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Communications of the ACM

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The news archive provides access to past news stories from Communications of the ACM and other sources by date.

June 2020


From ACM TechNews

DGCA Nod Clears Runway for the Dawn of Drone Age

DGCA Nod Clears Runway for the Dawn of Drone Age

India's Directorate-General of Civil Aviation is permitting 13 companies to test fly beyond visual line of sigh (BVLOS) drones.


From ACM TechNews

Five Times More Efficient Data Transfer

Five Times More Efficient Data Transfer

Researchers have developed a method to transfer bits across a silicon chip up to five times more efficiently than standard setups.


From ACM News

U.S. HHS Battles DDoS

U.S. HHS Battles DDoS

U.S. Department of Health and Human Services networks were hit by a Distributed Denial of Service attack just as the coronavirus pandemic was ramping up.


From ACM News

China is Collecting DNA From Tens of Millions of Boys and Men, Using U.S. Equipment

China is Collecting DNA From Tens of Millions of Boys and Men, Using U.S. Equipment

Even children are pressed into giving blood samples to build a sweeping genetic database that will add to Beijing's growing surveillance capabilities.


From ACM News

Riding Out Quarantine With a Chatbot Friend: ‘I Feel Very Connected’

Riding Out Quarantine With a Chatbot Friend: ‘I Feel Very Connected’

The digital companions may sound like science fiction. But when social isolation became the norm, they helped deal with the loneliness, some users say.


From ACM News

Quantum Backbone

Quantum Backbone

An Oak Ridge early-career award recipient plots the infrastructure for a quantum-information highway.


From ACM TechNews

Spies Can Eavesdrop by Watching a Light Bulb's Vibrations

Spies Can Eavesdrop by Watching a Light Bulb's Vibrations

Researchers  have developed a long-distance eavesdropping method that exploits vibrations on the glass surface of a light bulb's interior.


From ACM TechNews

Norway Pulls Its Coronavirus Contact Tracing App After Privacy Watchdog's Warning

Norway Pulls Its Coronavirus Contact Tracing App After Privacy Watchdog's Warning

Norway has suspended use of a coronavirus contact tracing application to allow changes to be made.


From ACM TechNews

Ceze, Strauss Share ACM SIGARCH Maurice Wilkes Award

Ceze, Strauss Share ACM SIGARCH Maurice Wilkes Award

The ACM Special Interest Group on Computer Architecture named Luis Ceze and Karin Strauss to share the 2020 Maurice Wilkes Award.


From ACM TechNews

The First Intuitive Programming Language for Quantum Computers

The First Intuitive Programming Language for Quantum Computers

Computer scientists at ETH Zurich in Switzerland have created the first intuitive high-level quantum programming language.


From ACM TechNews

Activists Cite Tabulation Flaw in Georgia Mail-In Ballots

Activists Cite Tabulation Flaw in Georgia Mail-In Ballots

Thousands of votes in Georgia's primary may not have been counted, due to faulty software or poorly calibrated scanners used to count mailed ballots.


From ACM TechNews

Tech Companies Say They Value Diversity, but Reports Show Little Change in Last Six Years

Tech Companies Say They Value Diversity, but Reports Show Little Change in Last Six Years

A CNBC analysis of minority hiring by tech companies found they have made little progress since vowing to increase diversity six years ago.


From ACM News

Elite CIA Unit that Developed Hacking Tools Failed to Secure its Own Systems, Allowing Massive Leak

Elite CIA Unit that Developed Hacking Tools Failed to Secure its Own Systems, Allowing Massive Leak

The breach came nearly three years after Edward Snowden stole and disclosed classified information about NSA surveillance operations.


From ACM TechNews

Next-Generation Cockroach-Inspired Robot Is Small, but Mighty

Next-Generation Cockroach-Inspired Robot Is Small, but Mighty

The researchers say the new robot is one of the smallest and most dexterous robots created to date.


