dividers
From ACM News

Why Emergency Braking Systems Sometimes Hit Parked Cars and Lane Dividers

The National Transportation Safety Board on Thursday provided new details about a March crash in Mountain View, California, that claimed the life of engineer Walter...

NASA Finds Ancient Organic Material, Mysterious Methane on Mars
From ACM News

NASA Finds Ancient Organic Material, Mysterious Methane on Mars

NASA's Curiosity rover has found new evidence preserved in rocks on Mars that suggests the planet could have supported ancient life, as well as new evidence in...

New Horizons Is Awake Again to Fly by Distant Object
From ACM News

New Horizons Is Awake Again to Fly by Distant Object

A nice nap always makes a long journey more bearable—and that's even more true when the journey covers billions of miles.

Gravitational Waves Reveal the Hearts of Neutron Stars
From ACM News

Gravitational Waves Reveal the Hearts of Neutron Stars

Inside a neutron star—the city-size, hyperdense cinder left after a supernova—modern physics plunges off the edge of the map.

Ted Dabney, a Founder of Atari and a Creator of Pong, Dies at 81
From ACM Careers

Ted Dabney, a Founder of Atari and a Creator of Pong, Dies at 81

Samuel F. Dabney, an electrical engineer who laid the groundwork for the modern video game industry as a co-founder of Atari and helped create the hit console game...

Are You Scared Yet? Meet Norman, the Psychopathic AI
From ACM News

Are You Scared Yet? Meet Norman, the Psychopathic AI

Norman is an algorithm trained to understand pictures but, like its namesake Hitchcock's Norman Bates, it does not have an optimistic view of the world.

Tiny, Far-Flung Worlds Could Explain Outer Solar System's Strange Geometry
From ACM News

Tiny, Far-Flung Worlds Could Explain Outer Solar System's Strange Geometry

Hundreds of Moon-sized worlds may orbit the Sun far beyond Neptune, sculpting the geometry of the outer Solar System.

Asia Pacific's Most Innovative ­niversities – 2018
From ACM Careers

Asia Pacific's Most Innovative ­niversities – 2018

Every scientist hopes for a "Eureka" moment—the jolt of sudden insight when a discovery becomes clear. But great advances always follow regular progress, and while...

Evidence Found for a New Fundamental Particle
From ACM News

Evidence Found for a New Fundamental Particle

Physicists are both thrilled and baffled by a new report from a neutrino experiment at Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory near Chicago.

Physicists Invent Flux Capacitor to Break Time-Reversal Symmetry
From ACM TechNews

Physicists Invent Flux Capacitor to Break Time-Reversal Symmetry

Researchers in Australia and Switzerland have proposed a device that can break time-reversal symmetry by exploiting the quantum tunneling of magnetic flux around...

Dawn Mission: New Orbit, New Opportunities
From ACM News

Dawn Mission: New Orbit, New Opportunities

NASA's Dawn spacecraft is maneuvering to its lowest-ever orbit for a close-up examination of the inner solar system's only dwarf planet.

Frozen Pluto Has Wind-Blown Dunes Made of Methane Sand
From ACM News

Frozen Pluto Has Wind-Blown Dunes Made of Methane Sand

Part of the wonder of seeing new worlds is the radical difference from the planet you know.

How Close Are We, Really, to Building a Quantum Computer?
From ACM Opinion

How Close Are We, Really, to Building a Quantum Computer?

The race is on to build the world's first meaningful quantum computer—one that can deliver the technology's long-promised ability to help scientists do things like...

How a Pentagon Contract Became an Identity Crisis for Google
From ACM Careers

How a Pentagon Contract Became an Identity Crisis for Google

Fei-Fei Li is among the brightest stars in the burgeoning field of artificial intelligence, somehow managing to hold down two demanding jobs simultaneously: head...
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