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New Search Challenges and Opportunities
If search engines can extract more meaning from text and better understand what people are looking for, the Web's resources could be accessed more effectively.
The National Science Foundation's meeting on Internet architectures focused on designs related to emerging social and economic realities. The four-day, invitation-only summit drew 90 U.S.-based researchers with expertise in networking, communications, security, privacy, and the social and economic sciences.
Robert Lovett Ashenhurst: 1929 – 2009
Former Communications editor-in-chief Robert L. Ashenhurst, who died last October at age 80, served ACM for 35 years with dedication, humor, and panache, according to fellow ACM volunteers.
Buildings collapse. Wind and rain beat them, temperatures cycle from freezing to blistering, and random strikes of lightning threaten sudden obliteration. Even more potent are the human challenges: war, fire, and deliberate destruction. But digital representations can survive such dangers, capturing structures forevermore.
ACM is in the process of establishing ACM India as a legal entity and will hold its first conference in late January. Four A.M. Turing award winners, including Barbara Liskov of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, will speak at the inaugural event in Bangalore.
Automated Translation of Indian Languages
India faces a daunting task trying to manually translate among 22 official languages, but assistance, in the form of advanced technology enabled by a lot of hard work, is on the way.
Augmented Reality Gets Ready For Work
Much of the work on augmented reality (AR) has focused on applying computer-generated virtual imagery to video games and other consumer applications, but the technology also shows promise for the workplace, experts say. Researchers are looking at applications such as mixed reality interfaces that would allow workers in a conference room, for example, to interact with virtual counterparts.
How Search Engines Cope With Real-Time Data
Twitter addiction feeds the growing belief that real-time search is a necessity, but the gush of real-time data completely changes the way the Web is indexed. It also challenges search engines to identify and rank valuable content while filtering out noise.
Nadya Mason: From Pirouettes to Carbon Nanotubes
In 1986, Nadya Mason competed as a gymnast in Houston, training with the legendary Bela Karolyi as a member of the U.S. National Team, hoping to make it to the Olympics. She never did. But, 23 years later, as Doctor Nadya Mason, an assistant professor of physics at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, she did win the Microsoft-sponsored 2009 Denice Denton Emerging Leader Award. Apparently still in motion, Mason has become somewhat of a celebrity within both scientific and humanitarian circles.
Communications' Virtual Extension brings more quality articles to ACM members. These articles are now available in the ACM Digital Library.
The hegemony of the traditional desktop operating system is starting to fracture with the emergence of a new generation of Web browsers that may finally herald the long-awaited convergence of Web and OS.
Today's automated systems provide enormous safety and convenience. However, when glitches, problems, or breakdowns occur, the results can be catastrophic.
Researchers are using tools from information theory and computer science to facilitate the automatic creation of nanoscale structures.
Health and Biomedical Informatics
Instant access to authorized electronic medical records promises faster, better, more affordable care.
Designers of the German supercomputers that won the latest Green500 prize, which rewards not just computing power but energy efficiency, did not set out to win the award, but they did think carefully about energy consumption. "Nowadays, supercomputers use so much energy that it's probably more money than the purchase price," says physics professor Tilo Wettig of the University of Regensburg, so "power efficiency is extremely important."
Netbook Apps Demand Dedicated Development Techniques
Netbooks have grown in popularity and with them a demand for software. But developers who assume there's no need to create applications differently when they enter the netbook space are dead wrong, experts say.
Long Tail Criticism Might Affect E-Business Strategies
The Long Tail theory embraced by online businesses has taken some recent criticism, raising questions about whether businesses should change their e-strategies.
Communications' Virtual Extension brings more quality articles to ACM members. These articles are now available in the ACM Digital Library.
Implementing Electronic Medical Records
Despite a number of challenges, patients' medical records are slowly making the transition to the digital age.
The Expeditions in Computing program provides scientists with the funding to work on ambitious, often multidisciplinary research.
Electronic Paper’s Next Chapter
The technological challenge for researchers working on the next generation of electronic paper is to render color as brightly as traditional paper, without increasing power requirements or end-user costs.
Deep Data Dives Discover Natural Laws
Computer scientists have found a way to bootstrap science, using evolutionary computation to find fundamental meaning in massive amounts of raw data.
Shape the Future of Computing
ACM encourages its members to take a direct hand in shaping the future of the association. There are more ways than ever to get involved.
Get InvolvedCommunications of the ACM (CACM) is now a fully Open Access publication.
By opening CACM to the world, we hope to increase engagement among the broader computer science community and encourage non-members to discover the rich resources ACM has to offer.
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