Communications of the ACM
The news archive provides access to past news stories from Communications of the ACM and other sources by date.
July 2017
From ACM News
From Mars Rover: Panorama Above 'Perseverance Valley'
NASA's Mars Exploration Rover Opportunity recorded a panoramic view before entering the upper end of a fluid-carved valley that descends the inner slope of a large crater's rim.
From ACM News
We Could Build a Galactic Internet but It May Take 300,000 Years
If there are advanced alien civilizations in the Milky Way, we ought to be thinking about how to say hello to our neighbours.
From ACM News
China's Got a Huge Artificial Intelligence Plan
China aims to make the artificial intelligence industry a "new, important" driver of economic expansion by 2020, according to a development plan issued by the State Council.
From ACM TechNews
Mind-Reading Computer Moves Closer to Reality
Researchers at the Chinese Academy of Sciences have developed a mind-reading program that deciphers symbols that people have viewed.
From ACM TechNews
Robot Physical Therapist Helps People Walk Again After a Stroke
A new smart harness uses artificial intelligence to help people regain their mobility following certain neurological injuries.
From ACM TechNews
Deer Caught in the Headlights? Your Car May Soon See Them
Automakers are working to develop systems that would enable self-driving cars to avoid hitting large animals such as deer.
From ACM TechNews
MIT Research Could Make Neural Networks Portable
Massachusetts Institute of Technology researchers are developing a neural network designed specifically to work on mobile devices.
From ACM Opinion
DeepMind's Founder Says to Build Better Computer Brains, We Need to Look at Our Own
After decades in the wilderness, AI has swaggered back onto center stage.
From ACM News
Beijing Wants AI to Be Made in China by 2030
The country laid out a development plan on Thursday to become the world leader in A.I. by 2030.
From ACM TechNews
New Algorithm, Metrics Improve Autonomous Underwater Vehicles' Energy Efficiency
Researchers have built a framework for autonomous underwater vehicles that enables the machines to plan energy-efficient trajectories.
From ACM TechNews
Titan Simulations Show Importance of Close Two-Way Coupling Between Human and Earth Systems
Researchers have used supercomputers to integrate massive codes that combine physical and biological processes in the Earth system with feedback from human activity.
From ACM TechNews
Hybrid Approach Optimizes Grid
Researchers at Lehigh University's Optimization and Machine Learning research group and IBM Research have made progress in solving optimal smart grid power flow problems.
From ACM TechNews
Artificial Intelligence Helps Scientists Map Behavior in the Fruit Fly Brain
Scientists have used artificial intelligence technology to make 100 billion annotations of behavior from 400,000 fruit flies.
From ACM News
NASA Catches Glimpse of Ancient and Elusive Object
NASA just caught a glimpse of the mysterious and elusive object that its New Horizons spacecraft will visit next.
From ACM News
When Cars Fly
The idea of personal air vehicles has been around for decades. Now the concept is taking off.
From ACM News
The Strange Topology That Is Reshaping Physics
Charles Kane never thought he would be cavorting with topologists. "I don't think like a mathematician," admits Kane, a theoretical physicist who has tended to focus on tangible problems about solid materials.
From ACM News
DARPA Wants Brain Implants That Record From 1 Million Neurons
DARPA is known for issuing big challenges. Still, the mission statement for its new Neural Engineering Systems Design program is a doozy: Make neural implants that can record high-fidelity signals from 1 million neurons.
From ACM TechNews
Beauty Spot or Landscape Blot? Computer Trained to Judge Scenery
New software that can differentiate scenic views from blots on the landscape.
From ACM TechNews
The 2017 Top Programming Languages
Python is now the top programming language, according to IEEE Spectrum's recently released fourth interactive ranking of the leading languages.
From ACM TechNews
At Cybersecurity Camps, Teen Girls Learn About Protecting Nation, Breaking Barriers
A growing number of cybersecurity camps are helping to prepare young women to work in this field, as women remain underrepresented in the information security workforce worldwide.
From ACM TechNews
Fused Imaging Reveals Sixth-Century Writing Hidden Inside Bookbinding
Northwestern University researchers say they have developed a new, non-destructive technology that reveals medieval texts hidden inside of ancient bookbindings.
From ACM TechNews
Research Makes Robots Better at Following Spoken Instructions
Researchers at Brown University have developed a system designed to help robots better follow spoken instructions.
From ACM TechNews
Automated Security Kiosk Could Alleviate Travel, Border Woes
Nathan Twyman at the Missouri University of Science and Technology has created an automated screening kiosk to enhance safety at airports and border crossings.
From ACM News
How The Military Is Altering the Limits of Human Performance
Imagine a group of volunteers, their chests rigged with biophysical sensors, preparing for a mission in a military office building outfitted with cameras and microphones to capture everything they do.
From ACM News
Milner Award and Lecture
From ACM News
Satellite Snafu Masked True Sea-Level Rise for Decades
The numbers didn't add up. Even as Earth grew warmer and glaciers and ice sheets thawed, decades of satellite data seemed to show that the rate of sea-level rise was holding steady—or even declining.
From ACM TechNews
Twitter Data Changing Future of Population Research
Researchers have collected more than 30 terabytes of geo-tagged tweets as part of a project they say could change the landscape of population research.
From ACM TechNews
Code @ TACC Robotics Camp Delivers on Self-Driving Cars
The Texas Advanced Computing Center last month hosted a week-long summer camp during which 34 students received instruction from five staff scientists and two guest high school teachers.
From ACM TechNews
Detecting Long-Term Concussion in Athletes
Researchers recently conducted a study examining the brains of athletes who had suffered concussions, and comparing them to athletes who had not suffered concussions.
From ACM News
Pocket Brains: Neuromorphic Hardware Arrives for Our Brain-Inspired Algorithms
As the world's great companies pursue autonomous cars, they're essentially spending billions of dollars to get machines to do what your average two-year-old can do without thinking—identify what they see.