Communications of the ACM
New York City Takes Aim at AI
The Big Apple fields an action plan for artificial intelligence.
From ACM NewsAn edited collection of advanced computing news from Communications of the ACM, ACM TechNews, other ACM resources, and news sites around the Web.
From ACM TechNews
Supercomputer Hunts Child Abusers
Oak Ridge National Laboratory researchers are using the Jaguar supercomputer to analyze Internet traffic, looking for clues that will lead law enforcement officers...
From ACM TechNews
Tongue Clicks to Control Wheelchairs
The University of Bristol's Ravi Vaidyanathan is leading a research effort to develop an in-ear device that would enable people to control a wheelchair by clicking...
From ACM TechNews
Microsoft Develops Shape-Shifting Touchscreen
Microsoft has filed a patent application to add real texture to a tactile touchscreen. A layer of shape-memory plastic placed above a touchscreen would distort...
From ACM TechNews
World's First Ice Touchscreen Virtually Burns
Nokia researchers have built a computer touchscreen using a block of ice. The researchers say the screen is a step toward a world in which all sorts of surfaces...
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Ice and a Slice Makes Transistors More Precise
Transistors can be built more precisely by using ice as a mask, according to researchers at Harvard University. The ice lithography process resembles how computer...
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Army Avatars Join the Battle For Hearts and Minds
Researchers at the University of Southern California are developing realistic, immersive virtual-reality programs for the U.S. military in which the soldiers are...
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Part Moth, Part Machine: Cyborgs Are on the Move
Researchers are developing methods to produce complex behavior from robots by tapping into the nervous system of living organisms and using algorithms that already...
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Prizewinning Chatbot Steers the Conversation
A chatbot named Suzette recently won the Loebner prize, awarded for a version of the Turing Test, because the system successfully fooled a human judge into thinking...
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Better Hands May Help Robots Grasp Meaning
Two recent studies show that roboticists are applying some fresh thinking to the building and operation of robot hands, and a third suggests why the work is so...
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Robot Limbs to Plug Into the Brain with Light
Imagine a bionic arm that plugs directly into the nervous system, so that the brain can control its motion, and the owner can feel pressure and heat through their...
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Cellphones Reveal Emerging Disease Outbreaks
Your cellphone could be a key tool in the fight against disease by relaying a telltale signature of illness to doctors and agencies monitoring new outbreaks.
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Robot Arm Punches Human to Obey Asimov's Rules
Isaac Asimov would probably have been horrified at the experiments under way in a robotics lab in Slovenia. There, a powerful robot has been hitting people over...
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The Green City That Has a Brain
The planned city of PlanIT Valley in northern Portugal is aiming to be an environmentally sustainable city. And, like an organism, it will have a brain: a central...
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The Smartphone's Shape-Shifting Future
The smartphone of the future might lose its sleek, solid shell to become a shape-shifter, able to alter its appearance to signal an alert in situations where...
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Computer Beats Human at Shogi, Japanese Chess, For First Time
A computer has beaten a human at shogi, otherwise known as Japanese chess, for the first time. Shogi is more complex than western chess, offering about 10224...
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Body Organs Can Send Status pdates to Your Cellphone
For cardiac patients such as myself, too much excitement can be a shocking experience. If my heart rate gets too high the implanted defibrillator in my chest can...
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You Too Can Have a Dream Body
If you dislike the way you look on video, a new kind of image-manipulation software could make you feel better about yourself.
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Breaking the Noise Barrier: Enter the Phonon Computer
Noise is a chip designer's worst enemy. But handled properly it could become a powerful ally—and usher in the age of phonon computing.
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Charge Your Phone With a Beach Towel
With a view to bringing down the costs of solar cells, Brian Korgel and colleagues at the University of Texas at Austin have developed a light-harvesting ink that...
From ACM TechNews