Communications of the ACM
The news archive provides access to past news stories from Communications of the ACM and other sources by date.
January 2012
From ACM News
At CES, Control Your Computer Screen With Your 'Gaze'
At last year's D9 conference, Sweden-based Tobii demonstrated cool eye-tracking technology that enables users to control a PC without hands.
From ACM News
The Critics Rave... For Microsoft?
"Gorgeous," raves The Huffington Post. "Best-looking smartphone operating system in the industry," gushes Slate. "Far superior to most if not all the Android smartphones," says TechCrunch.
From ACM TechNews
.S. Report Sees Perils to America's Tech Future
A Department of Commerce report warns that certain aspects of the U.S. economy are losing their competitive edge. "Our ability to innovate as a nation will determine what kind of economy . . . our children and grandchildren…
From ACM News
Enterprise Will Spend $19 Billion on Apple Hardware in 2012
The "Bring Your Own Device" philosophy spreading through enterprise these days is proving a real boon to Apple.
From ACM TechNews
U.s. Defense Bill Approves Offensive Cyber Warfare
The recently approved U.S. defense budget sanctions the Department of Defense to engage in offensive cyberwarfare to protect U.S. interests and those of its allies, while also directing the military to improve cyberdefensive…
From ACM TechNews
Ford ses Online Software Tool to Simulate Visual Impairments
Ford is working with Cambridge University's Engineering Design Center to simulate visual impairments to improve the driving experience in its automobiles.
From ACM TechNews
Wanted: Supercomputer Programmers
The U.S.'s supercomputing labs are having difficulty finding software developers who can program state-of-the-art machines, according to a recent Daily Beast article. The problem is that most undergraduate computer science courses…
From ACM TechNews
Leaping Lizards and Dinosaurs Inspire Robot Design
University of California, Berkeley researchers are developing robots based on lizards, giving the robots tails to help them maintain balance. "Inspiration from lizard tails will likely lead to far more agile search-and-rescue…
From ACM News
Trajectory Maneuver Slated for Jan. 11
An engine firing on Jan. 11 will be the biggest maneuver that NASA's Mars Science Laboratory spacecraft will perform on its flight between Earth and Mars.
From ACM News
In M.t.a. App Contest, Many Buttons Worth Pushing
How do you create public-service software? Run a contest.
From ACM News
Avoiding Innovation's Terrible Toll
The corporation isn't a sturdy species. In fact, only a tiny fraction reach the age of 40, according to study of more than six million firms by management professors Charles I. Stubbart and Michael B. Knight.
From ACM News
In Flop of H.p. Touchpad, an Object Lesson For the Tech Sector
The TouchPad tablet from Hewlett-Packard was one of the most closely watched new gadgets of 2011—and quickly turned out to be the year’s biggest flop.
From ACM News
Can a Court Make You Give Up Your Password?
Can the government force you to give up your password in the course of an investigation against you? That’s the controversial debate that’s shaping up in U.S. District Court in Colorado.
From ACM TechNews
Encrypting Pictures Using Chaotic Cellular Automata
Marina Jeaneth Machicao and colleagues at the University of San Paul in Brazil are using chaos to encrypt images. Their approach generates a pseudo-random signal via a cellular automaton.
From ACM TechNews
Wanted: Technical Women
"Especially at a time when unemployment is high and our economy is weak, we cannot afford to lose anyone with the technical skills to create a sustainable future," says University of Virginia professor Joanne McGrath Cohoon.
From ACM TechNews
Microsoft Researcher: Passwords Aren't Dead But They Need Fixing
Password use needs an overhaul that is driven by understanding the damage that can be done when password security is compromised, and researchers need to quantify that harm, says Microsoft researcher Cormac Herley.
From ACM News
Help Nasa Code Its Way Through Space
If you'd like to work on software projects that might one day send your code to Mars or on a deep space mission, NASA has some code for you to hack on.
From ACM TechNews
10 Tech Research Projects to Watch
Ten promising research projects that could lead to future consumer products include a solar-powered personal computer, three-dimensional images that respond to touch, and a robotic dog.
From ACM News
'Greeley Haven' is Winter Workplace for Mars Rover
NASA's Mars Exploration Rover Opportunity will spend the next several months at a site informally named "Greeley Haven."
From ACM News
It's a Man vs. Machine Recovery
The U.S. produces almost one-quarter more goods and services today than it did in 1999, while using almost precisely the same number of workers.
From ACM TechNews
3-D Cameras For Cellphones
Massachusetts Institute of Technology researchers are developing a three-dimensional device that provides more accurate depth information than Microsoft's Kinect, has a greater range, and works under all lighting conditions.
From ACM News
Google's Chrome Page No Longer Ranks For 'browser' After Sponsored Post Penalty
Searches for "browser" no longer bring up the Google Chrome home page after Google applied a penalty against the page because of Google's own sponsored post campaign.
From ACM News
Pentagon Scientists Use 'time Hole' to Make Events Disappear
Soldiers could one day conduct covert operations in complete secrecy, now that Pentagon-backed physicists have figured out how to mask entire events by distorting light.
From ACM News
Pentagon Fears Iran's Access to F-22 Technology Through Hijacked Spy Drone
Reports coming out from the Pentagon revealed that the United States' military experts and officials are deeply worried about Tehran's access to the RQ-170 Sentinel drone that was downed in Eastern Iran on December 4 as it…
From ACM TechNews
3-D Chips Grow Up
Researchers are starting to build chips in the third dimension, and many industry experts believe that this year the chip will start to become a cube. Building 3-D chips will enable chipmakers to shrink transistors and boost…
From ACM TechNews
Close Encounters: When Daniel123 Met Jane234
The developers of the Qbo robots continue to explore simulated consciousness. After training a Qbo to recognize itself in the mirror, Francisco Paz and his team have trained a pair of robots to recognize each other.
From ACM News
Robots Put You in Two Places at Once
Mike Fennelly isn't easily surprised by cutting-edge technologies, but when he started as an IT guy at a Silicon Valley startup called Evernote, he was caught off guard by a robot rolling around the office.
From ACM News
Gartner Slashes 2012 Global IT Spending Forecast
Happy New Year. IT market-research outfit Gartner has some sour news to start off 2012: It has just slashed its growth forecast for global on tech spending.
From ACM TechNews
Five Major Changes Facing the Internet in 2012
The Internet will face several milestones this year as it undergoes a major technical upgrade, moving from IPv4 to IPv6. This transition could result in major changes in both who operates the Internet infrastructure and how…
From ACM TechNews
Apache Launches Hadoop 1.0
The Apache Software Foundation has released Apache Hadoop 1.0, an open source software framework for reliable, scalable, distributed computing. "This is a release we feel that people can look at as very stable," says Apache…