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
Shape-Shifting Robots
Self-folding sheets of a plastic-like material point the way to robots that can assume any conceivable 3D structure.
From ACM TechNews
nraveling the Matrix
Massachusetts Institute of Technology professor Gilbert Strang has developed a way to split certain types of matrices into simpler ones, which could help produce...
From ACM News
Computer Automatically Deciphers Ancient Language
A new system that took a couple hours to decipher much of the ancient language Ugaritic could help improve online translation software.
From ACM News
An Internet 100 Times As Fast
A new network design that avoids the need to convert optical signals into electrical ones could boost capacity while reducing power consumption.
From ACM TechNews
Toward the Semantic Web
The World Wide Web Consortium recently published the Rule Interchange Format, a new standard that should help bring the idea of the Semantic Web closer to reality...
From ACM TechNews
How the Brain Recognizes Objects
Researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology's McGovern Institute of Brain Research have devised a computational model describing how the primate brain...
From ACM News
Machines That Learn Better
New mathematics will make it much easier to build machine-learning systems that tackle a wider range of problems.
From ACM TechNews
When Good Enough is Better
MIT researchers have developed a system that automatically finds parts of computer code where accuracy can be traded for significant increases in speed.
From ACM TechNews
Seeing the Forest For the Trees
New object recognition systems that deconstruct images into ever smaller elements, using methods developed at MIT and UCLA, should be much more efficient than previous...
From ACM TechNews
Mastering Multicore
MIT researchers have developed software that makes computer simulations of physical systems run more efficiently on multicore chips.
From ACM News
Computing, Sudoku-Style
Though still in its infancy, the work of Alexey Radul as a postdoc at MIT could someday have consequences for artificial-intelligence research, parallel computing...
From ACM News
Robotic Therapy Helps Stroke Patients Regain Function
Stroke patients who received robot-assisted therapy were able to regain some ability to use their arms, even if the stroke had occurred years earlier, according...
From ACM TechNews
Tv Outside the Box
MIT researchers have developed Surround Vision, a system that works with Internet-connected handheld devices to enable TV viewers to see what is happening off screen...
From ACM TechNews
In Profile: Missy Cummings
Professor Mary (Missy) Cummings, director of MIT's Humans and Automation Laboratory, wants to make it easier for humans to supervise automatic control systems,...
From ACM TechNews
A Grand Unified Theory of AI
MIT research scientist Noah Goodman has developed Church, a programming language that combines a rules-based artificial intelligence system with probabilistic inference...
From ACM TechNews
A System That's Worth Its Salt
Researchers at MIT and in Korea have developed an approach to water desalination that could lead to small, portable units powered by solar cells or batteries that...
From ACM TechNews
Web Sites That Can Take a Punch
Massachusetts Institute of Technology researchers have developed a system to keep Web servers running even when they are under attack from cybercriminals.
From ACM TechNews
Context Is Ev . . . Well, Something, Anyway
Massachusetts Institute of Technology researchers have developed a way to improve object recognition systems by using information about their context.
From ACM News
Sketch-Interpreting Software
A new system that lets people enter data into a tablet computer simply by drawing diagrams on the screen could lead to interactive whiteboards.
From ACM TechNews