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
Virtues of the Virtual Autopsy
Once a common medical procedure, the standard autopsy is passing out of use.
From ACM News
Quantum Manipulation and Measuring Win Nobel Prize in Physics
The 2012 Nobel Prize in Physics was awarded jointly to Serge Haroche and David J. Wineland for experimental methods that enable measuring and manipulation of individual...
From ACM News
Coning In: New Ways to Tap Old Data Boost Hurricane Forecast Accuracy
Despite advances in weather prediction technology, meteorologists must still qualify any hurricane forecasts with a "cone of uncertainty," which depicts just how...
From ACM News
'part-Time' Scientists Aim to Develop Autonomous Rover to Compete For Lunar X Prize
Some people try to make the most of their spare time by exercising, volunteering, or simply recharging their batteries. Others like to use that time to build robots...
From ACM Opinion
Intel Futurist on Why We Should Not Fear the Future
Much of Intel's success as a microprocessor manufacturer over the past four decades has come from the company's ability to understand and anticipate the future...
From ACM News
Amateur Astronomers Scour the Sky For Government Secrets
Earlier this year Iran's defense minister put the world on notice: His nation had developed the ability to "easily" watch spacewalking astronauts from the ground...
From ACM News
Secret Computer Code Threatens Science
Modern science relies upon researchers sharing their work so that their peers can check and verify success or failure.
From ACM News
Controversy Surrounds Russia's Claim that Cosmic Rays Caused Mars Mission Failure
A heartbreaking, out-of-the-gate failure of Russia's sample return mission early this year created a wide circle of disappointment.
From ACM News
A Bit of Progress: Diamonds Shatter Quantum Information Storage Record
The quantum world and the everyday world of human experience are supposed to be two different realms. Quantum effects, as demonstrated in the lab, are usually confined...
From ACM News
One Thing Is Certain: Heisenberg's Uncertainty Principle Is Not Dead
What Einstein's E=mc2 is to relativity theory, Heisenberg's uncertainty principle is to quantum mechanics—not just a profound insight, but also an iconic formula...
From ACM News
Infrared and 3D Vision Systems Combine to Help Pilots Avoid Crash Landings
When large airliners approach an airport for a landing, a combination of radio signals and high-intensity lighting shows the pilot exactly where the runway is,...
From ACM News
Inside the Mind of a Video Game Champ
If there is one general rule about the limitations of the human mind, it is that we are terrible at multitasking.
From ACM News
The $1,000 Human Genome?
The race to the $1,000 genome heated up today as Life Technologies, based in Carlsbad, Calif., announced it will debut a new sequencing machine this year that...
From ACM News
One-Atom-Tall Wires Could Extend Life of Moore's Law
There may be a bit more room at the bottom, after all.
From ACM News
Did a U.s. Radar Research Station Disable Russia's Phobos Probe?
Soon after the ill-fated Phobos-Grunt spacecraft stalled in Earth orbit, a former Russian official implicated "powerful American radars" in Alaska. Is there a...
From ACM News
Researchers Inventory a World of Information
Data is the common currency that unites all fields of science.
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 News
New Software Could Smooth Supercomputing Speed Bumps
Supercomputers have long been an indispensable, albeit expensive, tool for researchers who need to make sense of vast amounts of data. One way that researchers...
From ACM News