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
The Many Ways to Map the Brain
Brain mapping has come a long way since the days of Korbinian Brodmann.
From ACM News
Gps Doesn't Work nderwater
To prepare for the possibility that it will one day deploy swarms of uncrewed drone submarines, the U.S. Navy is developing a system that will allow the global...
From ACM TechNews
How to Build an nbeatable Poker-Playing Robot
The allure of building superior poker-playing computer programs is the chance to tackle the challenge of dealing with missing information.
From ACM News
How Do Americans Weigh Privacy Versus National Security?
Three years ago, Edward Snowden leaked troves of previously classified information that laid bare the American government's widespread surveillance of its citizens...
From ACM News
A Search Engine For Your Memories
People are always forgetting names. That's because, at least in part, names are arbitrary. A name, in and of itself, doesn't offer much context.
From ACM News
Do Computers Need Pressure-Sensing Screens?
The computer mouse, when it first went mainstream, was awkward to describe but easy to use.
From ACM News
The High-Stakes Race to Rid the World of Human Drivers
The race to bring driverless cars to the masses is only just beginning, but already it is a fight for the ages.
From ACM News
Why New York Subway Lines Are Missing Countdown Clocks
There are people who stand every morning outside the Carroll Street station in Brooklyn staring dead-eyed into the middle distance.
From ACM News
Engineering Humans For War
Retired four-star general Paul F. Gorman recalls first learning about the "weakling of the battlefield" from reading S.L.A. Marshall, the U.S. Army combat historian...
From ACM TechNews
Computers Can Predict Schizophrenia Based on How a Person Talks
A new algorithmic analysis technique can identify the disjointed patterns of speech considered a hallmark of schizophrenia.
From ACM News
The Camera Behind the New Pluto Photos
For decades after its discovery in 1930, Pluto looked like nothing more than a gray smudge in the abyss of space.
From ACM News
The Computers of Our Wildest Dreams
One of the first electronic, programmable computers in the world is remembered today mostly by its nickname: Colossus.
From ACM Opinion
Beware the Listening Machines
One of my great pleasures in life is attending conferences on fields I'm intrigued by, but know nothing about.
From ACM News
The nderwater Internet
In 1962, during a period of technological and political transition in the undersea-cable industry, the Keawaula cable station was built on Oahu’s west shore for...
From ACM Opinion
Hacking the Brain
The perfectibility of the human mind is a theme that has captured our imagination for centuries—the notion that, with the right tools, the right approach, the right...
From ACM News
Long-Range Iris Scanning Is Here
An officer pulls someone over on the side of the highway.
From ACM News
The Wearable Device That Could nlock a New Human Sense
In March, the neuroscientist David Eagleman stood on stage to give a TED talk on sensory substitution, the idea of replacing the duties of one sense by using another...
From ACM News
Robot vs. Robot
Beautiful mathematical patterns are hidden in the chaos of Jackson Pollock’s famous drip paintings.
From ACM Opinion
Finding Out What the Past Smelled Like
It was the smell that hit me first, a heady mixture of roasting meat, woodsmoke, and farmyard manure.
From ACM Careers