acm-header
Sign In

Communications of the ACM

News


bg-corner

An edited collection of advanced computing news from Communications of the ACM, ACM TechNews, other ACM resources, and news sites around the Web.


Hubble Sees Light Bending Around Nearby Star
From ACM News

Hubble Sees Light Bending Around Nearby Star

The Hubble Space Telescope has spotted light bending because of the gravity of a nearby white dwarf star—the first time astronomers have seen this type of distortion...

Why Printers Add Secret Tracking Dots
From ACM News

Why Printers Add Secret Tracking Dots

On 3 June, FBI agents arrived at the house of government contractor Reality Leigh Winner in Augusta, Georgia.

How a Wireless Sensor System in the Busiest City Intersections Can Save Lives
From ACM News

How a Wireless Sensor System in the Busiest City Intersections Can Save Lives

Every city has at least one dangerous intersection where cars, trucks, and buses jostle for space with pedestrians and bicyclists, often resulting in injury, and...

How a Few Yellow Dots Burned the Intercept's Nsa Leaker
From ACM News

How a Few Yellow Dots Burned the Intercept's Nsa Leaker

When reporters at The Intercept approached the National Security Agency on June 1 to confirm a document that had been anonymously leaked to the publication in May...

Enigma: Why the Fight to Break Nazi Encryption Still Matters
From ACM News

Enigma: Why the Fight to Break Nazi Encryption Still Matters

It was night when three British sailors and a 16-year-old canteen assistant boarded a sinking U-boat off the coast of Egypt.

Nasa's Asteroid-Hunting Spacecraft a Discovery Machine
From ACM News

Nasa's Asteroid-Hunting Spacecraft a Discovery Machine

NASA's Near-Earth Object Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer (NEOWISE) mission has released its third year of survey data, with the spacecraft discovering 97 previously...

The Internet Is Where We Share, and Steal, the Best Ideas
From ACM News

The Internet Is Where We Share, and Steal, the Best Ideas

In April, a photograph of Rihanna and Lupita Nyong'o taken at a Miu Miu fashion show three years ago began recirculating online.

Neuroscientists Rethink How the Brain Recognizes Faces
From ACM News

Neuroscientists Rethink How the Brain Recognizes Faces

People can pick a familiar face out of a crowd without thinking too much about it. But how the brain actually does this has eluded researchers for years.

Banned From the ­s? There's a Robot For That
From ACM News

Banned From the ­s? There's a Robot For That

Two telepresence robots roll into a human-computer interaction conference.

Jean Sammet, Co-Designer of a Pioneering Computer Language, Dies at 89
From ACM News

Jean Sammet, Co-Designer of a Pioneering Computer Language, Dies at 89

Jean E. Sammet, an early software engineer and a designer of COBOL, a programming language that brought computing into the business mainstream, died on May 20 in...

Third Gravitational Wave Detection, From Black-Hole Merger 3 Billion Light Years Away
From ACM News

Third Gravitational Wave Detection, From Black-Hole Merger 3 Billion Light Years Away

The void is rocking and rolling with invisible cataclysms.

Curiosity Peels Back Layers on Ancient Martian Lake
From ACM News

Curiosity Peels Back Layers on Ancient Martian Lake

A long-lasting lake on ancient Mars provided stable environmental conditions that differed significantly from one part of the lake to another, according to a comprehensive...

Can We Quantify Machine Consciousness?
From ACM TechNews

Can We Quantify Machine Consciousness?

The argument that consciousness is computable--and instillable within machines--cannot be verified or refuted until a measurable theory of consciousness becomes...

20 Years After Deep Blue: How AI Has Advanced Since Conquering Chess
From ACM Opinion

20 Years After Deep Blue: How AI Has Advanced Since Conquering Chess

Twenty years ago IBM's Deep Blue computer stunned the world by becoming the first machine to beat a reigning world chess champion in a six-game match.

Mummy Dna ­nravels Ancient Egyptians' Ancestry
From ACM News

Mummy Dna ­nravels Ancient Egyptians' Ancestry

The tombs of ancient Egypt have yielded golden collars and ivory bracelets, but another treasure—human DNA—has proved elusive.

How a Gene Editing Tool Went From Labs to a Middle-School Classroom
From ACM News

How a Gene Editing Tool Went From Labs to a Middle-School Classroom

On a Saturday afternoon, 10 students gather at Genspace, a community lab in Brooklyn, to learn how to edit genes.

Got a Face-Recognition Algorithm? ­ncle Sam Wants to Review It
From ACM News

Got a Face-Recognition Algorithm? ­ncle Sam Wants to Review It

The nation's top-level intelligence office, the Director of National Intelligence, wants to find "the most accurate unconstrained face recognition algorithm."

Software Simplified
From ACM News

Software Simplified

In 2015, geneticist Guy Reeves was trying to configure a free software system called Galaxy to get his bioinformatics projects off the ground.

Cassini Finds Saturn Moon May Have Tipped Over
From ACM News

Cassini Finds Saturn Moon May Have Tipped Over

Saturn's icy, ocean-bearing moon Enceladus may have tipped over in the distant past, according to recent research from NASA's Cassini mission.

High-Silica 'halos' Shed Light on Wet Ancient Mars
From ACM News

High-Silica 'halos' Shed Light on Wet Ancient Mars

Pale "halos" around fractures in bedrock analyzed by NASA's Curiosity Mars rover contain copious silica, indicating that ancient Mars had liquid water for a long...
Sign In for Full Access
» Forgot Password? » Create an ACM Web Account