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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.


Synthetic Biology Lures Silicon Valley Investors
From ACM Careers

Synthetic Biology Lures Silicon Valley Investors

In 2012, Emily Leproust was trying to raise money to start Twist Bioscience, a company that aimed to synthesize DNA more quickly and more cheaply than existing...

How Scientists Search the Cosmos For Encrypted Alien Signals (and Other Ones Too)
From ACM News

How Scientists Search the Cosmos For Encrypted Alien Signals (and Other Ones Too)

In a recent conversation with National Security Agency whistleblower Edward Snowden, astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson asked about communication with alien civilizations...

Materials That Couple Sensing, Actuation, Computation, and Communication
From ACM TechNews

Materials That Couple Sensing, Actuation, Computation, and Communication

Researchers at the University of Colorado at Boulder have conceived of composite materials that integrate sensing, actuation, computation, and communication.

A Data Genius Has Figured Out the ­ltimate Beer-Drinking Road Trip
From ACM TechNews

A Data Genius Has Figured Out the ­ltimate Beer-Drinking Road Trip

Data scientist Nathan Yau created a map of the top breweries in the U.S., and then determined the most efficient route to use to visit them. 

Data Mining Reveals the Extent of China's Ghost Cities
From ACM TechNews

Data Mining Reveals the Extent of China's Ghost Cities

China has experienced a tremendous amount of urban growth in the last 30 years, yet many of the newly built residential areas remain vacant. 

­.s. Tech Giants May Blur National Security Boundaries in China Deals
From ACM News

­.s. Tech Giants May Blur National Security Boundaries in China Deals

One Chinese technology company receives crucial technical guidance from a former People's Liberation Army rear admiral. Another company developed the electronics...

Nasa Finds New Way to Track Ocean Currents from Space
From ACM News

Nasa Finds New Way to Track Ocean Currents from Space

A team of NASA and university scientists has developed a new way to use satellite measurements to track changes in Atlantic Ocean currents, which are a driving...

Harvard Law Library Readies Trove of Decisions For Digital Age
From ACM News

Harvard Law Library Readies Trove of Decisions For Digital Age

Shelves of law books are an august symbol of legal practice, and no place, save the Library of Congress, can match the collection at Harvard's Law School Library...

Artificial-Intelligence Institute Launches Free Science Search Engine
From ACM News

Artificial-Intelligence Institute Launches Free Science Search Engine

With Google Scholar, PubMed, and other free academic databases at their fingertips, scientists may feel they have plenty of resources to trawl through the ever-growing...

Tor Just Launched the Easiest App Yet For Anonymous, Encrypted Im
From ACM News

Tor Just Launched the Easiest App Yet For Anonymous, Encrypted Im

The anonymity network Tor has long been the paranoid standard for privacy online, and the Tor Browser that runs on it remains the best way to use the web while...

Dog Robot Copes with Rough Terrain
From ACM TechNews

Dog Robot Copes with Rough Terrain

Researchers have designed and built a new robot "dog" that can traverse rough terrain either autonomously or while controlled by a remote operator. 

New Traffic App and Disaster Prevention Technology Road Tested
From ACM TechNews

New Traffic App and Disaster Prevention Technology Road Tested

A new app that enables smartphone users to provide feedback on traffic accidents is now available for download. 

Dartmouth Study Illustrates How Game Design Can Reduce Stereotypes and Social Biases
From ACM TechNews

Dartmouth Study Illustrates How Game Design Can Reduce Stereotypes and Social Biases

A new Dartmouth College study highlights how games can have beneficial societal effects.

How Sensorimotor Intelligence May Develop
From ACM TechNews

How Sensorimotor Intelligence May Develop

The emergence of self-directed behavior in robots can be grounded in the synaptic plasticity of their nervous systems, according to a new study.

Facebook's AI Can Caption Photos For the Blind on Its Own
From ACM TechNews

Facebook's AI Can Caption Photos For the Blind on Its Own

Facebook's Accessibility Team says it is developing an artificial intelligence tool to automatically describe photos posted on the social network to blind users...

Leap Second Heads Into Fierce Debate
From ACM News

Leap Second Heads Into Fierce Debate

When Earth's rotation gets far enough out of sync with the drumbeat of atomic time, a leap second is added to Coordinated Universal Time (UTC) and the world’s clocks...

Designing Interactive Memory Joggers
From ACM News

Designing Interactive Memory Joggers

Texts, photos, and videos are the fodder of memories, which require appropriate cues to materialize those memories from custom-designed hardware, says one researcher...

Microsoft Project Oxford Natural-Language Machine-Learning Beta Debuts
From ACM TechNews

Microsoft Project Oxford Natural-Language Machine-Learning Beta Debuts

Microsoft Research's Project Oxford is now offering a public beta version of its Language Understanding Intelligent Service.

A Quick Guide to the Cybersecurity Bill Passed By the ­.s. Senate
From ACM News

A Quick Guide to the Cybersecurity Bill Passed By the ­.s. Senate

After more than a year of bickering, stalling and revising, the Senate passed its most significant cybersecurity bill to date 74–21.

European Parliament Votes Against Net Neutrality Amendments
From ACM News

European Parliament Votes Against Net Neutrality Amendments

The European Parliament has voted against a set of rules intended to safeguard "net neutrality" in the EU.
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