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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.


First Paralysed Person to Be 'reanimated' Offers Neuroscience Insights
From ACM News

First Paralysed Person to Be 'reanimated' Offers Neuroscience Insights

A quadriplegic man who has become the first person to be implanted with technology that sends signals from the brain to muscles—allowing him to regain some movement...

Silicon Valley Targets Smart Guns
From ACM News

Silicon Valley Targets Smart Guns

In the 2012 movie Skyfall, James Bond brandishes his trusty sidearm, but with a high-tech twist: There's a sensor in the grip that reads palm prints so only he...

Senators' Encryption Measure Adds New Fuel to Apple-Fbi Debate
From ACM News

Senators' Encryption Measure Adds New Fuel to Apple-Fbi Debate

Technology and Internet companies would have to provide government agencies with access to data when served with a court order under long-awaited draft legislation...

Soft Robotic Fingers Recognize Objects By Feel
From ACM TechNews

Soft Robotic Fingers Recognize Objects By Feel

Daniela Rus at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology has led the development of bendable, stretchable robot fingers that can lift and handle delicate objects...

What Social Media Data Could Tell US About the Future
From ACM TechNews

What Social Media Data Could Tell US About the Future

Northeastern University researchers are working with a group of scientists to develop a method to map how tweets about large-scale social events spread. 

Turing Tests and the Problem of Artificial Olfaction
From ACM TechNews

Turing Tests and the Problem of Artificial Olfaction

The ability to reproduce scent artificially is surprisingly complex, and the work of the Weizmann Institute of Science's David Harel sheds light on the issue. 

Rescued Japanese Spacecraft Delivers First Results from Venus
From ACM News

Rescued Japanese Spacecraft Delivers First Results from Venus

After an unplanned five-year detour, Japan's Venus probe, Akatsuki, has come back to life with a bang.

First Came the Breathalyzer, Now Meet the Roadside Police 'textalyzer'
From ACM News

First Came the Breathalyzer, Now Meet the Roadside Police 'textalyzer'

We're all familiar with the Breathalyzer, the brand name for a roadside device that measures a suspected drunken driver's blood-alcohol level.

Billing by Millionths of Pennies, Cloud Computing's Giants Take In Billions
From ACM Careers

Billing by Millionths of Pennies, Cloud Computing's Giants Take In Billions

Imagine building an enormous beach resort, maybe the best in the world.

The Tremendous Ambitions Behind New York City's Free Wifi
From ACM News

The Tremendous Ambitions Behind New York City's Free Wifi

At this very moment in New York City, you can walk up to one of 65 futuristic kiosks, punch in an email address on your phone and instantly receive a wireless Internet...

Why Our Crazy-Smart AI Still Sucks at Transcribing Speech
From ACM TechNews

Why Our Crazy-Smart AI Still Sucks at Transcribing Speech

The task of providing accurate transcriptions of long blocks of human conversation remains beyond the abilities of even today's most advanced software. 

Are We Living in a Computer Simulation?
From ACM News

Are We Living in a Computer Simulation?

If you, me and every person and thing in the cosmos were actually characters in some giant computer game, we would not necessarily know it.

Dear Silicon Valley: The Pentagon Has Sent You a Friend Request
From ACM Careers

Dear Silicon Valley: The Pentagon Has Sent You a Friend Request

When Defense Secretary Ashton Carter first spoke about the Pentagon's startup in Silicon Valley, the former Harvard physicist said he had great expectations.

Measurement of Universe's Expansion Rate Creates Cosmological Puzzle
From ACM News

Measurement of Universe's Expansion Rate Creates Cosmological Puzzle

The most precise measurement ever made of the current rate of expansion of the Universe has produced a value that appears incompatible with measurements of radiation...

Italians, Helped By an App, Translate the Talmud
From ACM TechNews

Italians, Helped By an App, Translate the Talmud

The first Italian translation of the Babylonian Talmud has been completed after five years of work by scholars, linguists, philologists, editors, and computer scientists...

Watch an Autonomous Fencing Drone Dodge Sword Attacks
From ACM TechNews

Watch an Autonomous Fencing Drone Dodge Sword Attacks

Stanford University researcher Ross Allen specializes in training robots to dodge obstacles at high speeds. 

Kepler Spacecraft in Emergency Mode
From ACM News

Kepler Spacecraft in Emergency Mode

During a scheduled contact on Thursday, April 7, mission operations engineers discovered that the Kepler spacecraft was in Emergency Mode (EM). EM is the lowest...

Searching for Far Out and Wandering Worlds
From ACM News

Searching for Far Out and Wandering Worlds

Astronomers have made great strides in discovering planets outside of our solar system, termed "exoplanets."

Hiv Overcomes Crispr Gene-Editing Attack
From ACM News

Hiv Overcomes Crispr Gene-Editing Attack

HIV can defeat efforts to cripple it with CRISPR gene-editing technology, researchers say. And the very act of editing—involving snipping at the virus’s genome—may...

'new Rembrandt' Unveiled in Amsterdam
From ACM TechNews

'new Rembrandt' Unveiled in Amsterdam

A portrait titled "the Next Rembrandt" is the end-product of an 18-month project that brought together data scientists, developers, engineers, and art historians...
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