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 News
There Are Too Few Women in Computer Science and Engineering
It's not that they aren't interested; it's the culture of these fields and how they exclude women and girls.
From ACM TechNews
'Momentum Computing' Pushes Technology's Thermodynamic Limits
Two University of California, Davis researchers have proposed a computational method for dissipating a small fraction of the heat generated by conventional computer...
From ACM News
AI Creates False Documents That Fake Out Hackers
The algorithm hides sensitive information in a sea of decoys.
From ACM News
When Hatred Goes Viral: Inside Social Media's Efforts to Combat Terrorism
On New Year's Eve in 2015 local and federal agents arrested a 26-year-old man in Rochester, N.Y., for planning to attack people at random later that night using...
From ACM News
How to Hack the Hackers: The Human Side of Cyber Crime
Say what you will about cybercriminals, says Angela Sasse, "their victims rave about the customer service".
From ACM Opinion
Wikipedia Turns 15
It must be difficult for the roughly half a billion people who visit Wikipedia every month to remember a world without the free online encyclopedia.
From ACM News
Search For Alien Life Ignites Battle Over Giant Telescope
There is a gaping hole in the latest effort to reinvigorate the search for extraterrestrial intelligence (SETI), one so big it could hold an estimated 357 million...
From ACM News
In Defense of Science
Steady, sufficient investments in basic research are necessary to ensure the continued success of the U.S. in the future, four expert witnesses testified to Congress...
From ACM News
Bitcoin Vies with New Cryptocurrencies as Coin of the Cyber Realm
At a bitcoin conference in Miami this January, Jeffrey Tucker, a laissez-faire economist and libertarian icon, made an unexpected observation.
From ACM Opinion
How Microsoft's 1 Percenters Balance Basic Research with Short-Term Success
When Microsoft launched its research labs in 1991, the personal computer was just beginning to blossom into a worldwide phenomenon, thanks in no small part to Windows...
From ACM Opinion
Will Ibm's Watson sher in a New Era of Cognitive Computing?
Computers as we know them have are close to reaching an inflection point—the next generation is in sight but not quite within our grasp.
From ACM News
How Social Media Is Changing Disaster Response
When Hurricane Katrina ravaged the U.S. Gulf Coast in 2005, Facebook was the new kid on the block. There was no Twitter for news updates, and the iPhone was not...
From ACM Opinion
When Will Smartglasses and Other Wearable Computers Hit the Mainstream?
Google has stoked our collective imagination via relentless promotion of its Google Glass wearable computer in recent months.
From ACM Opinion
Is High-Tech Security at Public Events Counterproductive?
Which is more intrusive: security screening and metal detectors every few blocks, or a drone flying high above it taking video of every little thing you do?
From ACM TechNews
Cool It: Is the Internet Too Hot for Data Centers to Handle?
Internet traffic volume doubles every three years, yet this increase in usage has not been matched by a similar increase in network energy efficiency.
From ACM Opinion
When Will the Internet Reach Its Limit (and How Do We Stop It from Happening)?
The number of smartphones, tablets and other network-connected gadgets will outnumber humans by the end of the year.
From ACM Opinion
Intel Futurist on Why We Should Not Fear the Future
Much of Intel's success as a microprocessor manufacturer over the past four decades has come from the company's ability to understand and anticipate the future...
From ACM News
Pentagon Looks to Dna from Plants to Foil Electronic Component Counterfeiters
Counterfeit electronics embedded in missile guidance systems and hundred-million-dollar aircraft have become a serious problem for the U.S. military and its contractors...
From ACM News
Secret Computer Code Threatens Science
Modern science relies upon researchers sharing their work so that their peers can check and verify success or failure.
From ACM News
Controversy Surrounds Russia's Claim that Cosmic Rays Caused Mars Mission Failure
A heartbreaking, out-of-the-gate failure of Russia's sample return mission early this year created a wide circle of disappointment.12