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
Autonomous Boats Could Service Some Cities, Reducing Road Traffic
Researchers have highly maneuverable autonomous boats that, in waterway-rich cities, could be used to transport people or deliver goods.
From ACM News
Making Driverless Cars Change Lanes More Like Human Drivers Do
A new algorithm developed by the MIT CSAIL could improve the way driverless vehicles change lanes. The algorithm allows for more aggressive lane changes and will...
From ACM TechNews
Albatross Robot Takes Flight
Massachusetts Institute of Technology engineers have created an albatross-like robot that can skim along the water's surface while also surfing the waves like a...
From ACM TechNews
Fundamental Equations Guide Marine Robots to Optimal Sampling Sites
Systems of mathematical equations can forecast the most informative data to collect for an autonomous underwater vehicle mission and the best way to reach the sampling...
From ACM News
Fundamental Equations Guide Marine Robots to Optimal Sampling Sites
Observing the world's oceans is increasingly a mission assigned to autonomous underwater vehicles (AUVs)—marine robots that are designed to drift, drive, or glide...
From ACM TechNews
Machine-Learning System Processes Sounds Like Humans Do
Researchers have used a deep neural network to build the first model that can replicate human performance on auditory tasks such as identifying a musical genre....
From ACM TechNews
Integrating Optical Components Into Existing Chip Designs
A new method uses existing manufacturing processes to build optics and electronics separately on-chip.
From ACM TechNews
Artificial Antimicrobial Peptides Could Help Overcome Drug-Resistant Bacteria
A new streamlined approach to developing antimicrobial peptide drugs uses a computer algorithm that mimics natural evolution.
From ACM TechNews
Computer Searches Telescope Data for Evidence of Distant Planets
Researchers have trained a machine learning system to search for debris disks around stars using telescopic data.
From ACM TechNews
'Body on a Chip' Could Improve Drug Evaluation
A microfluidic platform links engineered tissues from multiple human organs to replicate organ-drug interactions so medications' effects on different parts of the...
From ACM TechNews
Private Browsing Gets More Private
The new Veil system is designed to improve private browsing by guaranteeing that any data the browser loads into memory remains encrypted until it is displayed...
From ACM TechNews
Seeing the Brain's Electrical Activity
Researchers say they have developed a light-sensitive protein that can indicate how much voltage a particular nerve cell is experiencing.
From ACM TechNews
Robo-Picker Grasps and Grabs
A new "pick-and-place" robot features a standard industrial robotic arm equipped with a custom gripper and suction cup.
From ACM TechNews
Physicists Create New Form of Light
Researchers have demonstrated the successful interaction of photons, which could clear a path toward using light particles in quantum computing.
From ACM TechNews
Energy-Efficient Encryption for the Internet of Things
A new chip performs public-key encryption while consuming only 1/400 as much power as software execution of the same protocols would.
From ACM TechNews
Automating Materials Design
Researchers say they have developed a system that can numerically specify the properties designers want in a material, then generate a microstructure that matches...
From ACM News
Engineers Design Artificial Synapse For 'brain-on-a-Chip' Hardware
When it comes to processing power, the human brain just can't be beat.
From ACM TechNews
Programmable Droplets
New hardware applies electric fields to manipulate droplets of chemical or biological solutions around a surface, mixing them to test thousands of reactions in...
From ACM TechNews
Can Computers Help S Synthesize New Materials?
Following their proposal of a neural network-based artificial intelligence system that sifts through scientific papers and finds "recipes" for specific types of...
From ACM TechNews