Communications of the ACM
Connecting the Disconnected
The Web-based AmpleHarvest.org platform connects home and community gardeners to nearby food pantries, to help individuals in… 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 News
Are Cyborg Warriors a Good Idea?
You already have a lot to worry about. Climate change, fake news, inequality, the stability of democracy. But I feel obliged to point out yet another threat: soldiers...
From ACM News
Getting the Dirt on Creation, Inside OSIRIS-REx's First Close Look at Bennu
Last week at the fall meeting of the American Geophysical Union (AGU) the science team of NASA's OSIRIS-REx mission presented their first findings from the asteroid...
From ACM TechNews
Computers Determine States of Consciousness
A new algorithm can distinguish between unresponsive wakefulness syndrome and a minimally conscious state through the use of electroencephalographic brainwave...
From ACM TechNews
'Superhuman' AI Triumphs Playing the Toughest Board Games
DeepMind's self-learning AlphaZero algorithm has demonstrated superhuman success at complex board games including chess, shogi, and go.
From ACM News
Finding Alien Life May Require Giant Telescopes Built in Orbit
After snapping the final piece into place with a satisfying "click" she feels through her spacesuit gloves, the astronaut pauses to appreciate the view.
From ACM TechNews
Catching Whisky Fakers
Researchers across Europe are applying multiple methods to combat food and beverage counterfeiting.
From ACM News
Silent and Simple Ion Engine Powers a Plane with No Moving Parts
Behind a thin white veil separating his makeshift lab from joggers at a Massachusetts Institute of Technology indoor track, aerospace engineer Steven Barrett recently...
From ACM News
Will NASA's Next Mission to Venus Be a Balloon?
After decades of neglect, hellish and cloud-enveloped Venus—sometimes called Earth's evil twin—is a world ready and waiting for renewed exploration.
From ACM News
Artificial Intelligence Is Learning to Keep Learning
What if you stopped learning after graduation? It sounds stultifying, but that is how most machine-learning systems are trained.
From ACM News
What Does a Crooked Election Look Like?
For voters around the world, including the millions of Americans who will cast ballots in the midterms up to and on November 6, an election is democracy in action—an...
From ACM News
'Optical Tweezers' and Tools Used for Laser Eye Surgery Snag Physics Nobel
Optical physicists Arthur Ashkin, Gérard Mourou and Donna Strickland have won this year's Nobel Prize in Physics for "groundbreaking inventions in the field of...
From ACM News
How to Make a Robot Use Theory of Mind
Imagine standing in an elevator as the doors begin to close and suddenly seeing a couple at the end of the corridor running toward you.
From ACM News
How Cryptojacking Can Corrupt the Internet of Things
Cyber criminals shut down parts of the Web in October 2016 by attacking the computers that serve as the internet's switchboard.
From ACM News
New AI System Can Imagine What It Hasn't Seen
"Before we work on artificial intelligence, why don't we do something about natural stupidity?" computer scientist Steve Polyak once joked.
From ACM News
Gravitational Waves Reveal the Hearts of Neutron Stars
Inside a neutron star—the city-size, hyperdense cinder left after a supernova—modern physics plunges off the edge of the map.
From ACM TechNews
How Close Are We, Really, to Building a Quantum Computer?
Intel Labs' Jim Clarke observes that the race to develop the first practical quantum computer is fraught with challenges.
From ACM Opinion
How Close Are We, Really, to Building a Quantum Computer?
The race is on to build the world's first meaningful quantum computer—one that can deliver the technology's long-promised ability to help scientists do things like...
From ACM Careers
The Most Important Inventor You've Never Heard Of
When The Economist called Stanford Ovshinsky "the Edison of our age," the name might have been unfamiliar to most people, but the comparison was apt.
From ACM News
The Milky Way's Speediest Stars Could Solve a 50-Year-Old Mystery
Ken Shen was racing against the sun.
From ACM News