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
This Bomb-Simulating S Supercomputer Broke a World Record
Brad Settlemyer had a supercomputing solution in search of a problem.
From ACM News
How a Flock of Drones Developed Collective Intelligence
The drones rise all at once, 30 strong, the domes of light on their undercarriages glowing 30 different hues—like luminescent candy sprinkles against the gray,...
From ACM Careers
Shadow Politics: Meet the Digital Sleuth Exposing Fake News
When we met in early March, Jonathan Albright was still shrugging off a sleepless weekend.
From ACM News
Don't Just Lecture Robots; Make Them Learn
The robot apocalypse is nigh. Boston Dynamics' robots are doing backflips and opening doors for their friends. Oh, and these 7-foot-long robot arms can lift 500...
From ACM News
In Search of New Rules to Protect Other Worlds From Earth's Cooties
NASA has to start protecting planets better. The international treaty governing space—there is one—and the laws and regulations that follow it date back to the...
From ACM News
The Rise of DNA Data Storage
The 144 words of Robert Frost's seminal poem "The Road Not Taken" fit neatly onto a single printed page. Or in a 1-kilobyte data file.
From ACM News
The Quest to Make Super-cold Quantum Blobs in Space
On a frigid day last January in northern Sweden, a German-led team of physicists loaded a curious machine onto an unmanned rocket.
From ACM News
Pain Is Weird. Making Bionic Arms Feel Pain Is Even Weirder
Pain is an indispensable tool for survival.
From ACM News
Cosmic Ray Showers Crash Supercomputers. Here's What to Do About It
The Cray-1 supercomputer, the world's fastest back in the 1970s, does not look like a supercomputer.
From ACM News
It Takes a Single Autonomous Car to Prevent Phantom Traffic Jams
Honk if you've heard this one before: Autonomous and connected cars will make driving less of a drudge by handling the stop-n-go mundanity of your commute for you...
From ACM News
Tech Firms Move to Put Ethical Guard Rails Around AI
One day last summer, Microsoft's director of artificial intelligence research, Eric Horvitz, activated the Autopilot function of his Tesla sedan.
From ACM News
Some Startups se Fake Data to Train AI
Berlin startup Spil.ly had a problem last spring. The company was developing an augmented-reality app akin to a full-body version of Snapchat's selfie filters—hold...
From ACM News
Cracking the Crypto War
On December 2, 2015, a man named Syed Rizwan Farook and his wife, Tashfeen Malik, opened fire on employees of the Department of Public Health in San Bernardino,...
From ACM News
Heat-Seeking Cameras Could Help Keep Self-Driving Cars Safe
After Uber's fatal self-driving crash last month in Tempe, Arizona, most observers had two basic question: Why did the car not see Elaine Herzberg crossing the...
From ACM News
Google's New AI Head Is So Smart He Doesn't Need AI
Google's heavy investment in artificial intelligence has helped the company's software write music and beat humans at complex board games. What unlikely feats could...
From ACM News
A Brain-Boosting Prosthesis Moves From Rats to Humans
The shape on the screen appears only briefly—just long enough for the test subject to commit it to memory. At the same time, an electrical signal snakes past the...
From ACM News
Researchers Restore 'Feeling' to Lost Limbs, Kinda
The bionic hand closes slowly. Its slender metal digits whirr as they jitter into a loose fist, as though they are wrapping around an invisible baton.
From ACM News
AI Has a Hallucination Problem That's Proving Tough to Fix
Tech companies are rushing to infuse everything with artificial intelligence, driven by big leaps in the power of machine learning software. But the deep-neural...
From ACM News
Wanna See Around Corners? Better Get Yourself a Laser
You can't see the bunny, but the picosecond laser certainly can.
From ACM News