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
Should Industrial Robots Be Able to Hurt Their Human Coworkers?
How much should a robot be allowed to hurt its coworkers?
From ACM News
Microsoft's Quantum Mechanics
In 2012, physicists in the Netherlands announced a discovery in particle physics that started chatter about a Nobel Prize.
From ACM News
How 3-D Printing Is Revolutionizing the Display of Big Data
One of the characteristics of our increasingly information-driven lives is the huge amounts of data being generated about everything from sporting activities and...
From ACM News
Town Built For Driverless Cars
A mocked-up set of busy streets in Ann Arbor, Michigan, will provide the sternest test yet for self-driving cars.
From ACM Opinion
What It Will Take For Computers to Be Conscious
Is a worm conscious? How about a bumblebee? Does a computer that can play chess "feel" anything?
From ACM News
Obama's Brain Project Backs Neurotechnology
The White House said that President Obama's BRAIN Initiative is generating interest from companies and philanthropies in a sign of what it calls a wider partnership...
From ACM News
Radio Waves Offer Cheap Gesture Detection on Smartphones
A research project at the University of Washington shows a way to add gesture control to phones without requiring sophisticated new sensors.
From ACM News
Robots That Learn Through Repetition, Not Programming
Eugene Izhikevich thinks you shouldn't have to write code in order to teach robots new tricks.
From ACM News
The Hidden World of Facebook 'like Farms'
Facebook has become the advertising outlet of choice for many of the world’s businesses and companies.
From ACM News
How Network Theory Is Revealing Previously nknown Patterns in Sport
If you've ever watched soccer, you'll know of the subtle differences in tactics and formation between different teams.
From ACM News
The Challenges and Threats of Automated Lip Reading
Back in the 16th century, a Spanish Benedictine monk called Pietro Ponce pioneered the seemingly magical art of lip reading.
From ACM News
Data Mining Reveals How Social Coding Succeeds (and Fails)
The process of developing software has undergone huge transformation in the last decade or so.
From ACM Opinion
In Praise of Efficient Price Gouging
In the four years since the car service Uber launched, it has been beset by criticism from myriad groups, including city officials annoyed by its sometimes cavalier...
From ACM News
A Chinese Internet Giant Starts to Dream
Punk bands from Blondie to the Ramones once played in Broadway Studios, an age-worn 95-year-old neoclassical building surrounded by strip clubs in San Francisco’s...
From ACM TechNews
The Emerging Pitfalls of Nowcasting With Big Data
Search query data is very powerful but must be treated with some care and caution, says Google chief economist Hal Varian, speaking at a European Bank workshop. ...
From ACM News
Malware Traffic Spikes Preceded Russian and Israeli Conflicts
A study of malware operating on corporate and government networks suggests that the communication patterns of these programs could warn of major conflicts.
From ACM News
No Man's Sky: A Vast Game Crafted By Algorithms
Sean Murray, one of the creators of the computer game No Man's Sky, can't guarantee that the virtual universe he is building is infinite, but he's certain that,...
From ACM TechNews
The Growing Threat of Network-Based Steganography
Researchers have uncovered Duqu, an unusual form of steganography-based malware that embeds itself in Microsoft Windows machines.
From ACM News
How Can a Civilian Plane Accidentally Be Shot Down?
Pro-Russian separatists may have shot down Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 over eastern Ukraine on Thursday because they mistook the civilian plane for something else...
From ACM News