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 TechNews
New Spin on Graphene
University of Manchester researchers have shown that electric current can magnetize graphene, a potential breakthrough for spintronics.
From ACM News
The Business Market Plays Cloud Computing Catch-p
The big spenders on technology are businesses and government agencies. They buy about 75% of the computing goods and services sold worldwide. Yet it is increasingly...
From ACM News
What Is a Cpu Thread?
Tech pundits, analysts, and reviewers often speak of "multithreaded" programs, or even "multithreaded processors," without ever defining what, exactly, a "thread"...
From ACM TechNews
Speedier Nanotube Circuits
Stanford University researchers recently expanded on an earlier study involving the development of faster nanotube circuits, which could lead to their use in complex...
From ACM TechNews
Bye-Bye Electrons? Circuit Made From Flowing Atoms
Kevin Wright and colleagues at NIST chilled 100,000 sodium atoms then used lasers to shape the blob of atoms into a torus and give it enough energy to circulate...
From ACM TechNews
Supercomputers Let p on Speed
Smarter rather than faster design appears to be coming into vogue as a gauge of a supercomputer's success. A federal report urges a more balanced portfolio of...
From ACM TechNews
Ut Debuts Its Newest Supercomputer
The University of Texas at Austin, along with the Texas A&M University, Texas Tech, the University of Texas System, and others, has built the Lonestar 4 supercomputer...
From ACM TechNews
sing Adjacent Phone Antennas Could Improve Data Transfer
University of Bristol researchers are studying multiple-input multiple-output technology, which uses several antennas to transmit and receive data, in order to...
From ACM TechNews
New Tool Makes Programs More Efficient Without Sacrificing Safety Functions
North Carolina State University researchers have developed software that helps programs run more efficiently on multicore chips without sacrificing safety features...
From ACM News
New Protocol Turbocharges the Web
Over the past 15 years, Web-based applications have gradually replaced those based on other networking protocols for everything from personal communications to...
From ACM TechNews
Silicene: It Could Be the New Graphene
Japanese researchers have created atom-thin sheets of silicon, called silicene, that resemble graphene and could have electronic applications.
From ACM TechNews
In a Country Known For Robots, Their Chief Tasks Didn't Include Nuclear Safety
Japan's focus on building humanoid robots that perform tasks that humans can already do, instead of building robots that can go where humans cannot, has made it...
From ACM News
2010: The Year Apple Also Became a Chip Company
While changes in the ancient market-share rivalry between chipmakers Intel and Advanced Micro Devices were unremarkable in 2010, the emergence of Apple as a force...
From ACM News
The First Plastic Computer Processor
Silicon may underpin the computers that surround us, but the rigid inflexibility of the semiconductor means it cannot reach everywhere. The first computer processor...
From ACM TechNews
Cloud@Home: Goals, Challenges, and Benefits of a Volunteer Cloud
University of Messina professors Salvatore Distefano and Antonio Puliafito suggest using cloud-based volunteer computing, known as Cloud@Home, to solve many ofView...
From ACM News
Tiny 3-D-Printed Insect Robots Take Flight
A team of roboticists at Cornell University have created tiny flying robotic insects using 3-D printing. The flapping wings of the hovering robotic insects (known...
From ACM News
The Drive Toward Hydrogen Vehicles Just Got Shorter
Researchers at Los Alamos National Laboratory and the University of Alabama have revealed a new single-stage method for recharging the hydrogen storage compound...
From ACM TechNews
New Software Calculates Heating Costs in Greenhouse Operations
Jonathan Frantz, a U.S. Department of Agriculture researcher, and colleagues have developed Virtual Grower, software for calculating heating costs in greenhouse...
From ACM TechNews
Terahertz Superchips Can Do It All
Cornell University researchers have developed terahertz radiation microchips that could be used in a wide range of medical and scientific applications, including...
From ACM News