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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.


Marginally ­seful
From ACM News

Marginally ­seful

Bitcoin, a purely digital currency, is backed by no commodity and governed by no central bank, but it exists because a small number of humans have chosen to believe...

Smartphones May Be Our First Line of Defense Against Radiation
From ACM TechNews

Smartphones May Be Our First Line of Defense Against Radiation

Smartphones could be used to detect gamma radiation.

Willow Garage's Last Days
From ACM News

Willow Garage's Last Days

In 2006, Scott Hassan, a prolific software engineer, started a research lab dedicated to robotics called Willow Garage.

Smarter Caching
From ACM News

Smarter Caching

Computer chips keep getting faster because transistors keep getting smaller.

Robots with Human-Like Brains to Take on Mars Unaided
From ACM News

Robots with Human-Like Brains to Take on Mars Unaided

It's second nature for us to follow an airplane across the sky, or to walk around a rock we see in our path.

Nsa Surveillance Exposes Political Party Divisions
From ACM News

Nsa Surveillance Exposes Political Party Divisions

The debate about whether to continue the dragnet surveillance of Americans' phone records is highlighting divisions within the Democratic and Republican parties...

The Rags-To-Riches Tale of How Jan Koum Built Whatsapp Into Facebook's New $19 Billion Baby
From ACM Careers

The Rags-To-Riches Tale of How Jan Koum Built Whatsapp Into Facebook's New $19 Billion Baby

Jan Koum picked a meaningful spot to sign the $19 billion deal to sell his company WhatsApp to Facebook earlier today. Koum, cofounder Brian Acton and venture capitalist...

The Six Types of Conversations on Twitter
From ACM News

The Six Types of Conversations on Twitter

A new report from the Pew Research Center and the Social Media Research Foundation says that Twitter conversations have distinct shapes—at least six of them with...

Nasa's Nustar ­ntangles Mystery of How Stars Explode
From ACM News

Nasa's Nustar ­ntangles Mystery of How Stars Explode

One of the biggest mysteries in astronomy, how stars blow up in supernova explosions, finally is being unraveled with the help of NASA's Nuclear Spectroscopic Telescope...

Satya Nadella, Chief of Microsoft, on His New Role
From ACM Opinion

Satya Nadella, Chief of Microsoft, on His New Role

Q. What leadership lessons have you learned from your predecessor, Steve Ballmer?

ISC'14 S. African Student Cluster Team Visits Austin
From ACM TechNews

ISC'14 S. African Student Cluster Team Visits Austin

The Texas Advanced Computing Center recently welcomed foreign students preparing for the International Supercomputing Conference Student Cluster Competition. 

As Military Robots Increase, So Does the Complexity of Their Relationship With Soldiers
From ACM News

As Military Robots Increase, So Does the Complexity of Their Relationship With Soldiers

For a glimpse at the future of human-robot interactions, it might be better to look at what's happening in the United States military than analyzing Her, in which...

Visiting Mauna Kea, the World's Best Spot For Stargazing
From ACM News

Visiting Mauna Kea, the World's Best Spot For Stargazing

I was recently having lunch at a lovely and only slightly overpriced cafe overlooking the Pacific in the historic resort region of Kailua-Kona on the dry side of...

Starman
From ACM Opinion

Starman

It was a mild October day in Hollywood, but a trace of artificial snow remained on the ground as Neil deGrasse Tyson, the director of the Hayden Planetarium, at...

Ancient Structures Rebuilt ­sing 3D-Printed Bricks
From ACM News

Ancient Structures Rebuilt ­sing 3D-Printed Bricks

Eight centuries on, the flying buttresses of Bourges Cathedral in France still beguile engineers.

Facebook Tells the Computer Who You Love
From ACM TechNews

Facebook Tells the Computer Who You Love

New algorithms can correctly identify a person's spouse, fiance, or other romantic partner, based on a map of Facebook friends, with about 70-percent accuracy. 

Networking Nature
From ACM News

Networking Nature

Conservation is for the first time beginning to operate at the pace and on the scale necessary to keep up with, and even get ahead of, the planet’s most intractable...

Half of Americans Want to Live in a Smart City With Driverless Cars
From ACM TechNews

Half of Americans Want to Live in a Smart City With Driverless Cars

Nearly half of Americans want to live in a city where all vehicles are driverless, and a third think that might happen in the next 10 years, according to an Intel...

Connected Cars: Apps, Networks, and Storage on Wheels
From ACM TechNews

Connected Cars: Apps, Networks, and Storage on Wheels

Mobile apps are being designed to help make transportation safer, but a better way is needed to integrate information services within the transportation segment...

At Newark Airport, the Lights Are On, and They're Watching You
From ACM News

At Newark Airport, the Lights Are On, and They're Watching You

Visitors to Terminal B at Newark Liberty International Airport may notice the bright, clean lighting that now blankets the cavernous interior, courtesy of 171 recently...
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