Communications of the ACM
The news archive provides access to past news stories from Communications of the ACM and other sources by date.
July 2010
From ACM News
Stanford shers In The Age Of Bookless Libraries
The periodical shelves at Stanford University’s Engineering Library are nearly bare. Library chief Helen Josephine says that in the past five years, most engineering periodicals have been moved online, making their print versions…
From ACM News
Soccer Stars Ranked sing Statistics
Researchers at Northwestern University have developed a computer program that objectively measures player performance; the research method also could be used by companies to measure the performance of employees on project…
From ACM News
Chinese Outsourcer Seeks .s. Workers with Iq of 125 and p
Bleum Inc. sets IQ threshold at 140 for its hires in China, however.
From ACM TechNews
A Picture Is Worth 1,000 Lines of C++ Code
The final of the Rendering Algorithms class at the University of California, San Diego, has become a friendly competition among students, who apply what they've learned about generating digital images with C++ programming…
From ACM TechNews
Compression Technique Reduces Storage Needs and Costs For Genomic Data
The Translational Genomics Research Institute has developed a new computer data compression technique for storing, analyzing, and sharing huge volumes of genomic sequencing data.
From ACM News
Intel Researchers Turn Counter Tops Into Touchscreens
A research project from Intel can turn any surface into a touchscreen. Instead of propping up a tablet or putting a touchscreen computer in your kitchen, picture yourself tapping on the counter top to pull menus, look up recipes…
From ACM News
Afghan Deaths Highlight Lack of Tracking Tech
At about 4 a.m. Wednesday, NATO warplanes dropped precision-guided munitions on a band of Afghans who seemed like militants in the provincial district of Andor. Instead, the bombs hit a unit of Afghan soldiers.
From ACM News
Novel Ion Trap with Optical Fiber Could Link Atoms and Light in Quantum Networks
Physicists at NIST have demonstrated an ion trap with a built-in optical fiber that collects light emitted by single ions, allowing quantum information stored in the ions to be measured.
From ACM News
Pi & Canada Partner on Growing Science & Technology Centers in Africa
During a special visit to Perimeter Institute for Theoretical Physics, the Prime Minister of Canada Stephen Harper announced new federal funding of $20 CDN million to speed the growth of science and technology capacity in Africa…
From ACM News
pdated Computer Security Publication Focuses on Security Assessment Plans
NIST has published an updated set of guidelines for developing security assessment plans and associated security control assessment procedures that are consistent with the Federal Information Security Management Act.
From ACM News
Is Breaking Captcha a Crime?
Prosecutors in a New Jersey ticket scalping case are pushing the envelope on the federal computer hacking law, setting a precedent that could make it a felony to violate a Website’s terms of service and fool a CAPTCHA, according…
From ACM News
Building the Lego niverse Online
Lego Universe, the online computer game scheduled for release in October, marks the legendary company's first foray into massively multiplayer gaming, and for the iconic building-block maker, it's a major gamble.
From ACM News
The Website That Reveals State Secrets
If Daniel Ellsberg wanted to leak secret documents today, he probably would send them to a powerful and controversial new venue for whistle-blowing: a Website called WikiLeaks.org.
From ACM News
Repeat of S. Korea, .s. Cyberattacks Does No Damage
Hundreds of computers that helped cause a wave of outages on U.S. and South Korean government websites last July launched new attacks on the same sites, but no major interference was reported, police said Thursday (July 8)…
From ACM News
Forget India, Outsource to Arkansas
As the U.S. unemployment rate hovers near 10 percent, some companies are starting to eye job-hungry areas of the country as prime candidates for the kind of outsourced work that once would have gone overseas.
From ACM News
U.S. Plans Cyber Shield For Utilities, Companies
The U.S. government is launching a program dubbed "Perfect Citizen" to detect cyber assaults on private companies and government agencies running critical infrastructure, and has awarded Raytheon a classified contract for the…
From ACM TechNews
'Twitter-Like' Technology Could Make Cities Safer
Researchers at the Engineering & Physical Sciences Research Council have developed technology that enables people to provide feedback, track their comments, see who agrees or disagrees with them, and view other issues reported…
From ACM TechNews
Smart Gadgets May One Day Anticipate Our Needs
Silicon Valley researchers predict that future consumer gadgets, embedded with sophisticated sensors and carefully designed computer software, will be able to anticipate and fulfill users' needs without having to be told.
From ACM TechNews
Software Will Cut Millions From Nuclear Clean-Up Bill
University of Leeds researchers have developed software that enables nuclear industry planners to find the best way of breaking up and packing contaminated equipment while minimizing workers' radiation exposure.
From ACM News
Search Engines Learn How to Watch and Listen to Video
Missed the winning goal in that crucial football match at the 2010 FIFA World Cup? Just get on the net and you'll find hours of user-generated video content of every moment in every match. But with 650,000--and counting--World…
From ACM TechNews
How a Smart, Decentralized Energy Web Is Essential for Managing Renewable Energy Sources
Researchers from the Italian research center CREATE-NET recently completed a study that examined the ways in which decentralized, bottom-up design approaches could play a crucial role in managing complex, massive-scale networks…
From ACM News
Taking the Mystery Out of Web Anonymity
The Obama Administration is trying to fix the Internet’s dog problem.
From ACM TechNews
A Soft Spot For Circuitry
Robots designed to provide companionship are making strides, and falling costs may help lead to their wider use.
From ACM News
A Decade Later, Internet Appliance Dream Is Realized
Ten years ago, the next big thing in tech was supposed to be the Internet appliance: a device that offered tech newbies a simpler and cheaper way to get onto the Internet.
From ACM News
A Step Closer to Perfect 3D Data Storage
In the introduction to a paper in press in the Journal of Biotechnology, Virgile Adam of the Katholieke Universiteit Leuven in Belgium, along with a long list of collaborators from other institutions, describe the ultimate in…
From ACM News
'world's Thinnest' Metal Lines to Spur Device Miniaturization
A group of international scientists have collaborated to create what they say is the world's thinnest and smoothest metallic lines used in electronic components. The technological breakthrough will aid in future miniaturization…
From ICT Results
Submarine Robots Learn Teamwork
New technology developed by European researchers will allow autonomous underwater vehicles to work together as a team. It increases the scope of submarine applications for autonomous vehicles. Even better, the technology can…
From ACM News
Researchers Using Robot to Determine How Human Strangers Develop Trust
Researchers from Northeastern, MIT and Cornell are using a robot to determine how human strangers develop trust.
From ACM News
Cellphone Serves as Learning Platform For the Developing World
The cellphone, the fastest growing technology platform in the developing world, is delivering educational content to children in out-of-school settings in rural, underdeveloped areas.
From ACM News
Planck Takes It All In
A new image from the Planck mission shows what it's been up to for the past year--surveying the entire sky for clues to our universal origins.