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dateMore Than a Year Ago
subjectSoftware
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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.


Cameras Know You By Your Walk
From ACM News

Cameras Know You By Your Walk

Everyone knows how easy it is to recognize a friend or family member from their walk—even from a distance.

Wired Is the New Wireless: Spreading the Web in China
From ACM News

Wired Is the New Wireless: Spreading the Web in China

It's not easy to give over 1.3 billion people access to the internet—especially if that population is spread across a vast area that ranges from hinterland to sprawling...

Fbi Launches $1 Billion Face Recognition Project
From ACM TechNews

Fbi Launches $1 Billion Face Recognition Project

The U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation is using facial-recognition technology to identify criminals and the system will be rolled out nationwide by 2014.  

Harness Unused Smartphone Power For a Computing Boost
From ACM News

Harness Unused Smartphone Power For a Computing Boost

Smarphone owners carry around more processing power in their pocket than a 1970s-era supercomputer, but most of the time it languishes unused.

Visual Programming Means Anyone Can Be a Coder
From ACM TechNews

Visual Programming Means Anyone Can Be a Coder

New York University programmer Toby Schachman has developed Recursive Drawing, an experimental programming interface that enables coders to manipulate source code...

Visual Programming Means Anyone Can Be a Coder
From ACM Careers

Visual Programming Means Anyone Can Be a Coder

Many great ideas start out as scribbles on scraps of paper, as thinking visually is an intuitive way to grapple with abstract concepts. Part of the reason is the...

Watson Turns Medic: Supercomputer to Diagnose Disease
From ACM News

Watson Turns Medic: Supercomputer to Diagnose Disease

It is more than a year since Watson, IBM's famous supercomputer, opened a new frontier for artificial intelligence by beating human champions of the quiz show Jeopardy...

From ACM News

3D Printers Tell You When Your Design Will Fail

Make a mistake with your average office printer and the worst that happens is a paper jam and some wasted ink. Do the same with a 3D printer, though, and your newly...

Digital Doppelgangers: Building an Army of You
From ACM TechNews

Digital Doppelgangers: Building an Army of You

U.S. National Science Foundation researchers have developed a smart, animated, digital double that can interact with other people via a screen when the user is...

Cheap Chips Herald Future of Wave and Pay
From ACM News

Cheap Chips Herald Future of Wave and Pay

Small, cheap smart-tag devices that are printed as digital circuits in rolls like newspapers could help kickstart the wireless payment industry. The devices, known...

Micro-Drones: The New Face of Cutting-Edge Warfare
From ACM News

Micro-Drones: The New Face of Cutting-Edge Warfare

Micro-aerial vehicles (MAVs) with uncanny navigation and real-time mapping capabilities could soon be zipping through indoor and outdoor spaces, running reconnaissance...

Algorithm Beats Jigsaw-Solving Record
From ACM TechNews

Algorithm Beats Jigsaw-Solving Record

Cornell University's Andrew Gallagher has developed an algorithm that set a jigsaw puzzle-solving record by sorting through 10,000 pieces in 24 hours, surpassing...

Online Friendships Light ­p Shadow Social Networks
From ACM News

Online Friendships Light ­p Shadow Social Networks

Friending someone on Facebook makes an association public, but many relationships are never professed online.

Telerobotics Offers Third Way For Space Exploration
From ACM News

Telerobotics Offers Third Way For Space Exploration

Space exploration may have a new direction. In the 1960s, humans did the exploring but since the last moon landing in 1972, NASA's only explorers beyond low Earth...

Gps Loss Kicked Off Fatal Drone Crash
From ACM News

Gps Loss Kicked Off Fatal Drone Crash

Hopes that a new breed of commercial drones can be easily integrated into civilian airspace have been dashed after it was revealed that the loss of the technology...

Next Xbox Could Have a Biometric Controller
From ACM News

Next Xbox Could Have a Biometric Controller

The controller for the next Xbox might be able to take biometric readings of your hand, according to a recent Microsoft patent.

'bullet Time' to Stop Cyber Attacks on Power Grids
From ACM News

'bullet Time' to Stop Cyber Attacks on Power Grids

In The Matrix, the famous "bullet time" effect showed how Keanu Reeves's character Neo was able to sway out of the path of incoming bullets, as time appeared to...

Software Helps Spot Groups of Fake Online Reviews
From ACM TechNews

Software Helps Spot Groups of Fake Online Reviews

Researchers from the University of Illinois at Chicago and Google have developed software that can identify groups of fraudulent online reviews that attempt to...

Secrets of App Store Revealed By Artificial Life Forms
From ACM TechNews

Secrets of App Store Revealed By Artificial Life Forms

University College London researchers Soo Ling Lim and Peter Bentley have developed a simulation of the Apple App Store to study how it works.  

Would You Pay to Block Your Own Internet Connection?
From ACM TechNews

Would You Pay to Block Your Own Internet Connection?

Carnegie Mellon University researcher Fred Stutzman has developed productivity apps designed to maintain workers' focus on tasks and prevent them from being distracted...
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