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dateMore Than a Year Ago
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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.


The Ar-15 Is More Than a Gun. It's a Gadget
From ACM Opinion

The Ar-15 Is More Than a Gun. It's a Gadget

I was shaking as I shouldered the rifle and peered through the scope at the small steel target 100 yards downrange.

Drone Boosters Say Farmers, Not Cops, Are the Biggest ­.s. Robot Market
From ACM News

Drone Boosters Say Farmers, Not Cops, Are the Biggest ­.s. Robot Market

When the flying robots that loiter in Afghanistan's and Yemen's airspace come home, they won't just be headed for the local police station.

Palm-Size Nano-Copter Is the Afghanistan War's Latest Spy Drone
From ACM News

Palm-Size Nano-Copter Is the Afghanistan War's Latest Spy Drone

British troops in Afghanistan are flying a drone that’s shrunk down to its essentials: a micro-machine that spies, built for a solitary user.

Meet the Data Brains Behind the Rise of Facebook
From ACM Opinion

Meet the Data Brains Behind the Rise of Facebook

Jay Parikh sits at a desk inside Building 16 at Facebook’s headquarters in Menlo Park, California, and his administrative assistant, Genie Samuel, sits next to...

11 Body Parts Defense Researchers Will ­se to Track You
From ACM News

11 Body Parts Defense Researchers Will ­se to Track You

Cell phones that can identify you by how you walk. Fingerprint scanners that work from 25 feet away. Radars that pick up your heartbeat from behind concrete walls...

Texas, Where Science and History Have Become Ideological Battlegrounds
From ACM News

Texas, Where Science and History Have Become Ideological Battlegrounds

Some of the most important decisions that influence the public's knowledge aren't made by scientific societies and they don't take place in Washington D.C.

The Fbi Needs Hackers, Not Backdoors
From ACM Opinion

The Fbi Needs Hackers, Not Backdoors

Just imagine if all the applications and services you saw or heard about at CES earlier this month had to be designed to be "wiretap ready" before they could be...

­.s. Cities Relying on Precog Software to Predict Murder
From ACM News

­.s. Cities Relying on Precog Software to Predict Murder

Who needs the freaky precogs of Minority Report to predict if someone’s likely to commit murder when you have an algorithm that can do it for you?

Student Suspended For Refusing to Wear Rfid Tracker Loses Lawsuit
From ACM News

Student Suspended For Refusing to Wear Rfid Tracker Loses Lawsuit

A Texas high school student who claimed her student identification was the "Mark of the Beast" because it was implanted with a radio-frequency identification chip...

Feds Requiring 'black Boxes' in All Motor Vehicles
From ACM News

Feds Requiring 'black Boxes' in All Motor Vehicles

While many automakers have voluntarily installed the devices already, the National Transportation Safety Agency wants to hear your comments by February 11 on its...

Better Than Human: Why Robots Will—and Must—take Our Jobs
From ACM Opinion

Better Than Human: Why Robots Will—and Must—take Our Jobs

It's hard to believe you'd have an economy at all if you gave pink slips to more than half the labor force.

Hacking the Human Brain: The Next Domain of Warfare
From ACM News

Hacking the Human Brain: The Next Domain of Warfare

It's been fashionable in military circles to talk about cyberspace as a "fifth domain" for warfare, along with land, space, air, and sea.

Despite Ceasefire, Israel-Gaza War Continues Online
From ACM News

Despite Ceasefire, Israel-Gaza War Continues Online

It's been a week since Israel and Hamas reached a ceasefire pausing their war in Gaza. But on the internet, a different kind of fighting never stopped—and has actually...

With Millions Paid in Hacker Bug Bounties, Is the Internet Any Safer?
From ACM Careers

With Millions Paid in Hacker Bug Bounties, Is the Internet Any Safer?

The night before the end of Google's Pwnium contest at the CanSecWest security conference this year in Vancouver, a tall teen dressed in khaki shorts, tube socks...

Cybercrime: Mobile Changes Everything—and No One's Safe
From ACM Opinion

Cybercrime: Mobile Changes Everything—and No One's Safe

The FBI recently put out a mobile malware alert, providing us with a sobering reminder of this "evil software" for phones and tablets.

Craig Venter Imagines a World with Printable Life Forms
From ACM Opinion

Craig Venter Imagines a World with Printable Life Forms

Craig Venter imagines a future where you can download software, print a vaccine, inject it, and presto! Contagion averted.

Paging Dr. Watson: Artificial Intelligence As a Prescription For Health Care
From ACM News

Paging Dr. Watson: Artificial Intelligence As a Prescription For Health Care

Everyone agrees health care in the United States is a colossal mess, and IBM is betting that artificially intelligent supercomputers are just what the doctor ordered...

Pentagon Scientists: We Can't Predict Violent Outbursts. Yet.
From ACM News

Pentagon Scientists: We Can't Predict Violent Outbursts. Yet.

In the years to come, a top group of military scientists believe, the Pentagon may be able to use genomics and bio-markers to spot when a soldier is about to snap...

Judge Says Fair Use Protects Universities in Book-Scanning Project
From ACM News

Judge Says Fair Use Protects Universities in Book-Scanning Project

A federal judge on Wednesday threw out a copyright infringement lawsuit against universities that participated in a massive book-digitization project in conjunction...

Supreme Court Terminates Warrantless Electronic Spying Case
From ACM News

Supreme Court Terminates Warrantless Electronic Spying Case

The Supreme Court closed a 6-year-old chapter Tuesday in the Electronic Frontier Foundation’s bid to hold the nation’s telecoms liable for allegedly providing the...
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