Communications of the ACM
An edited collection of advanced computing news from Communications of the ACM, ACM TechNews, other ACM resources, and news sites around the Web.
From ACM News
Robots: Is the Uncanny Valley Real?
Mick Walters opens a door in his lab and points his computer's camera towards the small, blurry, tan-coloured object he has just revealed. "This is Kaspar Two,"...
From ACM News
Why Video Games May Be Good For You
Games have long been accused of making players violent, but evidence has been building over the years that they can have positive effects.
From ACM News
Helping the Deaf to 'See' and 'Feel' Sound
Earlier this summer in a packed and freezing-cold auditorium in Doha, the all-female team of students from Qatar University burst into cheers and tears as theyINJAZ...
From ACM News
Computational Photography: The Snap Is Only the Start
Imagine a camera that allows you to see through a crowd to get a clear view of someone who would otherwise be obscured, a smartphone that matches big-budget lenses...
From ACM News
Why Google and the Pentagon Want 'quantum Computers'
Imagine a computer that can teach your mobile phone to recognize any object it sees, or one that can instantly find optimal travel routes for thousands of planes...
From ACM News
Better Origami sing Nature and Maths
Paper folding isn’t just an art, it can help fit everything on spacecraft from solar panels to telescope mirrors.
From ACM News
Will We Ever… Communicate Telepathically?
In a lab at Harvard Medical School, a man is using his mind to wag a rat's tail.
From ACM News
10 Extraordinary Pentagon Mind Experiments
It’s been 30 years since the first message was sent over initial nodes of the Arpanet, the Pentagon-sponsored precursor to the internet. But this month, researchers...
From ACM News
Will We Ever Simulate the Human Brain?
For years, Henry Markram has claimed that he can simulate the human brain in a computer within a decade. On 23 January 2013, the European Commission told him to...
From ACM News
Graphene: Patent Surge Reveals Global Race
Latest figures show a sharp rise in patents filed to claim rights over different aspects of graphene since 2007, with a further spike last year.
From ACM News
Bend Me, Shape Me: Flexible Phones 'out By 2013'
Imagine treating your phone like a piece of paper.
From ACM News
Risk of Robot prising Wiping Out Human Race to Be Studied
The Centre for the Study of Existential Risk will study dangers posed by biotechnology, artificial life, nanotechnology, and climate change.
From ACM News
Blade Runner: Which Predictions Have Come True?
Based on Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? by Philip K Dick, Ridley Scott's Blade Runner—the tale of a hunt for four dangerous "replicant" humans—is a classic...
From ACM News
Quantum Computing: Is It Possible, and Should You Care?
What is a quantum computer and when can I have one?
From ACM News
Dead Stars 'to Guide Spacecraft'
German scientists are developing a technique that allows for very precise positioning anywhere in space by picking up X-ray signals from pulsars.
From ACM News
Cebit's Pole-Dancing Droids and Other New Technologies
Robots everywhere, driverless cars, new eco-solutions, screens that "read" feelings, and smart museums and stadiums—just some of the "City of the Future" technologies...
From ACM News
Four Telescope Link-Up Creates World's Largest Mirror
Astronomers have created the world's largest virtual optical telescope linking four telescopes in Chile, so that they operate as a single device.
From ACM News
Self-Steering Bullet Researched By U.s. Weapons Experts
A self-guiding bullet that can steer itself towards its target is being developed for use by the U.S. military.
From ACM News