Communications of the ACM
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
Craig Venter: Why I Put My Name in Synthetic Genomes
How has the definition of life changed during your lifetime?
From ACM TechNews
Your Next Boss Could Be a Computer
University of Massachusetts Amherst researchers have developed AutoMan, an automated artificial intelligence-based system that can delegate tasks to human workers...
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...
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
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...
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.
From ACM News
Revealed
As protests against financial power sweep the world, science may have confirmed the protesters' worst fears. An analysis of the relationships between 43,000 transnational...
From ACM News
Light Is Not Fast Enough For High-Speed Stock Trading
Every microsecond counts in stock trading. The New York Stock Exchange handles a third of the world's stock trading—around 22 billion messages a day. But NYSE Euronext...
From ACM News
Light Is Not Fast Enough For High-Speed Stock Trading
Every microsecond counts in stock trading. The New York Stock Exchange handles a third of the world's stock trading—around 22 billion messages a day. But NYSE...
From ACM News
Welcome to the Age of the Splinternet
Openness is the Internet's great strength—and weakness. With powerful forces carving it up, is its golden age coming to an end?
From ACM News
Cern Collides with a Patent Reality
You might imagine that vast patent royalties flow into the organisation that invented the touchscreen and the World Wide Web. But the atom-smashing outfit CERN...
From ACM TechNews
Theme-Park Dummy Trick Becomes Teleconference Tool
A trick used in theme-park animatronics could help people act more naturally during videoconferences. Shader lamps is a technique that projects an animated face...
From ACM TechNews
Fly-By-Wireless Set For Take-Off
Aircraft manufacturers eager to reduce the weight of planes are looking into the replacement of copper wiring with wireless networks. Imbuing fly-by-wireless networks...
From ACM TechNews
After Boom, Is Wikipedia Heading For Bust?
The explosive growth of the Wikipedia online encyclopedia is petering out, while a less welcoming attitude toward new contributors could negatively affect the archive's...
From ACM News
Virtual Power Plants Could Tame Coming Grid Chaos
Fears over energy security and climate change have led to record investment in renewable energy. But a major problem threatens to stall progress towards a more...
From ACM TechNews
Software to Track Our Emotional Outbursts
Sentiment analysis agents are designed to teach computers to comprehend the emotions expressed in text just as well as people do, and early adopters include big...
From ACM TechNews