Communications of the ACM
The news archive provides access to past news stories from Communications of the ACM and other sources by date.
April 2018
From ACM TechNews
'Quasi-Non-Volatile' Memory Looks to Fill Gap Between Volatile and Non-Volatile Memory
Researchers at Fudan University in China have created a new gate design for transistors using two-dimensional materials
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 News
Trade War or Not, China Is Closing the Gap on .S. in Technology IP Race
China's rising investment in research and expansion of its higher education system mean that it is fast closing the gap with the United States in intellectual property and the struggle to be the No.1 global technology power, …
From ACM News
sing Open Source Designs to Create More Specialized Chips
The open source movement changed how companies build software. Facebook, Twitter, and Yahoo employees pitched in during the early days of the data-crunching software Hadoop.
From ACM News
Russia to Ban Telegram Messenger Over Encryption Dispute
A Russian court on Friday ordered that access to the Telegram messenger service be blocked in Russia, heralding possible communication disruption for millions of users in the latest clash between global technology firms and Russian…
From ACM TechNews
Emoji Skin Tones Promote Diversity on Twitter
Emoji characters with adapted skin tones are mostly used in a positive manner and are rarely abused, according to a recent study of Twitter posts.
From ACM TechNews
See Straight Through Walls by Augmenting Your Eyeballs With Drones
Researchers are studying how to use augmented reality to change drones into remote cameras that an untrained user can easily control.
From ACM TechNews
Need a New Look? Facebook's AI Fashion Designer Has Some Ideas
Researchers used generative adversarial networks to produce fashion items including handbags, jumpers, and T-shirts.
From ACM TechNews
Females Now Make p Less Than One Tenth of Computer Science Students in the .K.
Less than 10% of computer science students in the U.K. are female, and some schools have no female information and computing technology students at all.
From ACM News
Is This the Sound of Black Holes Colliding?
Take a deep breath, put on your headphones and watch the video above. You're about to hear something truly astronomical: the sound of two black holes smashing together.
From ACM News
Self-Powered Image Sensor Could Watch You Forever
Solar cells convert light to electricity. Image sensors also convert light to electricity. If you could do them both at the same time in the same chip, you'd have the makings of a self-powered camera.
From ACM News
Weird Quantum Physics Is Key to Keeping Your Credit Card Safe
Using the bizarre rules of quantum physics, US government researchers have developed a new way to generate random numbers that play a key role in protecting sensitive information from prying eyes.
From ACM TechNews
NIST Chip Hints at Quantum Sensors of the Future
Researchers at NIST have created a new chip on which laser light interacts with a tiny cloud of atoms to act as a miniature toolkit for measuring important quantities such as length with quantum precision.
From ACM TechNews
Computer Scientists Create CG Sand That Looks nbelievably Real
Researchers at the University of California, Los Angeles and the University of Pennsylvania have helped develop a new method for depicting computer-generated sand and mud.
From ACM TechNews
Electrical Pulses and Neural Code Boost Memory Storage
Researchers at Wake Forest Baptist Medical Center have used electrical stimulation and neural patterns to improve the storage of new information in the brain, which could lead to "brain prostheses" to improve human memory.
From ACM TechNews
Stanford Researchers Find That Friends of Friends Reveal Hidden Online Traits
Researchers at Stanford University have demonstrated more ways than previously established to infer demographic traits that people might be trying to hide online.
From ACM News
Distinguishing Identical Twins
Can facial recognition systems tell twins apart?
From ACM News
Mars Express v2.0
Every so often, your smartphone or tablet receives new software to improve its functionality and extend its life. Now, ESA's Mars Express is getting a fresh install, delivered across over 150 million km of space.
From ACM News
NASA's Juno Mission Provides Infrared Tour of Jupiter's North Pole
Scientists working on NASA's Juno mission to Jupiter shared a 3-D infrared movie depicting densely packed cyclones and anticyclones that permeate the planet's polar regions, and the first detailed view of a dynamo, or engine,…
From ACM TechNews
Yarn-Like Rechargeable Zinc Battery Could Power Smart Clothes and Wearables
In a development that could lead to washable, sensor-laden smart clothes and wearable electronics, researchers at the City University of Hong Kong have molded a rechargeable zinc-ion battery into an elastic yarn.
From ACM TechNews
Want Computers to See Better in the Real World? Train Them in a Virtual Reality
Chinese researchers have developed a new method for improving how computers "see" and "understand" real-world objects by training their vision systems in virtual reality.
From ACM TechNews
Twenty-Four E Countries Sign Artificial Intelligence Pact in Bid to Compete With .S. & China
Twenty-four countries in the European Union recently signed a declaration to collaborate on a "European approach" to artificial intelligence so they can compete with bigger U.S. and Chinese technology firms.
From ACM TechNews
How the niversity of Sheffield ses GPs to Supercharge Simulations
Researchers at the University of Sheffield are increasingly relying on graphics-processing unit (GPU) technology to supercharge their work with complex system simulations.
From ACM TechNews
Most Links to Popular Sites on Twitter Come From Bots
Sixty-six percent of links to popular sites shared on Twitter stem from automated accounts, including legitimate accounts from organizations that schedule tweets through an automated service, according to Pew Research.
From ACM TechNews
Preparing the First Fully Programmable Wireless Network
Researchers at Rice University, Texas Southern, the University of Michigan, and the University of Utah are developing the world's first fully programmable and observable wireless communications network in Salt Lake City.
From ACM News
A Long-Awaited IoT Crisis Is Here, and Many Devices Aren't Ready
You know by now that Internet of Things devices like your router are often vulnerable to attack, the industry-wide lack of investment in security leaving the door open to a host of abuses. Worse still, known weaknesses and flaws…
From ACM News
Pressure Building for Rules of Engagement for Cyberwarfare
The call for an international legal framework governing cyberwarfare is gaining momentum.
From ACM News
Building Better Maps for the Disability Community
Occupational therapist turned disability rights activist Alanna Raffel has spent her career thinking about accessibility. So for her 30th birthday last year, she turned her passion into action.
From ACM TechNews
Smartphone App Can Help Doctors Track Severity of Parkinson's Symptoms
HopkinsPD uses smartphone sensors to reliably score symptom severity in patients with Parkinson's disease.
From ACM TechNews
Technology Earns Smart 50 Award
Researchers have won a Smart 50 Award for one of the 50 "most transformative smart projects each year."