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
Watching and Waiting
It is called an advanced persistent threat, and if it sounds like something out of a Tom Clancy novel, that's because it pretty much is.
From ACM News
.s. Outgunned in Hacker War
The Federal Bureau of Investigation's top cyber cop offered a grim appraisal of the nation's efforts to keep computer hackers from plundering corporate data networks...
From ACM News
The '80s Called, and They Want Their Cellphones Back
Julie Barbour-Issa calls her eight-year-old cellphone "the dinosaur. It's a brick, and I could use it as a weapon in an emergency," says the 30-year-old Norwood...
From ACM News
China's Not-So-Super Computers
The supercomputer in this southern boomtown is named Nebulae for the interstellar clouds of gas that give birth to stars.
From ACM News
Over-the-Air Tv Catches Second Wind, Aided By Web
It's cool to have rabbit ears again.
From ACM News
Fast Phones, Dead Batteries
Days after buying his Samsung Electronics Co. Galaxy Nexus smartphone from Verizon Wireless, David Jacobs found himself switching off the fourth-generation broadband...
From ACM News
Apple Makes Push Into Ipad Textbooks
Apple Inc. on Thursday introduced tools designed to spur the development of textbooks and other classroom materials for devices like the iPad, in the company's...
From ACM News
Galaxy Hosts 100 Billion Planets, in New Estimate
Astronomers said Wednesday that each of the 100 billion stars in the Milky Way probably has at least one companion planet, adding credence to the notion that...
From ACM News
Pick Up the Phone, Nfl: The Future Is Calling
On the sidelines during every game, New York Jets cornerback Donald Strickland performs a trick familiar to any toddler who has ever held a flip book.
From ACM News
Barcelona Center Makes Super Bet on Cellphone Chips
Supercomputers, once built from handcrafted circuitry, were transformed when companies started assembling them from inexpensive PC-style microprocessors. Researchers...
From ACM News
Justices Weigh Privacy vs. Gps Bugs
In a case that questions the Constitution's meaning in light of modern surveillance technology, the Supreme Court will consider Tuesday whether police need a...
From ACM News
Feds Shift Tracking Defense
The U.S. Department of Justice now says its use of a cellphone-tracking device in a controversial Arizona case could be considered a "search" under the Fourth...
From ACM News
Design Spotlight Is Thrown on Ive
Without Steve Jobs, Apple Inc. investors and customers are asking a big question: Can it continue to turn out innovative products without its co-founder and design...
From ACM News
'stingray' Phone Tracker Fuels Constitutional Clash
For more than a year, federal authorities pursued a man they called simply "the Hacker." Only after using a little known cellphone-tracking device—a stingray—were...
From ACM News
On Your Mark, Get Set, Hack!
During a "hackathon" last year, GroupMe co-founders Steve Martocci and Jared Hecht built a group text-messaging service in one 24-hour stretch. In August, the...
From ACM News
Cisco Poised to Help China Keep an Eye on Its Citizens
Western companies, including Cisco Systems Inc., are poised to help build an ambitious new surveillance project in China—a citywide network of as many as 500,000...
From ACM News
A Roboticist's Trip From Mines to the Moon
Robots created by William "Red" Whittaker have crawled into mines and volcanoes, crossed deserts, won a 60-mile road race, helped clean up nuclear waste and harvested...
From ACM News
Security 'tokens' Take Hit
RSA Security is offering to provide security monitoring or replace its well-known SecurID tokens—devices used by millions of corporate workers to securely log...
From ACM News
Spy Planes Played Indispensable Role in Mission
The raid on Osama bin Laden's compound in Pakistan represents probably the biggest success so far of a revolution in military technology: the ability to relay...
From ACM News