Communications of the ACM
Python-Based Compiler Achieves Performance Speedups
The Codon compiler, from a team led by researchers from MIT CSAIL, allows developers to create new domain-specific languages … From ACM TechNewsAn edited collection of advanced computing news from Communications of the ACM, ACM TechNews, other ACM resources, and news sites around the Web.
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Do We Need Asimov's Laws?
In 1942, the science fiction author Isaac Asimov published a short story called Runaround in which he introduced three laws that governed the behaviour of robots...
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sing ltrasound to Feel Virtual Objects
A startup called Ultrahaptics aims to make gesture control and virtual reality more engaging by using ultrasound waves to let you feel like you’re touching virtual...
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Increasingly, Robots of All Sizes Are Human Workmates
Most industrial robots are far less friendly than the Roomba robot vacuum cleaner, which is safe enough to be a surprisingly popular means of feline transportation...
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10 Breakthrough Technologies 2014
Technology news is full of incremental developments, but few of them are true milestones.
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Jupiter's Radio Emissions Could Reveal the Oceans on Its Icy Moons, Say Planetary Geologists
Among the most exciting destinations in the Solar System are Jupiter's icy moons Europa, Ganymede, and Callisto.
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Microrobots, Working Together, Build with Metal, Glass, and Electronics
Someone glancing through the door of Annjoe Wong-Foy's lab at SRI International might think his equipment is infested by ants.
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World Cup Mind-Control Demo Faces Deadlines, Critics
In less than 60 days, Brazil will begin hosting soccer's 2014 World Cup, even though workers are still hurrying to pour concrete at three unfinished stadiums.
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Cheaper Joints and Digits Bring the Robot Revolution Closer
SRI International is rethinking the design of Boston Dynamics' Atlas robot to try to help the machine retain its capabilities while trimming its power consumption...
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Three Questions For Eugene Kaspersky
The Moscow-based computer security firm Kaspersky Lab has analyzed major new kinds of malware, including Stuxnet, which four years ago was revealed to have damaged...
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Cheaper Joints and Digits Bring the Robot Revolution Closer
The Atlas humanoid robot, unveiled last year by Boston Dynamics, a company later acquired by Google, is a marvel.
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Pay with Your Fingerprint
Anyone with an iPhone 5 can use its fingerprint reader to unlock the device and pay for apps or music in Apple's iTunes store.
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Lens-Free Camera Sees Things Differently
In a new system, a curved camera lens is replaced with a tiny sensor that uses a spiral shape to map light and a computer determines the resulting image.
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Graphene Helps Copper Wires Keep Their Cool
When people in the chip industry talk about the thermal problems in computer processors, they get dramatic.
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Spinoffs from Spyland
It takes more than a little tradecraft to spin off a startup from the National Security Agency.
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Three Questions For Leslie Lamport, Winner of Computing's Top Prize
This year's winner of the Turing Award—often referred to as the Nobel Prize of computing—was announced yesterday as Leslie Lamport, a computer scientist whose research...
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Facebook Creates Software That Matches Faces Almost as Well as You Do
Asked whether two unfamiliar photos of faces show the same person, a human being will get it right 97.53 percent of the time.
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Virtual Reality Startups Look Back to the Future
It's been almost 30 years since the computer scientist Jaron Lanier formed VPL Research, the first company to sell the high-tech goggles and gloves that once defined...
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Mathematical Proof Reveals How To Make The Internet More Earthquake-Proof
One of the common myths about the Internet is that it was originally designed during the Cold War to survive nuclear attack.
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An Artificial Hand with Real Feeling
Igor Spetic's hand was in a fist when it was severed by a forging hammer three years ago as he made an aluminum jet part at his job.
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