From ACM TechNews

KingMiner Botnet Brute-Forces MSSQL Databases to Install Cryptocurrency Miner

KingMiner Botnet Brute-Forces MSSQL Databases to Install Cryptocurrency Miner

U.K. cybersecurity firm Sophos is advising MSSQL database owners to fortify their servers against botnet-orchestrated brute-force attacks.


From ACM TechNews

In Autonomous Russia, Tractor Drives You

In Autonomous Russia, Tractor Drives You

Two Russian companies have partnered on an advanced autonomous driving system for agricultural vehicles.


From ACM News

Who’s a Bot? Who’s Not?

Who’s a Bot? Who’s Not?

It sometimes seems automated bots are taking over social media and driving human discourse. But some (real) researchers aren't so sure.


From ACM News

Exit From the Covid-19 Lockdown: There's an App for That

Exit From the Covid-19 Lockdown: There's an App for That

The Dutch government wants every citizen to download an app for tracking and tracing potential Covid-19 infections, but the app does not yet exist.

 


From ACM News

Silq is a High-level Programming Language for Quantum Computers

Silq is a High-level Programming Language for Quantum Computers

Silq is a research project that does not yet run on any of the existing quantum hardware platforms.


From ACM TechNews

Java Beats Python to Remain the Most Popular Programming Language Around

Java Beats Python to Remain the Most Popular Programming Language Around

Java, JavaScript, and Python are the three most popular programming languages in use among developers.


From ACM TechNews

Angling for Underwater Wi-Fi

Angling for Underwater Wi-Fi

A new underwater Wi-Fi system could enable divers to transmit footage from underwater to the surface instantly by sending data through light beams.


From ACM TechNews

Researchers Turn to Wearable Tech in Race to Track Covid-19

Researchers Turn to Wearable Tech in Race to Track Covid-19

Researchers are using wearable technologies that monitor fluctuations in biomarkers to collect real-time patient data, to try to track the spread of Covid-19.


From ACM TechNews

Researchers Model the Health Benefits of Electric Cars, Find 'Large Improvement in Air Quality'

Researchers Model the Health Benefits of Electric Cars, Find 'Large Improvement in Air Quality'

Researchers in Canada created computer simulations of the potential human health benefits of a large-scale transition to electric cars.


From ACM TechNews

Electronic Nose Sniffs Out Perfectly Ripe Peaches for Harvest

Electronic Nose Sniffs Out Perfectly Ripe Peaches for Harvest

Researchers have developed an electronic nose system to sniff out the ripest peaches for harvest.


From ACM TechNews

DARPA Invites Hackers to Break Hardware to Make It More Secure

DARPA Invites Hackers to Break Hardware to Make It More Secure

The U.S. Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency is inviting white-hat hackers to identify vulnerabilities in computer chips prior to their deployment.


From ACM TechNews

Robots Armed with UV Light Fight Grape Mildew

Robots Armed with UV Light Fight Grape Mildew

A multi-institutional and international collaboration has yielded autonomous robots that use ultraviolet lamps to kill powdery mildew on crops.


From ACM News

Signal Downloads Are Way Up Since the Protests Began

Signal Downloads Are Way Up Since the Protests Began

Organizers and demonstrators say they feel safer communicating with end-to-end encryption.


From ACM News

Farewell to Gummy Bear Jars: Tech Offices Get a Virus Safety Makeover

Farewell to Gummy Bear Jars: Tech Offices Get a Virus Safety Makeover

Companies like Salesforce created workplaces with all the comforts of home, but now they may feel more like hospitals.


From ACM TechNews

Self-Driving Cars That Recognize Free Space Can Better Detect Objects

Self-Driving Cars That Recognize Free Space Can Better Detect Objects

Researchers have developed a method to improve self-driving vehicles's ability to detect objects by enabling them to recognize empty space.


From ACM TechNews

Coronavirus Makes AR's Potential a Reality for Chip Makers

Coronavirus Makes AR's Potential a Reality for Chip Makers

The coronavirus pandemic has spurred the everyday use of augmented reality in semiconductor manufacturing and other industries.