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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.


From ACM Opinion

The Genius of Jobs

One of the questions I wrestled with when writing about Steve Jobs was how smart he was. On the surface, this should not have been much of an issue.

From ACM News

IBM Simulates 4.5% of the Human Brain, and All of the Cat Brain

Supercomputers can store more information than the human brain and can calculate a single equation faster, but even the biggest, fastest supercomputers in the world...

Microsoft Sees Screens Everywhere in Futuristic Video
From ACM News

Microsoft Sees Screens Everywhere in Futuristic Video

Say what you will about Microsoft's execution in developing cool products and services consumers want, where rivals such as Apple and Google have stolen a beat...

Why Cgi Humans Are Creepy, and What Scientists Are Doing About It
From ACM News

Why Cgi Humans Are Creepy, and What Scientists Are Doing About It

A century ago, psychologists identified "the uncanny" as an experience that seems familiar yet foreign at the same time, causing some sort of brain confusion...

Transparent, Super-Stretchy Skin-Like Sensor
From ACM News

Transparent, Super-Stretchy Skin-Like Sensor

Using carbon nanotubes bent to act as springs, Stanford researchers have developed a stretchable, transparent skin-like sensor that can be stretched to more than...

John Rogers's Bendable Microprocessors
From ACM News

John Rogers's Bendable Microprocessors

John Rogers was in his lab at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign six years ago, testing new ways to make electronic circuits, when one of his team...

Future Computers Could Rewire Themselves
From ACM News

Future Computers Could Rewire Themselves

Future microchips may have only one type of component, capable of rewiring itself to do different jobs. Researchers from Northwestern University in the U.S. have...

How Revolutionary Tools Cracked a 1700s Code
From ACM News

How Revolutionary Tools Cracked a 1700s Code

It has been more than six decades since Warren Weaver, a pioneer in automated language translation, suggested applying code-breaking techniques to the challenge...

John McCarthy
From ACM News

John McCarthy

When IBM's Deep Blue supercomputer won its famous chess rematch with then world champion Garry Kasparov in May 1997, the victory was hailed far and wide as a...

Precision-Controlled Microbots Show They Could Take On Industrial-Scale Jobs
From ACM News

Precision-Controlled Microbots Show They Could Take On Industrial-Scale Jobs

A pioneering research institute that introduced the computer world to the mouse, hypertext, and networks is now setting its sights a bit lower.

Tiny Stamps for Tiny Sensors
From ACM News

Tiny Stamps for Tiny Sensors

Advances in microchip technology may someday enable clinicians to perform tests for hundreds of diseases—sifting out specific molecules, such as early stage cancer...

Kurzweil Responds: Don't ­nderestimate the Singularity
From ACM TechNews

Kurzweil Responds: Don't ­nderestimate the Singularity

Paul Allen and a colleague recently challenged inventor and author Ray Kurzweil's prediction that computers will soon surpass human intelligence, an event known...

How Google's Self-Driving Car Works
From ACM News

How Google's Self-Driving Car Works

Once a secret project, Google's autonomous vehicles are now out in the open, quite literally, with the company test-driving them on public roads and, on one occasion...

PingPong-Playing Robots Debut
From ACM News

PingPong-Playing Robots Debut

Robots are already taking away jobs at factories. Now, it appears, they're ready to rule the table tennis court, too. Two pingpong-playing humanoid robots named...

From ACM News

Control a Wheelchair By Biting and Blinking

Imagine: You're paralyzed from the neck down, a full-on quadriplegic with what doctors refer to as a "high level spinal cord injury." How do you get around?

Could a Computer One Day Rewire Itself?
From ACM TechNews

Could a Computer One Day Rewire Itself?

Northwestern University researchers have developed a nanomaterial that can guide electrical currents, which could lead to a computer that can redesign its internal...

Table Salt Found to Boost Data Storage Density
From ACM TechNews

Table Salt Found to Boost Data Storage Density

Table salt could be used to increase the capacity of hard drives from as much as 4 Tbytes today to more than 21 Tbytes, according to researchers at the Institute...

Seeing Through Walls
From ACM News

Seeing Through Walls

Researchers at MIT's Lincoln Lab have developed new radar technology that provides real-time video of what’s going on behind solid walls.

Zot! Uc Irvine Team Proves Stellar at Mapping Dark Matter
From ACM News

Zot! Uc Irvine Team Proves Stellar at Mapping Dark Matter

When David Kirkby and Daniel Margala entered a contest to find out who could most accurately map dark matter in the universe, the first algorithm they submitted...

From ACM Opinion

Dennis Ritchie: The Shoulders Steve Jobs Stood On

The tributes to Dennis Ritchie won’t match the river of praise that spilled out over the web after the death of Steve Jobs. But they should.
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