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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.


A Computer With a Great Eye Is About to Transform Botany
From ACM TechNews

A Computer With a Great Eye Is About to Transform Botany

Pennsylvania State University paleobotanist Peter Wilf and colleagues have developed new software for identifying families of leaves. 

'minimal' Cell Raises Stakes in Race to Harness Synthetic Life
From ACM News

'minimal' Cell Raises Stakes in Race to Harness Synthetic Life

Genomics entrepreneur Craig Venter has created a synthetic cell that contains the smallest genome of any known, independent organism.

Tech Could Help Secure Public Spaces, If Europe Wants More Surveillance
From ACM News

Tech Could Help Secure Public Spaces, If Europe Wants More Surveillance

Facial recognition software, scanners that detect weapons and cameras that spot nervous people are some of the technologies that could be used more widely to secure...

Bright Spots and Color Differences Revealed on Ceres
From ACM News

Bright Spots and Color Differences Revealed on Ceres

Scientists from NASA's Dawn mission unveiled new images from the spacecraft's lowest orbit at Ceres, including highly anticipated views of Occator Crater, at the...

Fbi Director Says Fight with Apple About Terrorism, Not Setting Precedent
From ACM News

Fbi Director Says Fight with Apple About Terrorism, Not Setting Precedent

James Comey, the Federal Bureau of Investigation director, is defending the agency's legal battle with Apple, saying it is about fighting terrorism and not about...

Why You Should Be Skeptical That Any Video Is Real
From ACM News

Why You Should Be Skeptical That Any Video Is Real

Be careful about believing what your eyes are telling you.

How New Yorker Cartoons Could Teach Computers to Be Funny
From ACM TechNews

How New Yorker Cartoons Could Teach Computers to Be Funny

The New Yorker magazine is using crowdsourcing algorithms to mine a massive volume of cartoon caption submissions to identify the funniest captions. 

Tor Project Says It Can Quickly Catch Spying Code
From ACM TechNews

Tor Project Says It Can Quickly Catch Spying Code

A Tor Project developer reports the project is enhancing its software to rapidly detect tampering to its network for the purpose of surveillance. 

Automating Proofs
From Communications of the ACM

Automating Proofs

Math struggles with the usability of formal proofs.

A Computer With a Great Eye Is About to Transform Botany
From ACM News

A Computer With a Great Eye Is About to Transform Botany

My dad is a wildlife biologist, and during road trips we took when I was growing up he spent a lot of time talking about the grasses and trees along the highway...

The Black-Hole Collision That Reshaped Physics
From ACM News

The Black-Hole Collision That Reshaped Physics

The event was catastrophic on a cosmic scale—a merger of black holes that violently shook the surrounding fabric of space and time, and sent a blast of space-time...

How the Hell Could the FBI Hack Into That iPhone?
From ACM News

How the Hell Could the FBI Hack Into That iPhone?

You know that part about the FBI needing Apple's help to unlock a terrorist's iPhone 5C?

From Reagan's Cyber Plan to Apple Vs. Fbi: 'everything Is ­p For Grabs'
From ACM Opinion

From Reagan's Cyber Plan to Apple Vs. Fbi: 'everything Is ­p For Grabs'

The heated debate between the FBI and Apple over the encryption of the iPhone used by Syed Rizwan Farook, one of the two people who massacred 14 people in San Bernardino...

New Gravity Map Gives Best View Yet Inside Mars
From ACM News

New Gravity Map Gives Best View Yet Inside Mars

A new map of Mars' gravity made with three NASA spacecraft is the most detailed to date, providing a revealing glimpse into the hidden interior of the Red Planet...

Apple Gets Short-Term Win, But New Mysterious Fbi ­nlocking Method Looms
From ACM News

Apple Gets Short-Term Win, But New Mysterious Fbi ­nlocking Method Looms

Less than 24 hours before a highly anticipated Tuesday court session where prosecutors and Apple lawyers would have squared off here in federal court, government...

DARPA Wants to Hack Your Brain
From ACM News

DARPA Wants to Hack Your Brain

The secretive U.S. military research division DARPA has announced plans to create a device that could accelerate learning in the human brain.

Mobile-Phone Health Apps Deliver Data Bounty
From ACM News

Mobile-Phone Health Apps Deliver Data Bounty

Last summer, physician Yvonne Chan wondered how the wildfires raging through Washington state were affecting people with asthma—for whom smoke and heat can trigger...

Fbi May Not Need Apple to ­nlock San Bernardino Shooter's Iphone
From ACM News

Fbi May Not Need Apple to ­nlock San Bernardino Shooter's Iphone

The FBI may have found a way without Apple’s assistance to unlock the iPhone used by one of the shooters in the San Bernardino terrorist attack, Justice Department...

­tah's Online Caucus Gives Security Experts Heart Attacks
From ACM News

­tah's Online Caucus Gives Security Experts Heart Attacks

Security researchers pretty much uniformly agree that letting people vote online is a very bad idea, one that is fraught with risks and vulnerabilities that could...

Long Before the Apple-Fbi Battle, Lavabit Sounded a Warning
From ACM News

Long Before the Apple-Fbi Battle, Lavabit Sounded a Warning

Three years ago, Ladar Levison, the founder of the now-defunct secure email service known as Lavabit, was in the same position Apple finds itself today: facing...
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