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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.


Signs of Ancient Mars Lakes and Quakes Seen in New Map
From ACM News

Signs of Ancient Mars Lakes and Quakes Seen in New Map

Long ago, in the largest canyon system in our solar system, vibrations from "marsquakes" shook soft sediments that had accumulated in Martian lakes.

Dumbing It Down in the Cockpit
From ACM Opinion

Dumbing It Down in the Cockpit

Long gone are the leather jackets, goggles, and silk scarves flung over the shoulders of aviators who wrestled with flight controls, furiously scanned instruments...

The Surprising ­ses of Games Controllers
From ACM News

The Surprising ­ses of Games Controllers

Games controllers can end up in the strangest places.

Boston Researcher Cynthia Breazeal Is Ready to Bring Robots Into the Home. Are You?
From ACM Opinion

Boston Researcher Cynthia Breazeal Is Ready to Bring Robots Into the Home. Are You?

The MIT Media Lab's Personal Robots Group flanks the soaring atrium on the fourth floor of the Wiesner Building, a wall of metal panels along the southern edge...

Opals: Light Beams Let Data Rates Soar
From ACM News

Opals: Light Beams Let Data Rates Soar

You may know opals as fiery gemstones, but something special called OPALS is floating above us in space. On the International Space Station, the Optical Payload...

Data From Our Wearables Is Now Courtroom Fodder
From ACM News

Data From Our Wearables Is Now Courtroom Fodder

Courtrooms typically lag in technological innovation.

Two Robots, One Challenge, Endless Possibility
From ACM TechNews

Two Robots, One Challenge, Endless Possibility

The U.S. National Aeronautics and Space Administration's Jet Propulsion Laboratory is developing robots that can enter dangerous places. 

Food: The Rarely Seen Robots That Package What We Eat
From ACM News

Food: The Rarely Seen Robots That Package What We Eat

Last July, while touring a jelly bean factory, I came upon a startling sight.

An Interface For Tracking Botnets That's Fit For a Sci-Fi Starship
From ACM News

An Interface For Tracking Botnets That's Fit For a Sci-Fi Starship

What do you get when you ask a bunch of digital artists to dream up a state-of-the-art tool for fighting cybercrime?

Detecting Gases Wirelessly and Cheaply
From ACM News

Detecting Gases Wirelessly and Cheaply

MIT chemists have devised a new way to wirelessly detect hazardous gases and environmental pollutants, using a simple sensor that can be read by a smartphone.

Saturn's Moons: What a Difference a Decade Makes
From ACM News

Saturn's Moons: What a Difference a Decade Makes

Almost immediately after NASA's twin Voyager spacecraft made their brief visits to Saturn in the early 1980s, scientists were hungry for more.

Bridging Sensory Gap Between Artificial and Real Skin
From ACM TechNews

Bridging Sensory Gap Between Artificial and Real Skin

An international team of researchers have developed a polymer designed to mimic the elastic and high-resolution sensory capabilities of real skin. 

STEM Cells: The Black Box of Reprogramming
From ACM News

STEM Cells: The Black Box of Reprogramming

Eggs and sperm do it when they combine to make an embryo.

Apps Change the Face of Computing
From ACM News

Apps Change the Face of Computing

As computing evolves and becomes increasingly mobile, apps are fundamentally changing actions…and interactions.

New Research Will Help Robots Know Their Limits
From ACM TechNews

New Research Will Help Robots Know Their Limits

Three U.K. universities are teaming up to ensure future autonomous robots and systems will be safer, and capable of making decisions based on laws and ethics. 

Rosetta Fuels Debate on Origin of Earth's Oceans
From ACM News

Rosetta Fuels Debate on Origin of Earth's Oceans

ESA's Rosetta spacecraft has found the water vapour from its target comet to be significantly different to that found on Earth.

Tech's Lost Chapter: An Oral History of Boston's Rise and Fall
From ACM Opinion

Tech's Lost Chapter: An Oral History of Boston's Rise and Fall

In the popular telling, the dawn of personal computing begins in the summer of 1976, when Steve Wozniak showed off the Apple I at a meeting of the Homebrew Computer...

Print Thyself
From ACM News

Print Thyself

In February of 2012, a medical team at the University of Michigan's C. S. Mott Children's Hospital, in Ann Arbor, carried out an unusual operation on a three-month...

The Sun and Jupiter Could Reveal Space-Time Ripples
From ACM News

The Sun and Jupiter Could Reveal Space-Time Ripples

Ripples in space-time could squeeze and stretch the sun and Jupiter, forming a gigantic gravitational-wave detector in our own celestial backyard.

Tiny Motions Bring Digital Doubles to Life
From ACM TechNews

Tiny Motions Bring Digital Doubles to Life

New technology is helping animators convert moving dots into detailed body shapes that move like real humans. 
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