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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.


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.

Uncrackable Encryption Could Secure More Than Weapons
From ACM TechNews

Uncrackable Encryption Could Secure More Than Weapons

A scientist working on a novel approach to encrypting nuclear weapons says the concept also could offer security in areas such as communications and the IT supply...

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.

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.

Artificial Skin That Senses, and Stretches, Like the Real Thing
From ACM News

Artificial Skin That Senses, and Stretches, Like the Real Thing

Some high-tech prosthetic limbs can be controlled by their owners, using nerves, muscles, or even the brain. However, there's no way for the wearer to tell if an...

Nasa's Curiosity Rover Finds Clues to How Water Helped Shape Martian Landscape
From ACM News

Nasa's Curiosity Rover Finds Clues to How Water Helped Shape Martian Landscape

Observations by NASA's Curiosity Rover indicate Mars' Mount Sharp was built by sediments deposited in a large lake bed over tens of millions of years.

Titan's Giant Dunes Track Ancient Climate
From ACM News

Titan's Giant Dunes Track Ancient Climate

Long sand dunes that ripple across Saturn's moon Titan may have been there for thousands of years, results from NASA's Cassini spacecraft suggest.

'nanobuds' Could Turn Almost Any Surface Into a Touch Sensor
From ACM News

'nanobuds' Could Turn Almost Any Surface Into a Touch Sensor

Transparent films containing carbon nanobuds—molecular tubes of carbon with ball-like appendages—could turn just about any surface, regardless of its shape, into...

On Pluto’s Doorstep, NASA's New Horizons Spacecraft Awakens for Encounter
From ACM News

On Pluto’s Doorstep, NASA's New Horizons Spacecraft Awakens for Encounter

After a voyage of nearly nine years and three billion miles—the farthest any space mission has ever traveled to reach its primary target—NASA's New Horizons spacecraft...

Who Owns the Biggest Biotech Discovery of the Century?
From ACM News

Who Owns the Biggest Biotech Discovery of the Century?

Last month in Silicon Valley, biologists Jennifer Doudna and Emmanuelle Charpentier showed up in black gowns to receive the $3 million Breakthrough Prize, a glitzy...

Baer's Odyssey: Meet the Serial Inventor Who Built the World's First Game Console
From ACM Opinion

Baer's Odyssey: Meet the Serial Inventor Who Built the World's First Game Console

Even if you're a devoted fan of video games, there's a decent chance you're not familiar with the name Ralph H. Baer.

Dawn Snaps Its Best-Yet Image of Dwarf Planet Ceres
From ACM News

Dawn Snaps Its Best-Yet Image of Dwarf Planet Ceres

The Dawn spacecraft has delivered a glimpse of Ceres, the largest body in the main asteroid belt, in a new image taken 740,000 miles (1.2 million kilometers) from...

Trends to Watch in 2015: From Algorithmic Accountability to the ­ber of X
From ACM News

Trends to Watch in 2015: From Algorithmic Accountability to the ­ber of X

Year-end technology prediction lists can be dull fodder devoted to pie-in-the-sky concepts, outlandish marketing claims or rehashes of familiar trends.

Google's Intelligence Designer
From ACM Careers

Google's Intelligence Designer

Demis Hassabis started playing chess at age four and soon blossomed into a child prodigy.

Haptic Holograms Let You Touch the Void in Vr
From ACM News

Haptic Holograms Let You Touch the Void in Vr

Feeling is believing. A system that uses sound waves to project "haptic holograms" into mid-air—letting you touch 3D virtual objects with your bare hands—is poised...

The Last Astronauts to Fly to Hubble Talk About Their Wild Mission
From ACM Opinion

The Last Astronauts to Fly to Hubble Talk About Their Wild Mission

On a sunny afternoon in May, 2009, seven astronauts strapped themselves into the space shuttle Atlantis and rocketed toward the heavens.

Stanford Engineers Take Big Step Toward ­sing Light Instead of Wires Inside Computers
From ACM TechNews

Stanford Engineers Take Big Step Toward ­sing Light Instead of Wires Inside Computers

Stanford University researchers have developed a device that can split and bend a beam of light, which they say could lead to computers that use optics to carry...
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