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
Among the Nsa's Own Tips For Securing Computers: Remove the Webcam
Seems like everything gets hacked these days. Baby monitors. White House employees' personal email. Toilets.
From ACM TechNews
Watch the Intricate Patterns of Global Infrastructure Emerge From Geocoded Tweets
A Northeastern University professor has created a global, navigable map of geo-tagged Twitter data.
From ACM Opinion
Could the Government Get a Search Warrant For Your Thoughts?
We don't have a mind reading machine.
From ACM TechNews
Twitter Can Tell Whether Your Community Is Happy or Not
Researchers recently released a study on whether a community's sense of happiness could be determined from communications on Twitter. The study demonstrates that...
From ACM TechNews
Y No Go Viral: The Emerging Science of Memes
Scientists are beginning to study how memes are created, which ones fail, and how certain memes go viral.
From ACM News
Where Rich People Live (AKA Maps of iPhone Use)
Our stuff often says a lot about us, whether we own a hybrid car or a station wagon, a MacBook Pro or an ancient desktop.
From ACM News
Is This Virtual Worm the First Sign of the Singularity?
For all the talk of artificial intelligence and all the games of SimCity that have been played, no one in the world can actually simulate living things. Biology...
From ACM Opinion
Paul Otellini's Intel: Can the Company That Built the Future Survive It?
Forty-five years after Intel was founded by Silicon Valley legends Gordon Moore and Bob Noyce, it is the world's leading semiconductor company.
From ACM News
How the Boston Pd Could Examine the Videos From the Bombing
As investigators try to figure out what happened during the bombings at the Boston Marathon, they'll turn to video taken at the scene of the explosions.
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 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 TechNews
Inside the Quest to Put the World's Libraries Online
Making a vast, open, distributed network of books, records, and images available to anyone with an Internet link is the goal of the Digital Public Library of America...
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 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
The Average Person Alive During Wwii and Now on Facebook Has 42 Friends
People who are older than 75 have seen the world do some crazy things. They were born during or before Hitler's rise to power, lived through the deprivation and...
From ACM News
The Technology That Allowed the Titanic Survivors to Survive
More than 1,500 people died in the sinking of the Titanic, but more than 700 survived. Those who did owed their escape to the newest communications technology of...
From ACM TechNews
Cyber and Drone Attacks May Change Warfare More Than the Machine Gun
Information technology is changing the way nations wage war, with philosophical and ethical perspectives struggling to keep pace with those changes.
From ACM News