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
In Search of New Rules to Protect Other Worlds From Earth's Cooties
NASA has to start protecting planets better. The international treaty governing space—there is one—and the laws and regulations that follow it date back to the...
From ACM News
The Rise of DNA Data Storage
The 144 words of Robert Frost's seminal poem "The Road Not Taken" fit neatly onto a single printed page. Or in a 1-kilobyte data file.
From ACM News
Pain Is Weird. Making Bionic Arms Feel Pain Is Even Weirder
Pain is an indispensable tool for survival.
From ACM News
The Unexpected Fallout of Iran's Telegram Ban
Seven weeks after Iran's conservative-led judiciary banned the secure communications app Telegram inside the country, Iranians are still reeling from the change...
From ACM News
Cosmic Ray Showers Crash Supercomputers. Here's What to Do About It
The Cray-1 supercomputer, the world's fastest back in the 1970s, does not look like a supercomputer.
From ACM News
Stealthy, Destructive Malware Infects Half a Million Routers
Home routers have become the rats to hackers' bubonic plague: An easily infected, untreated and ubiquitous population in which dangerous digital attacks can spread...
From ACM News
It Takes a Single Autonomous Car to Prevent Phantom Traffic Jams
Honk if you've heard this one before: Autonomous and connected cars will make driving less of a drudge by handling the stop-n-go mundanity of your commute for you...
From ACM News
Tech Firms Move to Put Ethical Guard Rails Around AI
One day last summer, Microsoft's director of artificial intelligence research, Eric Horvitz, activated the Autopilot function of his Tesla sedan.
From ACM News
House Democrats Release 3,500 Russia-Linked Facebook Ads
On Thursday, Democrats on the House Intelligence Committee published more than 3,500 Facebook and Instagram ads linked to the Russian propaganda group Internet...
From ACM News
Could Artificial Intelligence Predict the Next Avengers: Infinity War?
Some movies are obvious hits. Like, for example, Avengers: Infinity War, which made a record-breaking $258 million at the domestic box office last weekend, filling...
From ACM News
Some Startups se Fake Data to Train AI
Berlin startup Spil.ly had a problem last spring. The company was developing an augmented-reality app akin to a full-body version of Snapchat's selfie filters—hold...
From ACM News
Cracking the Crypto War
On December 2, 2015, a man named Syed Rizwan Farook and his wife, Tashfeen Malik, opened fire on employees of the Department of Public Health in San Bernardino,...
From ACM News
Heat-Seeking Cameras Could Help Keep Self-Driving Cars Safe
After Uber's fatal self-driving crash last month in Tempe, Arizona, most observers had two basic question: Why did the car not see Elaine Herzberg crossing the...
From ACM News
Google's New AI Head Is So Smart He Doesn't Need AI
Google's heavy investment in artificial intelligence has helped the company's software write music and beat humans at complex board games. What unlikely feats could...
From ACM News
sing Open Source Designs to Create More Specialized Chips
The open source movement changed how companies build software. Facebook, Twitter, and Yahoo employees pitched in during the early days of the data-crunching software...
From ACM News
A Long-Awaited IoT Crisis Is Here, and Many Devices Aren't Ready
You know by now that Internet of Things devices like your router are often vulnerable to attack, the industry-wide lack of investment in security leaving the door...
From ACM TechNews
A 200-Year-Old Idea Offers a New Way to Trace Stolen Bitcoins
Researchers are using an 1816 legal precedent to track down stolen bitcoins.
From ACM News
A Brain-Boosting Prosthesis Moves From Rats to Humans
The shape on the screen appears only briefly—just long enough for the test subject to commit it to memory. At the same time, an electrical signal snakes past the...
From ACM News
The Next NSA Chief Is More sed to Cyberwar Than Spy Games
After sailing through two friendly Senate hearings—one so uncontroversial that only six senators tops bothered to even show up at any given point in the hour—Lieutenant...
From ACM News