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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.


Robot Learns to Play With Lego By Watching Human Teachers
From ACM TechNews

Robot Learns to Play With Lego By Watching Human Teachers

Researchers from the Freiberg University of Mining and Technology in Germany have trained a robot to play with Legos by having it observe two people build a Lego...

Nate Silver Blew It When He Missed Trump. Now He Really Needs to Get It Right.
From ACM Opinion

Nate Silver Blew It When He Missed Trump. Now He Really Needs to Get It Right.

Nate Silver is on the downtown 1 train. Possibly because he looks like a (modestly) hip math teacher, and hardly looks up from his phone, he goes unrecognized until...

Your Home's Online Gadgets Could Be Hacked By ­ltrasound
From ACM News

Your Home's Online Gadgets Could Be Hacked By ­ltrasound

This may have happened to you. You idly browse a pair of shoes online one morning, and for the rest of the week, those shoes follow you across the Internet, appearing...

How AI Is Shaking ­p the Chip Market
From ACM News

How AI Is Shaking ­p the Chip Market

In less than 12 hours, three different people offered to pay me if I'd spend an hour talking to a stranger on the phone.

Google Teaches 'ais' to Invent Their Own Crypto and Avoid Eavesdropping
From ACM News

Google Teaches 'ais' to Invent Their Own Crypto and Avoid Eavesdropping

Google Brain has created two artificial intelligences that evolved their own cryptographic algorithm to protect their messages from a third AI, which was trying...

Precise Quantum Cloning: Possible Pathway to Secure Communication
From ACM TechNews

Precise Quantum Cloning: Possible Pathway to Secure Communication

Researchers from The Australian National University and University of Queensland have produced near-perfect clones of quantum information.

The FCC Just Passed Sweeping New Rules to Protect Your Online Privacy
From ACM News

The FCC Just Passed Sweeping New Rules to Protect Your Online Privacy

Federal officials delivered a landmark ruling in favor of online privacy Thursday, limiting how Internet providers use and sell customer data, while asserting that...

Further Clues to Fate of Mars Lander, Seen From Orbit
From ACM News

Further Clues to Fate of Mars Lander, Seen From Orbit

The most powerful telescope orbiting Mars is providing new details of the scene near the Martian equator where Europe's Schiaparelli test lander hit the surface...

Your Dvr Didn't Take Down the Internet, Yet
From ACM News

Your Dvr Didn't Take Down the Internet, Yet

Last week ended with a mid-level internet catastrophe. You may have noticed that for most of Friday popular sites like Netflix, Twitter, Spotify (and yes, WIRED)...

Massive Cyberattack Poses Policy Dilemma, Stanford Scholar Says
From ACM TechNews

Massive Cyberattack Poses Policy Dilemma, Stanford Scholar Says

Last week's cyberattack that affected several prominent websites reveals weaknesses in the Internet of Things that need to be addressed.

New Method Reduces Amount of Training Data Needed For Facial Performance Capture System
From ACM TechNews

New Method Reduces Amount of Training Data Needed For Facial Performance Capture System

Disney Research has developed a facial-capture system that uses a sample of actors' recordings to synthetically generate the data needed to train the system.

Electric Motors Find New Roles in Robots, Ships, Cars, and Microgrids
From ACM TechNews

Electric Motors Find New Roles in Robots, Ships, Cars, and Microgrids

About 40% of electric power generated is used to drive motors, and that figure is expected to grow.

Turning Your Living Room Into a Wireless Charging Station
From ACM TechNews

Turning Your Living Room Into a Wireless Charging Station

A panel could one day remotely charge smartphones, tablets, and other devices within its line of sight.

Twitter's 'firehose' of Tweets Is Incredibly Valuable, and Just as Dangerous
From ACM News

Twitter's 'firehose' of Tweets Is Incredibly Valuable, and Just as Dangerous

There are half a billion tweets a day. For the company, they’re sellable data. For despots, they’re a great way to hunt dissidents.

Tangled ­p in Spacetime
From ACM News

Tangled ­p in Spacetime

"All the world’s a stage…," Shakespeare wrote, and physicists tend to think that way, too.

X-Rays Are Revealing the Mysterious Writings in Mummy Coffins
From ACM News

X-Rays Are Revealing the Mysterious Writings in Mummy Coffins

It's a sleepy summer Friday at Lawrence Berkeley Lab's Advanced Light Source.

Fujitsu Eyes Architecture to Rival Quantum Computers
From ACM TechNews

Fujitsu Eyes Architecture to Rival Quantum Computers

Fujitsu Laboratories is working with University of Toronto researchers in Japan to develop a computing architecture that addresses combinatorial optimization problems...

Computing Glitch May Have Doomed Mars Lander
From ACM News

Computing Glitch May Have Doomed Mars Lander

Photos of a huge circle of churned-up Martian soil leave few doubts: a European Space Agency (ESA) probe that was supposed to test landing technology on Mars crashed...

The Pentagon's 'terminator Conundrum': Robots That Could Kill on Their Own
From ACM News

The Pentagon's 'terminator Conundrum': Robots That Could Kill on Their Own

The small drone, with its six whirring rotors, swept past the replica of a Middle Eastern village and closed in on a mosque-like structure, its camera scanning...

Creating 3D Hands to Keep ­S Safe and Increase Security
From ACM TechNews

Creating 3D Hands to Keep ­S Safe and Increase Security

Researchers say without a lifelike three-dimensional model to test and calibrate fingerprint scanners, there is no consistent way to determine their accuracy. 
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