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
Precision-Controlled Microbots Show They Could Take On Industrial-Scale Jobs
A pioneering research institute that introduced the computer world to the mouse, hypertext, and networks is now setting its sights a bit lower.
From ACM News
Instant Health Checks For Buildings and Bridges
During 2011's deadly onslaught of earthquakes, floods and tornadoes, countless buildings had to be evacuated while workers checked to make sure they were stable...
From ACM TechNews
Synchronized Swimming: Patrolling For Pollution with Robotic Fish
Michigan State University researchers want to develop robotic fish that can navigate underwater and patrol for pollution in oceans, lakes, and rivers.
From ACM News
Post-9/11 Technology Brings Exoskeletons, Laser Cannons to 21st-Century U.S. Military
The U.S. military has evolved so fast in the post-September 11th era that much of its technology would be nearly unrecognizable to commanders, soldiers, airmen...
From ACM News
Security and Surveillance Pervades Post-9/11 New York City
From building-blocking bollards to millimeter-wave scanners, the September 11 terrorist attacks have led to significant changes in security techniques and technology...
From ACM News
Science After 9/11: How Research Was Changed By the September 11 Terrorist Attacks
New work in forensics, biodefense and cyber security blossomed after the attacks on New York City, Washington, D.C., and in the skies over Pennsylvania, but increased...
From ACM News
Why Math Works
Most of us take it for granted that math works—that scientists can devise formulas to describe subatomic events or that engineers can calculate paths for spacecraft...
From ACM News
Light at the End of the Racetrack: How Pixar Explored the Physics of Light for Cars 2
Although the stories told by Pixar Animation Studios take place in richly realized fantasy realms, the science and technology required to create those worlds...
From ACM News
A Test For Consciousness
How will we know when we've built a sentient computer? By making it solve a simple puzzle.
From ACM News
The Rise of a New Science Superpower?
Since the turn of the 21st century, the number scientific papers published predominantly by Chinese researchers in any of the Nature journals has risen from six...
From ACM News
Can Tornado Prediction Be Improved?
Advances in computer modeling and other technologies still cannot overcome the fundamental complexity of thunderstorm and subsequent tornado formation.
From ACM News
Why Bayes Rules: The History of a Formula That Drives Modern Life
Google has a small fleet of robotic cars that since autumn have driven themselves for thousands of miles on the streets of Northern California without once striking...
From ACM TechNews
Forecast For Processing and Storing Ever-Expanding Science Data: Cloudy
Scientists that previously relied on time-shared access to high-performance computers to analyze large datasets are now turning to cloud-based services from the...
From ACM Opinion
Online 24/7: "life Logging" Pioneer Clarifies the Future of Cloud Computing
Microsoft researcher Gordon Bell, paperless for more than a decade, envisions data centers saturated with information and services readily available via the...
From ACM News
Car Computer Controls Could Be Vulnerable to Hackers
Researchers claim to wirelessly break into automobile networks to take control of brakes and steering as the automobile industry shores up defenses.
From ACM News
Being John Malkovich: Personal Control of Individual Brain Cells
In philosophy of mind, a "cerebroscope" is a fictitious device, a brain-computer interface in today's language, which reads out the content of somebody's brain...
From ACM News
Researchers Inventory a World of Information
Data is the common currency that unites all fields of science.
From ACM News
Hackers Harness Microsoft's Kinect For Business and Pleasure
Gamers and hackers could control the office as well as games with Microsoft's Kinect.
From ACM News
Solid-State Memories Pave the Way to Practical Quantum Communication
Two groups of physicists have managed to shift the quantum entanglement between two photons onto an entangled state between one photon and a quantum memor.
From ACM TechNews