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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.


Fighting Cancer With the Google Pagerank Algorithm. Sort Of.
From ACM News

Fighting Cancer With the Google Pagerank Algorithm. Sort Of.

In cancer parlance, metastasize is a four-letter word.

Looking Back at Big Data
From Communications of the ACM

Looking Back at Big Data

As computational tools open up new ways of understanding history, historians and computer scientists are working together to explore the possibilities.

Youtube Reaches a Billion Monthly Viewers, Boosted By 'generation C'
From ACM Careers

Youtube Reaches a Billion Monthly Viewers, Boosted By 'generation C'

YouTube has a billion unique users visiting the video-sharing website every month, equivalent to one out of every two people on the Internet—and the generationsmartphones...

Revealed: The 1962 CIA Paper That Predicts the Big Deal With Big Data
From ACM News

Revealed: The 1962 CIA Paper That Predicts the Big Deal With Big Data

The Central Intelligence Agency has published for the first time "Some Far-Out Thoughts on Computers," a 1962 internal document that shows how eager the agency...

Smartphones Are Reinventing—and Ditching—the Keyboard
From ACM News

Smartphones Are Reinventing—and Ditching—the Keyboard

In the future, your smartphone won't auto-correct your errors. It will correct them before they're even made.

When 'likes' Can Shed Light
From ACM News

When 'likes' Can Shed Light

Patterns of "Likes" posted by people on Facebook can unintentionally expose their political and religious views, drug use, divorce, and sexual orientation, researchers...

Google Concedes That Drive-By Prying Violated Privacy
From ACM News

Google Concedes That Drive-By Prying Violated Privacy

Google on Tuesday acknowledged to state officials that it had violated people's privacy during its Street View mapping project when it casually scooped up passwords...

Skype's Been Hijacked in China, and Microsoft Is O.k. With It
From ACM News

Skype's Been Hijacked in China, and Microsoft Is O.k. With It

Jeffrey Knockel is an unlikely candidate to expose the inner workings of Skype's role in China’s online surveillance apparatus.

Facebook 'likes' Predict Personality
From ACM News

Facebook 'likes' Predict Personality

Researchers at Cambridge University used algorithms to predict religion, politics, race and sexual orientation.

Algorithms Get a Human Hand in Steering Web
From ACM TechNews

Algorithms Get a Human Hand in Steering Web

While the work computers do becomes increasingly complex, humans still may be called upon to provide the programs with context and nuance. 

Sxsw: Google's Amit Singhal Talks Natural-Language Search, Mobile
From ACM Opinion

Sxsw: Google's Amit Singhal Talks Natural-Language Search, Mobile

How do you build a search engine that's more attuned to natural language, capable of divining what you mean, and giving back what you want?

Everything We Know About What Data Brokers Know About You
From ACM News

Everything We Know About What Data Brokers Know About You

Data companies are scooping up enormous amounts of information about almost every American. They sell information about whether you're pregnant or divorced or trying...

The History of Hadoop: From 4 Nodes to the Future of Data
From ACM News

The History of Hadoop: From 4 Nodes to the Future of Data

Depending on how one defines its birth, Hadoop is now 10 years old. In that decade, Hadoop has gone from being the hopeful answer to Yahoo’s search-engine woes...

Unreported Side Effects of Drugs Are Found Using Internet Search Data, Study Finds
From ACM TechNews

Unreported Side Effects of Drugs Are Found Using Internet Search Data, Study Finds

Researchers found evidence of unreported prescription drug side effects before the U.S. Food and Drug Administration did by analyzing search engine query data. 

Massive Fiber-Optic Installation Lights ­p Library Queries
From ACM News

Massive Fiber-Optic Installation Lights ­p Library Queries

Getting a glimpse into the curious minds of others has never been so beautiful—or so bright.

Computer Interfaces: Tech's Next Great Frontier
From ACM Opinion

Computer Interfaces: Tech's Next Great Frontier

Consider the tongue. It's sensitive yet muscular, packed with taste buds and nerves, and without its acrobatic ability humans wouldn’t be able to eat or talk. It's...

A Genetic Code For Genius?
From ACM News

A Genetic Code For Genius?

At a former paper-printing factory in Hong Kong, a 20-year-old wunderkind named Zhao Bowen has embarked on a challenging and potentially controversial quest: uncovering...

Any Two Pages on the Web Are Connected By 19 Clicks or Less
From ACM News

Any Two Pages on the Web Are Connected By 19 Clicks or Less

No one knows for sure how many individual pages are on the web, but right now, it’s estimated that there are more than 14 billion.

Data Mining Is New Lobbying Gold
From ACM Careers

Data Mining Is New Lobbying Gold

A congressman gets an earful from his neighbor after church about a tax bill. A senator suddenly finds old high school classmates calling her about an upcoming...

Software that Tracks People on Social Media Created By Defence Firm
From ACM News

Software that Tracks People on Social Media Created By Defence Firm

A multinational security firm has secretly developed software capable of tracking people's movements and predicting future behaviour by mining data from social...
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