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
A Machine That Makes Cameras: The Aesthetics of the Lytro
Let's think about photography as people live it.
From ACM News
What If NASA Could Figure Out the Math of a Workable Warp Drive?
When, a few weeks ago, astronomers announced that an Earth-sized planet had been detected orbiting a Alpha Centauri B, a star in the closest system of stars to...
From ACM News
For Lonely Astronauts, a Robotic Companion
You know the only thing lonelier than Sgt. Pepper's Hearts Club Band, and the Heartbreak Hotel, and the number one? Being alone and also not on Earth.
From ACM Opinion
In China, 25 Million People se Only Their Cell Phones to Read Books
On vacation in China earlier this month, I stopped by Shanghai's seven-story downtown "Book City," bustling with activity on a weekday afternoon that, as a publisher...
From ACM News
An Amazon Engineer Had a Little Idea That Turned Into a Billion-Dollar Business
Once upon a time, Amazon was a dot-com-era technology company best known for selling books.
From ACM News
The World Is Not Enough: Google and the Future of Augmented Reality
It is The Future. You wake up at dawn and fumble on the bedstand for your (Google) Glass. Peering out at the world through transparent screens, what do you see?
From ACM Opinion
The Consequences of Machine Intelligence
The question of what happens when machines get to be as intelligent as and even more intelligent than people seems to occupy many science-fiction writers.
From ACM Opinion
Meet Mira, the Supercomputer That Makes niverses
Cosmology is the most ambitious of sciences. Its goal, plainly stated, is to describe the origin, evolution, and structure of the entire universe, a universe that...
From ACM Opinion
Iphone 5? Yawn. What Will the 'phone' of 2022 Look Like?
The near-term future of phones is fairly well-established. The iPhone 5 was released Wednesday and its similarity to every Apple phone since 2007 serves as a reminder...
From ACM News
How Google Builds Its Maps—and What It Means For the Future of Everything
Behind every Google Map, there is a much more complex map that's the key to your queries but hidden from your view.
From ACM Opinion
The Jet Propulsion Lab Is Way Weirder (and Awesomer) Than You Even Imagined
For a center of cutting-edge scientific research, Caltech's Jet Propulsion Lab seems to be a pretty wacky place. Luke Johnson, a graphic designer at the lab, set...
From ACM Careers
Curiosity's Martian Playground Is Technically Located in Pasadena
Seventeen miles from downtown L.A., on the campus of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, there's a small stretch of earth covered in beach sand, decomposed...
From ACM News
The Robot of the Future That's About to Explore the Deep Past of Mars
I want to tell you about a special place on the surface of Mars. Back in the solar system's early days, a large object slammed into the red planet, leaving behind...
From ACM News
Get Ready, Because Voyager I Is *this Close* to Leaving Our Solar System
Last week, in the corners of the Internet devoted to outer space, things started to get a little, well, hot. Voyager 1, the man-made object farthest away from Earth...
From ACM News
Microsoft Wants to Serve You Ads Based on What You Do in Your Living Room
A new patent application from Microsoft points to a future in which your Kinect watches you, and sends ads based on your mood.
From ACM Opinion
Is It Possible to Wage a Just Cyberwar?
In the last week or so, cyberwarfare has made front-page news: the United States may have been behind the Stuxnet cyberattack on Iran; Iran may have suffered another...
From ACM News
How Big Data Is Changing Astronomy (Again)
Think of all the data humans have collected over the long history of astronomy, from the cuneiform tablets of ancient Babylon to images—like the one here—taken...
From ACM News