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dateMore Than a Year Ago
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An edited collection of advanced computing news from Communications of the ACM, ACM TechNews, other ACM resources, and news sites around the Web.


Perfecting Synthetic Sounds For Animated Worlds
From ACM News

Perfecting Synthetic Sounds For Animated Worlds

If computers can generate the imagery in animated movies like Toy Story 3 and Despicable Me, why can't they also generate the sound effects to go with them?

From ACM News

Google May Know Your Desires Before You Do

Google attempts to return relevant search results in the blink of an eye. But in future it could go one better, delivering search results to its users even before...

Geo-Tags Reveal Celeb Secrets
From ACM TechNews

Geo-Tags Reveal Celeb Secrets

U.S. computer scientists have demonstrated that by using information from Internet images and videos it is possible to determine the addresses and locations of...

Shrewd Search Engines Know What You Want
From ACM News

Shrewd Search Engines Know What You Want

For better or worse, search engines have become the gateway to the Web. They help users to find information, advertisers to sell products—they even help hackers...

Crunching Cancer With Numbers
From ACM News

Crunching Cancer With Numbers

When Danny Hillis spent a day watching a top surgeon perform keyhole cancer surgery, he was left both exhilarated and depressed. The clinical precision with which...

Search Engines Learn How to Watch and Listen to Video
From ACM News

Search Engines Learn How to Watch and Listen to Video

 Missed the winning goal in that crucial football match at the 2010 FIFA World Cup? Just get on the net and you'll find hours of user-generated video content of...

From ACM TechNews

Share Information to Boost Cellphone Performance

Dartmouth College researchers led by Emiliano Miluzzo say that sharing data gathered by cell phone sensors could improve the accuracy of the data and the applications...

Blogs and Tweets Could Predict the Future
From ACM TechNews

Blogs and Tweets Could Predict the Future

Forecasts about social and economic trends could be generated through the analysis of blogs and tweets, building on earlier research by Google and others to mine...

From ACM News

Microsoft's Kinect Isn't Just For Games

Microsoft's long-awaited body-sensing technology, Project Natal, got a new name last week at the E3 expo in Los Angeles. Kinect, as it is now called, is a set-top...

18th-Century Painters Give Photography New Perspective
From ACM TechNews

18th-Century Painters Give Photography New Perspective

Software engineer Thomas Sharpless and colleagues have developed Panini, software that can make wide-angled digital photos with perfect perspective using a technique...

Computerized Critics Could Find the Music You'll Like
From ACM TechNews

Computerized Critics Could Find the Music You'll Like

University of California, San Diego artificial intelligence researcher Luke Barrington is developing software that can analyze a piece of music and compile information...

Thumbs Up For Gesture-Based Computing
From ACM News

Thumbs Up For Gesture-Based Computing

Fashion crime it may be, but a multicoloured dayglo glove could bring Minority Report-style computing to your home PC.

Impossible Figures Brought to Life in Virtual Worlds
From ACM TechNews

Impossible Figures Brought to Life in Virtual Worlds

Chinese University of Hong Kong computer scientists have developed software that depicts physically impossible images in three-dimensional virtual environments. ...

Why Labs Love Gaming Hardware
From ACM News

Why Labs Love Gaming Hardware

Blasting zombies may seem to have little to do with serious research, but video game hardware is helping scientists in a variety of ways including helping them...

Army of Smartphone Chips Could Emulate the Human Brain
From ACM News

Army of Smartphone Chips Could Emulate the Human Brain

If you have a smartphone, you probably have a slice of Steve Furber's brain in your pocket. By the time you read this, his 1-billion-neuron silicon brain will be...

Putting the Touch Into Touchscreens
From ACM News

Putting the Touch Into Touchscreens

Your eyes tell you that your hand is locked in a vice-like mechanical device, but your fingertips tell you you're stroking fur. Welcome to the world of haptics,...

From ACM TechNews

Barcodes Help Objects Tell Their Stories

Five U.K. academic institutions have collaborated to create the Tales of Things, a Web site based on the concept of the Internet of things that enables users to...

Hand-Held Projector Images Respond to the Real World
From ACM TechNews

Hand-Held Projector Images Respond to the Real World

A prototype of a handheld projector created virtual characters that interacted with the real world at the recent Virtual Reality 2010 meeting in Waltham, MA.

Touch Floors Could Be Next Step in Computer Interfaces
From ACM News

Touch Floors Could Be Next Step in Computer Interfaces

Imagine entering your living room and sliding your foot purposefully over a particular stretch of floor. Your hi-fi system springs to life, pumping out the sounds...

Can We Make a Conscious Machine?
From ACM News

Can We Make a Conscious Machine?

Challenges don't get much bigger than trying to create artificial consciousness. Some doubt if it can be done--or if it ever should. Bolder researchers are notAntonio...
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