Communications of the ACM
The news archive provides access to past news stories from Communications of the ACM and other sources by date.
June 2019
From ACM TechNews
CMU Among First to Pilot New 'Perlmutter' Supercomputer
Carnegie Mellon University's Zachary Ulissi will be among the first scientists to use the U.S. National Energy Research Scientific Computing Center's Perlmutter supercomputer, a pre-exascale system which will be delivered next…
From ACM TechNews
Phones, Wearables Combine to Assess Worker Performance
Dartmouth University researchers have developed a mobile-sensing system that judges employee performance using smartphones, wearable fitness trackers, and a custom app.
From ACM TechNews
Parents Don't Know Enough About Cyber Careers
Parents don't know enough about cybersecurity to encourage their children to pursue careers in the field, a SANS Institute study found.
From ACM TechNews
Plants Are Oldest Sensors in the World. Could They Be the Future of Computers?
MIT's Harpreet Sareen suggests using plants as a new building material for computer circuits.
From ACM TechNews
Keeping Children Safe in 'Internet of Things' Age
Researchers at Lancaster University have developed guidelines to help designers build safeguards into connected devices used by children.
From ACM TechNews
MIT Develops a System to Give Robots More Human Senses
Researchers at MIT's Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory have developed a system that could give robots the ability to link multiple senses. The AI can learn to see by touching, and learn to feel by seeing…
From ACM TechNews
Samsung TVs Should Be Regularly Virus-Checked, Company Says
Samsung said owners of its newest smart TV models should check for malware "every few weeks" to "prevent malicious software attacks."
From ACM News
Finding the Paradigms Underlying Computing in the Brain
James E. Smith presented "A Roadmap for Reverse-Architecting the Brain's Neocortex" today at ACM's Federated Computing Research Conference in Phoenix.
From ACM TechNews
Process Rapidly Develops Bespoke Liners for Prosthetics
Researchers at the University of Bath have integrated advanced three-dimensional scanning to generate digital models for affordable and more personalized lower-limb prosthetic liners.
From ACM TechNews
It's Surprisingly Easy to Hack the Precision Time Protocol
Researchers at Marist College and IBM have identified a simple but effective way to hack a PTP network, altering the timing of slave clocks by 2,149.5 minutes after just a 37-second attack.
From ACM TechNews
California Tests a Digital 'Fire Alarm' for Mental Distress
Mindstrong, a Silicon Valley-based venture co-founded by a former director of the U.S. National Institute of Mental Health, is developing an early-warning system that would flag smartphone users when an emotional crisis seemed…
From ACM TechNews
M2 Computing System Makes Android, iOS Apps Sharable on Multiple Devices
Researchers at Columbia University have developed a new computing system that enables current, unmodified mobile apps to combine and share multiple devices across multiple smartphones and tablets.
From ACM TechNews
From One Brain Scan, More Information for Medical AI
Researchers at MIT have developed a system to gather more information from images used to train machine-learning models, including those that can analyze medical scans to help diagnose and treat brain conditions.
From ACM TechNews
Investors Urge AI Startups to Inject Early Dose of Ethics
Artificial intelligence startup investors are urging companies to improve their products from an ethical perspective.
From ACM TechNews
Software to Protect World's Most Endangered Species
Researchers are integrating genetic and environmental databases to help identify species threatened by climate change more accurately.
From ACM TechNews
First 'Quantum Drone' Takes Off
Researchers at Nanjing University in China have developed a quantum drone to serve as an airborne node in a future quantum network.
From ACM TechNews
Your Phone Can Become a Robot That Does the Boring Work
A new smartphone app allows a user to easily program any robot to perform a basic activity.
From ACM TechNews
Florida City Agrees to Pay Hackers $600,000
The city council of Riviera Beach, FL, agreed to pay almost $600,000 in bitcoin to ransom back their computer systems, held hostage by malware for the past three weeks.
From ACM TechNews
Car Companies Sharpen Focus on Curbing Distracted Driving
Automakers are accelerating initiatives to address distracted driving by equipping vehicles with monitoring technology.
From ACM TechNews
A Simple Online System That Could End Plastic Pollution
Bounties Network collected tons of garbage from Manila Bay as part of a pilot project that pays a small network of people in digital currency for such trash.
From ACM TechNews
U.S. Universities Reconsider Links With Chinese AI Company
U.S. universities are reevaluating their ties to Chinese artificial intelligence firm iFlyTek, whose voice recognition and analysis products are used by Chinese police.
From ACM TechNews
Google's Language Techniques Help O2 Czech Republic Reveal Network Secrets
Word2vec, a neural network technique developed to understand human languages, also can interpret raw cell tower data.
From ACM TechNews
Petaflop Systems Dominate the Supercomputer Landscape
For the first time, every entry in this year's TOP500 list delivers petaflop-level capabilities.
From ACM TechNews
Domino's Will Start Delivering Pizzas via Autonomous Robot This Fall
Robotics startup Nuro has announced plans to dispatch robots this fall to deliver Domino's pizzas to customers in Houston.
From ACM TechNews
Environmental DNA Program Makes Conservation Research Faster, More Efficient
New open source software simplifies environmental DNA research by allowing scientists to quickly recognize a broad spectrum of species.
From ACM TechNews
Computer 'Geek' Stereotype Puts Girls Off Subject
A U.K. study found stereotyping of computing as "a male-oriented domain consisting of anti-social 'nerds, geeks, or hackers,'" discourages female students from pursuing the discipline.
From ACM TechNews
Facebook Plans Global Financial System Based on Cryptocurrency
Facebook has unveiled a plan to create an alternative financial system that relies on a new cryptocurrency.
From ACM News
The Quantum Internet Is Emerging, One Experiment at a Time
Although a fully realized quantum network is still a far-off vision, recent breakthroughs have convinced some physicists that a simple proof-of-principle is imminent.
From ACM News
Eavesdropping on the Brain
Putting sound to thought, to hear what the brain is 'hearing.'
From ACM News
Who Owns Your Face?
Today's facial recognition tools raise new questions about how, where, and when data can be used.