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dateMore Than a Year Ago
subjectPerformance And Reliability
authorNew Scientist
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An edited collection of advanced computing news from Communications of the ACM, ACM TechNews, other ACM resources, and news sites around the Web.


Mimicry Beats Consciousness in Gaming's Turing Test
From ACM News

Mimicry Beats Consciousness in Gaming's Turing Test

The Turing test might still be too hard for software to crack—but two programs have already aced video gaming's answer to this famous evaluation of machine intelligence...

Cameras Know You By Your Walk
From ACM News

Cameras Know You By Your Walk

Everyone knows how easy it is to recognize a friend or family member from their walk—even from a distance.

Wired Is the New Wireless: Spreading the Web in China
From ACM News

Wired Is the New Wireless: Spreading the Web in China

It's not easy to give over 1.3 billion people access to the internet—especially if that population is spread across a vast area that ranges from hinterland to sprawling...

Harnessing ­nused Smartphone Power For a Computing Boost
From ACM TechNews

Harnessing ­nused Smartphone Power For a Computing Boost

Technical University of Braunschweig researchers have found that smartphones can be joined together in a network, which when connected via Wi-Fi, can carry out...

Harness Unused Smartphone Power For a Computing Boost
From ACM News

Harness Unused Smartphone Power For a Computing Boost

Smarphone owners carry around more processing power in their pocket than a 1970s-era supercomputer, but most of the time it languishes unused.

Visual Programming Means Anyone Can Be a Coder
From ACM Careers

Visual Programming Means Anyone Can Be a Coder

Many great ideas start out as scribbles on scraps of paper, as thinking visually is an intuitive way to grapple with abstract concepts. Part of the reason is the...

Watson Turns Medic: Supercomputer to Diagnose Disease
From ACM News

Watson Turns Medic: Supercomputer to Diagnose Disease

It is more than a year since Watson, IBM's famous supercomputer, opened a new frontier for artificial intelligence by beating human champions of the quiz show Jeopardy...

From ACM News

3D Printers Tell You When Your Design Will Fail

Make a mistake with your average office printer and the worst that happens is a paper jam and some wasted ink. Do the same with a 3D printer, though, and your newly...

Cheap Chips Herald Future of Wave and Pay
From ACM News

Cheap Chips Herald Future of Wave and Pay

Small, cheap smart-tag devices that are printed as digital circuits in rolls like newspapers could help kickstart the wireless payment industry. The devices, known...

Micro-Drones: The New Face of Cutting-Edge Warfare
From ACM News

Micro-Drones: The New Face of Cutting-Edge Warfare

Micro-aerial vehicles (MAVs) with uncanny navigation and real-time mapping capabilities could soon be zipping through indoor and outdoor spaces, running reconnaissance...

Bot With Boyish Personality Wins Biggest Turing Test
From ACM TechNews

Bot With Boyish Personality Wins Biggest Turing Test

The chatbot Eugene Goostman fooled Turing test judges 29 percent of the time into thinking it was human to take first place in the recent contest in the United...

Touchscreens Learn Your Habits to Help You Type Faster
From ACM TechNews

Touchscreens Learn Your Habits to Help You Type Faster

Personalized keyboards could help improve typing speeds or reduce mistakes when typing and walking, according to the University of Maryland's Leah Findlater and...

Telerobotics Offers Third Way For Space Exploration
From ACM News

Telerobotics Offers Third Way For Space Exploration

Space exploration may have a new direction. In the 1960s, humans did the exploring but since the last moon landing in 1972, NASA's only explorers beyond low Earth...

Gps Loss Kicked Off Fatal Drone Crash
From ACM News

Gps Loss Kicked Off Fatal Drone Crash

Hopes that a new breed of commercial drones can be easily integrated into civilian airspace have been dashed after it was revealed that the loss of the technology...

Snow Snaps Give You a Better Weather Picture
From ACM TechNews

Snow Snaps Give You a Better Weather Picture

Photos taken of snowfall and posted online could help fill holes in satellite weather data caused by cloud cover, says Indiana University Ph.D. student Haipeng...

Next Xbox Could Have a Biometric Controller
From ACM News

Next Xbox Could Have a Biometric Controller

The controller for the next Xbox might be able to take biometric readings of your hand, according to a recent Microsoft patent.

'bullet Time' to Stop Cyber Attacks on Power Grids
From ACM News

'bullet Time' to Stop Cyber Attacks on Power Grids

In The Matrix, the famous "bullet time" effect showed how Keanu Reeves's character Neo was able to sway out of the path of incoming bullets, as time appeared to...

Network Your Stuff: Amateurs Inventing a New Internet
From ACM TechNews

Network Your Stuff: Amateurs Inventing a New Internet

A growing number of computer hobbyists are merging the online and physical worlds in new ways.  

Free Apps Eat Up Your Phone Battery Just Sending Ads
From ACM TechNews

Free Apps Eat Up Your Phone Battery Just Sending Ads

Free versions of Android apps use up to 75 percent of their energy serving ads or tracking and uploading user data, says Purdue University's Abhinav Pathak. Free...

Free Apps Eat Up Your Phone Battery Just Sending Ads
From ACM News

Free Apps Eat Up Your Phone Battery Just Sending Ads

Struggling to make your smartphone battery last the whole day? Paying for your apps might help.
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