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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.


Patient, Heal Thyself
From Communications of the ACM

Patient, Heal Thyself

New handheld medical diagnostic tools promise more efficient, lower-cost healthcare — but at what price?

Curiosity Makes Its Longest One-Day Drive on Mars
From ACM News

Curiosity Makes Its Longest One-Day Drive on Mars

NASA's Mars rover Curiosity drove twice as far on July 21 as on any other day of the mission so far: 109.7 yards (100.3 meters).

Fast, Accurate Detection of 100,000 Object Classes on a Single Machine
From ACM News

Fast, Accurate Detection of 100,000 Object Classes on a Single Machine

Humans can distinguish among approximately 10,000 relatively high-level visual categories, but we can discriminate among a much larger set of visual stimuli referred...

Faster Than the Speed of Light?
From ACM News

Faster Than the Speed of Light?

Beyond the security gate at the Johnson Space Center’s 1960s-era campus here, inside a two-story glass and concrete building with winding corridors, there is a...

Touch Screen Ids ­sers via Fingerprints
From ACM News

Touch Screen Ids ­sers via Fingerprints

Tabletop computers have not exactly taken the world by storm, as some predicted they would.

Nsa Revelations Reframe Digital Life For Some
From ACM News

Nsa Revelations Reframe Digital Life For Some

In Louisiana, the wife of a former soldier is scaling back on Facebook posts and considering unfriending old acquaintances, worried an innocuous joke or long-lost...

Where Do You Test a Tool Bound For Mars? Greenland
From ACM News

Where Do You Test a Tool Bound For Mars? Greenland

Every morning this week, Justin Spring and Sean Yoon got up and drove down a bumpy dirt road. They piled their packs onto their backs and hiked 45 minutes up a...

A Black Box For Car Crashes
From ACM News

A Black Box For Car Crashes

When Timothy P. Murray crashed his government-issued Ford Crown Victoria in 2011, he was fortunate, as car accidents go.

How Computer Analysis ­ncovered J. K. Rowling's Secret Novel
From ACM TechNews

How Computer Analysis ­ncovered J. K. Rowling's Secret Novel

A Duquesne University professor used computer analysis to determine that Harry Potter creator J.K. Rowling wrote "The Cuckoo's Calling." 

Optical Lattice Atomic Clock Could 'Redefine the Second'
From ACM News

Optical Lattice Atomic Clock Could 'Redefine the Second'

We currently use atomic clocks to count the seconds, but tests on an alternative atomic timekeeper have revealed that it is more precise.

Reports Detail Mars Rover Clues to Atmosphere's Past
From ACM News

Reports Detail Mars Rover Clues to Atmosphere's Past

A pair of new papers report measurements of the Martian atmosphere's composition by NASA's Curiosity rover, providing evidence about loss of much of Mars' original...

Taiwan a 'Testing Ground' for Chinese Cyber Army
From ACM News

Taiwan a 'Testing Ground' for Chinese Cyber Army

Taiwan is the frontline in an emerging global battle for cyberspace, according to elite hackers in the island's IT industry, who say it has become a rehearsal area...

Eye-Tracking Could Outshine Passwords If Made User-Friendly
From ACM TechNews

Eye-Tracking Could Outshine Passwords If Made User-Friendly

A new biometric authentication technique identifies users based on their eye movements. 

Putting Humans Into the Visual Equation
From ACM TechNews

Putting Humans Into the Visual Equation

Small-scale image-analysis technology is not yet refined enough to produce accurate and reliable results, despite decades of advances in machine vision. 

Sebastian Thrun on the Future of Learning
From ACM Opinion

Sebastian Thrun on the Future of Learning

Sebastian Thrun has worn many hats in the tech world: Stanford research professor, founder of Google's X Labs, where he oversaw the development of self-drivingUdacity...

MIT Whiz Wants to Turn Your Skin Into a Computer Interface
From ACM News

MIT Whiz Wants to Turn Your Skin Into a Computer Interface

According to Lynette Jones, a senior research scientist in MIT's Department of Mechanical Engineering, your skin has about as many sensory receptors as your eyeballs...

The Creepy, Long-Standing Practice of Undersea Cable Tapping
From ACM News

The Creepy, Long-Standing Practice of Undersea Cable Tapping

In the early 1970s, the U.S. government learned that an undersea cable ran parallel to the Kuril Islands off the eastern coast of Russia, providing a vital communications...

How Scientists Search For Habitable Planets
From ACM News

How Scientists Search For Habitable Planets

There is only one planet we know of, so far, that is drenched with life.

Who Scores Games By Hand Anymore?
From ACM Opinion

Who Scores Games By Hand Anymore?

The first thing Bruce Levy did upon recent entry into Yankee Stadium while accompanied by his in-laws and teenage son was to purchase a program in the area of the...

How the ­.s. Forces Net Firms to Cooperate on Surveillance
From ACM News

How the ­.s. Forces Net Firms to Cooperate on Surveillance

By wielding a potent legal threat, the U.S. government is often able to force Internet companies to aid its surveillance demands.
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