Communications of the ACM
The news archive provides access to past news stories from Communications of the ACM and other sources by date.
August 2022
From ACM TechNews
World's Largest Mechanical Robot Suit
Prosthesis is the world's largest four-legged exoskeleton, described as 'a cross between an excavator, a dune buggy, and a dinosaur.'
From ACM TechNews
VR Headsets Reduced to Size of Regular Glasses
Scientists from Stanford University and Nvidia create thinner, lighter virtual reality headgear than commercially available devices.
From ACM TechNews
Zoom Used In Smuggled Code Attack
Google Project Zero security researcher Ivan Fratric launched a remote code execution attack by exploiting the technology underlying Zoom and other applications.
From ACM TechNews
Virtual Drum Set Debuts at SIGGRAPH
Engineer and musician Victor Zappi introduced a virtual percussion instrument co-developed with Professor Sidney Fels at the University of British Columbia at ACM's SIGGRAPH 2022 conference.
From ACM TechNews
The Hacking of Starlink Terminals Has Begun
Lennert Wouters at Belgium's Katholieke Universiteit Leuven hacked SpaceX's Starlink network.
From ACM TechNews
AI May Come to the Rescue of Future Firefighters
A new artificial intelligence model could warn firefighters of imminent combustion or flashovers.
From ACM TechNews
Amazon Expands Palm-Scanning Payment Tech to 65 More Whole Foods Locations
Amazon plans to expand its Amazon One palm-scanner payment technology to more than 65 Whole Foods stores in California.
From ACM TechNews
Ordinary Computers Can Beat Google's Quantum Computer After All
Scientists said they could beat Google's Sycamore quantum computer in performing an esoteric calculation using ordinary processors paired with a supercomputer.
From ACM News
FEC Greenlights Google Plan to Loosen Spam Filters, Overcoming Democratic Challenge
Under the pilot program, campaigns would be able to circumvent algorithmic sorting by tech companies that at times sends their emails to spam.
From ACM News
Self-Taught AI Shows Similarities to How the Brain Works
Self-supervised learning allows a neural network to figure out for itself what matters. The process might be what makes our own brains so successful.
From ACM TechNews
Researchers Discover Major Roadblock in Alleviating Network Congestion
Researchers found congestion control algorithms fail to prevent certain users from taking up all the bandwidth.
From ACM TechNews
Team Develops Approach for Building Quantum Computers
An interdisciplinary team has developed a method for building quantum computers based on atomic building blocks that are custom-designed by chemists.
From ACM TechNews
Mathematical Modeling Could Lead to Simple Blood Test for Brain Tumors
New mathematical models can assess the use of biomarkers for detecting glioblastomas (GBMs) and their potential for improvement.
From ACM TechNews
IoT RapperBot Malware Targeting Linux Servers via SSH Brute-Forcing Attack
Researchers at FortiGuard Labs reported that an Internet of Things (IoT) botnet malware identified in mid-June has been evolving rapidly.
From ACM News
'Qudit' Computers Go Beyond Ones and Zeroes
New machine works with eight qudits, each capable of encoding seven states at once.
From ACM News
Raising the Ramparts
Why the enterprise needs military-grade cybersecurity, too.
From ACM News
Datacenter Fire: Google Suffers Outage at One of Its Largest Datacenters, 3 Injured
News of yet another datacenter fire in just two years hits Google. Here's how to make sure you're not next.
From ACM News
Teens, Social Media, and Technology 2022
TikTok has established itself as one of the top online platforms for U.S. teens, while the share of teens who use Facebook has fallen sharply.
From ACM TechNews
U.S. Space Force Tests Robot Dogs to Patrol Cape Canaveral
The U.S. Space Force held a demonstration of dog-like quadruped unmanned ground vehicles for patrols at Cape Canaveral.
From ACM TechNews
Encrypted One-Touch Human-Machine Interface Technology Reveals User Physiology
A team of researchers has developed an encrypted, one-touch human-machine interface that can reveal physiological details about users.
From ACM TechNews
Supermarket Food Could Soon Carry Eco-Labels
Consumers could soon be checking the environmental impact of food items through an eco-labeling system based on work by researchers at the U.K.'s Oxford University.
From ACM TechNews
Robot Unties Knotted Cables but Can't Pick Them Up
University of California, Berkeley (UC Berkeley) researchers have developed a robot that can untie knotted cables using the grippers on its arms.
From ACM TechNews
How the Secrets of Ancient Cuneiform Texts Are Being Revealed by AI
Artificial intelligence is being used to read and translate cuneiform, helping to recreate ancient libraries by piecing together fragmented tablets and predicting missing text.
From ACM News
How Russia Took Over Ukraine's Internet in Occupied Territories
Internet routing data for a service provider in Kherson shows traffic beginning to flow through Russian networks in May before fully transitioning by early June.
From ACM News
Where Are The Autonomous Cars?
L5 vehicles need at least 10 more years of development.
From ACM News
Biden Signs CHIPS Act Into Law, Sending $53 Billion to U.S. Chipmakers
The White House credits the Act for spurring more than $44 billion in new manufacturing plans. But rebuilding the U.S. semiconductor industry will take years.
From ACM TechNews
NASA is Crowdsourcing Cloud Research--on Mars
Scientists have recruited volunteers to identify clouds on Mars through the Zooniverse, a platform that hosts crowdsourced citizen projects.
From ACM TechNews
Can Foundation Models Help Us Achieve 'Perfect Secrecy'?
Stanford University researchers are exploring whether emerging foundation models can help to realize the highest level of privacy, or "perfect secrecy."
From ACM TechNews
Gootkit Loader Resurfaces with Updated Tactic to Compromise Targeted Computers
Researchers have found the operators of the Gootkit access-as-a-service malware now are using legal documents to get unsuspecting users to download them.
From ACM News
Crypto and the U.S. Government Are Headed for a Decisive Showdown
The Securities and Exchange Commission accused Ishan Wahi, a former product manager at the Coinbase cryptocurrency exchange, of insider trading and securities fraud.