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
Can Alexa Help Solve a Murder? Police Think So—But Amazon Won't Give p Her Data.
When police responded to a home in Bentonville, Ark., one Sunday morning last November, they discovered Victor Collins's dead body in the backyard.
From ACM Careers
Scientists Are Frantically Copying U.S. Climate Data, Fearing It Might Vanish Under Trump
Alarmed that decades of crucial climate measurements could vanish under a hostile Trump administration, scientists have begun a feverish attempt to copy reams of...
From ACM News
Pizzagate: From Rumor, to Hashtag, to Gunfire in D.c.
What was finally real was Edgar Welch, driving from North Carolina to Washington to rescue sexually abused children he believed were hidden in mysterious tunnels...
From ACM News
Erich Bloch, IBM Pioneer Who Later Led National Science Foundation, Dies at 91
Bloch was the first U.S. National Science Foundation director to come from a business rather than academic background, and the first without a doctoral degree. ...
From ACM News
China's Plan to Organize Its Society Relies on 'big Data' to Rate Everyone
Imagine a world where an authoritarian government monitors everything you do, amasses huge amounts of data on almost every interaction you make, and awards you...
From ACM Opinion
Nate Silver Blew It When He Missed Trump. Now He Really Needs to Get It Right.
Nate Silver is on the downtown 1 train. Possibly because he looks like a (modestly) hip math teacher, and hardly looks up from his phone, he goes unrecognized until...
From ACM News
The FCC Just Passed Sweeping New Rules to Protect Your Online Privacy
Federal officials delivered a landmark ruling in favor of online privacy Thursday, limiting how Internet providers use and sell customer data, while asserting that...
From ACM News
China Has Now Eclipsed US in AI Research
Humanity may still be years if not decades away from producing sentient artificial intelligence.
From ACM News
Why Apple Can Be Forced to Turn Logs of Your Imessage Contacts Over to Police
When a user sends someone a message through Apple's iMessage feature, Apple encrypts that message between Apple devices so that only the sender and recipient can...
From ACM TechNews
Federal Officials Plan Aggressive Approach to Driverless Cars
U.S. Department of Transportation Secretary Anthony Foxx on Monday announced plans to aggressively influence the launch of driverless car technology.
From ACM News
Confused About Those Emergency Cellphone Alerts? Here's How They Work.
Many New York-area commuters on Monday were interrupted by this alert on their cellphones: "WANTED: Ahmad Khan Rahami, 28-yr-old male. See media for pic. Call 9...
From ACM News
The Science of Smartphone Batteries and How to Keep Them Charged
Whenever a new iPhone gets announced, there's one feature that every Apple lover is hoping for: improved battery life.
From ACM News
The Bizarre World of Bitcoin 'mining' Finds a New Home in Tibet
Inside a metal shed in the Tibetan highlands of western China, thousands of microprocessors flank narrow corridors, generating a constant hum and stifling waves...
From ACM Opinion
Here's How Russian Hackers Could Actually Tip an American Election
Reports this week of Russian intrusions into U.S. election systems have startled many voters, but computer experts are not surprised.
From ACM TechNews
Self-Driving Cars Reach a Fork in the Road, and Automakers Take Different Routes
Automakers are taking divergent approaches to the development and deployment of driverless vehicles.
From ACM News
98 Personal Data Points that Facebook ses to Target Ads to You
Say you're scrolling through your Facebook Newsfeed and you encounter an ad so eerily well-suited, it seems someone has possibly read your brain.
From ACM News
Putting a Computer in Your Brain Is No Longer Science Fiction
Like many in Silicon Valley, technology entrepreneur Bryan Johnson sees a future in which intelligent machines can do things like drive cars on their own and anticipate...
From ACM Opinion
Tim Cook: Running Apple 'is Sort of a Lonely Job'
On a sleek white coffee table in Apple CEO Tim Cook's fourth-floor office in late July, beneath framed posters of Robert F. Kennedy, the Rev. Martin Luther King...
From ACM Opinion
Microsoft's President Explains the Company's Quiet Legal War For ser Privacy
Apple's legal battle over encryption dominated headlines earlier this year, but another tech giant is fighting a quieter legal war over user privacy: Microsoft....
From ACM News