Communications of the ACM
The news archive provides access to past news stories from Communications of the ACM and other sources by date.
June 2017
From ACM Careers
How Silicon Valley Pushed Coding Into American Classrooms
At a White House gathering of tech titans last week, Timothy D. Cook, the chief executive of Apple, delivered a blunt message to President Trump on how public schools could better serve the nation's needs.
From ACM News
Eyes In the Sky
One of America's least known National Historic Landmarks may also be its ugliest. It''s kept hidden inside Building 32 on the grounds of the Johnson Space Center in Houston and is identified simply as Chamber A.
From ACM News
Building a Better IoT
A robust and resilient Internet of Things framework is critical for future progress. New and emerging concepts may illuminate the path.
From ACM TechNews
Code.org Gears Up to Get 30,000 Students Psyched Up About Computer Science
Code.org recently launched a free, year-long course that is designed to provide more than 30,000 low-income students the opportunity to learn how to program.
From ACM TechNews
How Pythons Regenerate Their Organs and Other Secrets of the Snake Genome
Researchers are using supercomputers to study reptile evolution.
From ACM TechNews
IU Study Finds Most People Aren't as Happy as Their Friends on Social Media
A study by researchers at Indiana University found people with the most connections on social media are happier.
From ACM News
Facial Recognition May Boost Airport Security But Raises Privacy Worries
Passengers at Boston's Logan International Airport were surfing their phones and drinking coffee, waiting to board a flight to Aruba recently when a JetBlue agent came on the loudspeaker, announcing: "Today, we do have a unique…
From ACM News
Synthetic Iris Could Let Cameras React to Light Like Our Eyes Do
An artificial iris can open and close in response to sunlight without any other outside control, just like the ones in your eyes.
From ACM TechNews
Global Race Toward Exascale Will Drive Supercomputing, AI to Masses
Industrial trends in high-performance computing are setting a foundation for the eventual pervasiveness of artificial intelligence and big data applications within the mainstream, according to a new Hyperion report.
From ACM TechNews
Taking a Ride in MIT's Self-Driving Wheelchair
Researchers at MIT's Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory have developed a self-driving wheelchair currently undergoing testing on the MIT campus.
From ACM TechNews
Selfies: We Love How We Look and We're Here to Show You
Researchers at the Georgia Institute of Technology say they have analyzed 2.5 million selfie posts on Instagram to determine what kinds of identity statements people make by taking and sharing selfies.
From ACM TechNews
What Exactly Do You Mean When You Say 'Best'?
Researchers have developed a system for interpreting sarcastic statements in social media.
From ACM TechNews
Boys Say They're More Likely to Pursue STEM Careers Than Girls
Adolescent boys say they are more likely to pursue careers in science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) fields than girls, according to a survey from Junior Achievement and EY.
From ACM News
New Model of Evolution Finally Reveals How Cooperation Evolves
One of the great unanswered question in biology is why organisms have evolved to cooperate.
From ACM News
Solar System Survey Casts Doubt on Mysterious 'Planet Nine'
An analysis of four icy bodies discovered in the outer Solar System reveals no sign that they are being influenced by a large, unseen planet lurking beyond Neptune.
From ACM News
New Algorithm Generates Folding Patterns to Produce Any 3-D Origami Structure
In July, researchers at the University of Tokyo will announce a universal algorithm for folding origami shapes that guarantees a minimum number of seams.
From ACM TechNews
What an AI's Non-Human Language Actually Looks Like
Researchers at the Facebook Artificial Intelligence Research lab have found that bots they were training to negotiate with each other began conversing in a non-human language without human supervision.
From ACM TechNews
Teaching Computer Science Is Great, But It's Not Enough
Although progress has been made on providing more computer science education to K-12 students, the United States is still years away from providing adequate CS education in all schools so the field can realize its full potential…
From ACM TechNews
The Human Brain Project Reboots: A Search Engine for the Brain Is in Sight
The European Commission-funded Human Brain Project is on track to create a searchable model of the brain by building an infrastructure combining high-performance computing, data analytics, and simulation and modeling software…
From ACM TechNews
Illinois Researchers Build Dropbox-Like Storage, Analytical System for Scientific Data
Researchers at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign are studying how to accelerate the materials-to-device process through a new framework that links microscopes and other scientific instruments to a cloud infrastructure…
From ACM TechNews
How Scratch and Minecraft Developers Hope to Keep Kids Coding for Life
Researchers at MIT's Media Lab aim to nurture a lifelong enthusiasm for programming among young students, using the Scratch learn-to-code platform.
From ACM News
Yearning for New Physics at CERN, in a Post-Higgs Way
The world's biggest and most expensive time machine is running again.
From ACM News
Curiosity Doesn't Need Your Help Blasting Rocks with a Laser
As cars here on Earth begin to drive themselves and robots autonomously roam sidewalks delivering food and nearly running over dogs, over on Mars, the Curiosity rover very much remains a remotely piloted vehicle.
From ACM News
How the Government Can Read Your Email
With Congress focused on reforming the tax code and replacing Obamacare—plus keeping the government open—there's little oxygen for other policy issues.
From ACM TechNews
Google Advances AI With 'One Model to Learn Them All'
Google recently released an academic paper describing MultiModel, a template for how to create a single machine-learning model that is capable of addressing multiple tasks.
From ACM TechNews
MIT Lab Shows Off Smart Threads That Can Send Messages, Change Color
Researchers at MIT are developing smart fabrics as part of the Advanced Functional Fabrics of America (AAFOA) alliance. At the grand opening of the Fabric Discovery Center, AFFOA CEO Yoel Fink showcased innovative fibers that…
From ACM TechNews
Toward Optical Quantum Computing
Researchers at MIT have developed a device enabling photon-photon interactions at room temperature by applying a silicon crystal etched with patterns to introduce "nonlinearities" into optical-signal transmissions.
From ACM TechNews
Cybersecurity for Your Car
Ohio State University researchers are studying the security of wireless interfaces in vehicles, the use of which will only increase as autonomous vehicles come closer to reality.
From ACM News
Beyond the Five Senses
The world we experience is not the real world. It's a mental construction, filtered through our physical senses. Which raises the question: How would our world change if we had new and different senses?
From ACM News
NASA Completes Study of Future 'Ice Giant' Mission Concepts
A NASA-led and NASA-sponsored study of potential future missions to the mysterious "ice giant" planets Uranus and Neptune has been released—the first in a series of mission studies NASA will conduct in support of the next Planetary…