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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.


The People 'possessed' By Computers
From ACM News

The People 'possessed' By Computers

Sophia Ben-Achour looks like a typical London student. She has short, brown hair, dancing eyes and a wide smile.

The Long, Strange Trip to Pluto, and How Nasa Nearly Missed It
From ACM News

The Long, Strange Trip to Pluto, and How Nasa Nearly Missed It

Planetary scientists are coloring in the family portrait of our solar system as close-up photographs and observations stream back from Pluto, a world three billion...

Inside the Fake Town in Michigan Where Self-Driving Cars Are Being Tested
From ACM News

Inside the Fake Town in Michigan Where Self-Driving Cars Are Being Tested

Later this year a Michigan pedestrian named Sebastian will spend his days throwing himself in the path of speeding cars.

Hitchhiking Robot Embarking on Coast-to-Coast Tour Across ­.s.
From ACM TechNews

Hitchhiking Robot Embarking on Coast-to-Coast Tour Across ­.s.

HitchBOT set out on its first cross-country tour of the U.S. on Friday. 

The Tools Inspectors Can Use to Catch Iran's Nuclear Hijinks
From ACM News

The Tools Inspectors Can Use to Catch Iran's Nuclear Hijinks

After Tuesday's historic agreement between Iran and the "P5+1" group of countries, inspectors from the International Atomic Energy Agency will have access to all...

The Square Kilometre Array: Radio Silence in Western Australia For Most Powerful Telescope in History
From ACM News

The Square Kilometre Array: Radio Silence in Western Australia For Most Powerful Telescope in History

In outback Western Australia, around 350k northeast of the small town of Geraldton, lies an area of land about the size of the Netherlands, but with only 100 humans...

NASA's New Horizons Discovers Frozen Plains in the Heart of Pluto's 'Heart'
From ACM News

NASA's New Horizons Discovers Frozen Plains in the Heart of Pluto's 'Heart'

In the latest data from NASA's New Horizons spacecraft, a new close-up image of Pluto reveals a vast, craterless plain that appears to be no more than 100 million...

Coders Balk at Making Apps Searchable
From ACM Careers

Coders Balk at Making Apps Searchable

The giants of the Web have been pressing developers of mobile apps to index their content so it can be parsed by search engines or linked to from other sites.

The Hard Disk of the Future Will Be Ten Thousand Times Faster, Researchers Say
From ACM News

The Hard Disk of the Future Will Be Ten Thousand Times Faster, Researchers Say

Think your computer is pretty slow?

Moore's Law Is Showing Its Age
From ACM News

Moore's Law Is Showing Its Age

No company sounds more religious about Moore’s Law than Intel Corp., whose co-founder made a famous observation about the miniaturization of chip circuitry 50 years...

As Tech Firms Track Your Location, Advertisers Zero In For the Sale
From ACM News

As Tech Firms Track Your Location, Advertisers Zero In For the Sale

Mapping technology advancements from Google Inc and Facebook Inc that provide more precise user location data than ever before are starting to dent advertisers'...

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).

The Icy Mountains of Pluto
From ACM News

The Icy Mountains of Pluto

New close-up images of a region near Pluto's equator reveal a giant surprise: a range of youthful mountains rising as high as 11,000 feet (3,500 meters) above the...

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...

The Camera Behind the New Pluto Photos
From ACM News

The Camera Behind the New Pluto Photos

For decades after its discovery in 1930, Pluto looked like nothing more than a gray smudge in the abyss of space.

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...

Nasa's Three-Billion-Mile Journey to Pluto Reaches Historic Encounter
From ACM News

Nasa's Three-Billion-Mile Journey to Pluto Reaches Historic Encounter

NASA's New Horizons spacecraft is at Pluto.

How Big Is Pluto? New Horizons Settles Decades-Long Debate
From ACM News

How Big Is Pluto? New Horizons Settles Decades-Long Debate

NASA's New Horizons mission has answered one of the most basic questions about Pluto—its size.

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...
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