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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.


­sing Cellphone Data to Study the Spread of Cholera
From ACM TechNews

­sing Cellphone Data to Study the Spread of Cholera

Researchers recently led a study showing how human mobility patterns contributed to the spread of a cholera epidemic in Senegal in 2005. 

Push For Encryption Law Falters Despite Apple Case Spotlight
From ACM News

Push For Encryption Law Falters Despite Apple Case Spotlight

After a rampage that left 14 people dead in San Bernardino, key U.S. lawmakers pledged to seek a law requiring technology companies to give law enforcement agencies...

Artificial Intelligence Is Far From Matching Humans, Panel Says
From ACM News

Artificial Intelligence Is Far From Matching Humans, Panel Says

Never mind Terminator-like killer robots. Artificial intelligence researchers are grappling with more realistic questions like whether their creations will take...

On Your Mark. Get Set. Print!
From ACM News

On Your Mark. Get Set. Print!

Athletic footwear is about to be customized in the extreme, through a combination of computer vision-enabled scanning and three-dimensional printing.

Illuminating Life's Building Blocks
From ACM News

Illuminating Life's Building Blocks

Biophysicist Joerg Bewersdorf says that 2006 was fluorescence microscopy's annus mirabilis—a 'miraculous year' as momentous in its own way as 1905, when Albert...

Meet Terrapattern, Google Earth's Missing Search Engine
From ACM News

Meet Terrapattern, Google Earth's Missing Search Engine

"Why don't you click on the tennis court?" Golan Levin, an associate professor of art at Carnegie Mellon University, suggested.  

Japanese-Language Myshake App Crowdsources Earthquake Shaking
From ACM TechNews

Japanese-Language Myshake App Crowdsources Earthquake Shaking

Researchers have released a Japanese version of an application that crowdsources ground-shaking information from smartphones to detect earthquakes. 

How the Constant Threat of War Shaped Israel's Tech Industry
From ACM Careers

How the Constant Threat of War Shaped Israel's Tech Industry

Unit 8200 is Israel's most mysterious agency. No one outside knows exactly how it operates, who works there, or how they learn.

IBM Memory Advances Could Speed ­p Your Phone
From ACM News

IBM Memory Advances Could Speed ­p Your Phone

Ever wanted to pound your PC as it crawls through a restart or fumed that your phone takes much too long to launch an e-book app?  

Face Recognition App Taking Russia By Storm May Bring End to Public Anonymity
From ACM News

Face Recognition App Taking Russia By Storm May Bring End to Public Anonymity

If the founders of a new face recognition app get their way, anonymity in public could soon be a thing of the past.

East Meets West: 'we Are Alfred'
From ACM TechNews

East Meets West: 'we Are Alfred'

An interactive virtual reality simulation allows users to inhabit the perspective of a 74-year-old man with sensory impairments. 

Study Reveals Only 1 in 6 Drivers Want Fully-Autonomous Vehicles
From ACM TechNews

Study Reveals Only 1 in 6 Drivers Want Fully-Autonomous Vehicles

Most U.S. drivers do not want to own a fully self-driving car in the future, according to a University of Michigan survey. 

1,500 Scientists Lift the Lid on Reproducibility
From ACM News

1,500 Scientists Lift the Lid on Reproducibility

More than 70% of researchers have tried and failed to reproduce another scientist's experiments, and more than half have failed to reproduce their own experiments...

Four Wild Technologies Lawmakers Want Nasa to Pursue
From ACM News

Four Wild Technologies Lawmakers Want Nasa to Pursue

Imagine a tissue-box sized device, with blades a few feet long, whirring to life after charging for a full Sol on Mars.

Nasa Telescopes Find Clues For How Giant Black Holes Formed So Quickly
From ACM News

Nasa Telescopes Find Clues For How Giant Black Holes Formed So Quickly

Using data from NASA's Great Observatories, astronomers have found the best evidence yet for cosmic seeds in the early universe that should grow into supermassive...

China's Scary Lesson to the World: Censoring the Internet Works.
From ACM News

China's Scary Lesson to the World: Censoring the Internet Works.

First there was the Berlin Wall. Now there is the Great Firewall of China, not a physical barrier preventing people from leaving, but a virtual one, preventing...

Physicists Discover a New Form of Light
From ACM News

Physicists Discover a New Form of Light

Physicists from Trinity College Dublin's School of Physics and the CRANN Institute, Trinity College, have discovered a new form of light, which will impact our...

Giant Tsunamis Washed Over Ancient Mars
From ACM News

Giant Tsunamis Washed Over Ancient Mars

Some 3.4 billion years ago, giant meteoroids slammed into a frigid ocean covering Mars's northern hemisphere. The impacts kicked up enormous waves that raced across...

What Happens When Big Data Blunders?
From Communications of the ACM

What Happens When Big Data Blunders?

Big data is touted as a cure-all for challenges in business, government, and healthcare, but as disease outbreak predictions show, big data often fails.

Reimagining Search
From Communications of the ACM

Reimagining Search

Search engine developers are moving beyond the problem of document analysis, toward the elusive goal of figuring out what people really want.
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