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 TechNews
Coding for Covid-19: Contest Calls on Developers to Help Fight the Pandemic
One track in this year's IBM Call for Code challenge focused on the Covid-19 pandemic.
From ACM TechNews
Sneakier, More Sophisticated Malware On the Loose
After analyzing more than 1 million samples of Android malware, researchershave found that malware coding is being hidden more cleverly.
From ACM TechNews
Optical Labs Set Terabit Transmission Records
Researchers were able to send 172 terabits per second of data through a single multicore fiber.
From ACM TechNews
Countries Debate Openness of Future National IDs
More than half of African countries are developing some form of biometric or digital national identification (ID).
From ACM TechNews
Are Your Students Bored? This AI Could Tell You
Researchers have created an artificial intelligence (AI) system that analyzes students' emotions to measure their engagement level in a class.
From ACM TechNews
Supercomputers Simulate Solar Flares to Help Physicists Understand Magnetic Reconnection
A team of researchers has developed a supercomputer simulation that successfully models a key part of a process that produces solar flares.
From ACM TechNews
Harnessing Public Smartphones to Track Drones
A new method of tracking unfamiliar drones leverages consumer smartphones to detect the Wi-Fi signals of nearby drones.
From ACM TechNews
It's Surprisingly Easy to Hack the Precision Time Protocol
Researchers at Marist College and IBM have identified a simple but effective way to hack a PTP network, altering the timing of slave clocks by 2,149.5 minutes after...
From ACM TechNews
First 'Quantum Drone' Takes Off
Researchers at Nanjing University in China have developed a quantum drone to serve as an airborne node in a future quantum network.
From ACM TechNews
Squeezing More Data Through Less Fiber
Researchers have developed transmitting and receiving equipment that could squeeze 26.2 terabits per second through the MAREA cable.
From ACM News
The Race to Develop the World's Best Quantum Tech
A few days before Christmas, U.S. President Donald Trump signed a bill into law that devotes more than US $1.2 billion to a national effort dedicated to quantum...
From ACM News
Searching for the Perfect Artificial Synapse for AI
What's the best type of device from which to build a neural network? Of course, it should be fast, small, consume little power, have the ability to reliably store...
From ACM News
DeepMind Achieves Holy Grail: An AI That Can Master Games Like Chess and Go Without Human Help
DeepMind, the London-based subsidiary of Alphabet, has created a system that can quickly master any game in the class that includes chess, Go, and Shogi, and do...
From ACM News
This Robot Transforms Itself to Navigate an Obstacle Course
When you've got a hammer, everything looks like a nail, but the world starts to look more interesting if your hammer can change shape.
From ACM News
Baidu's AI Can Do Simultaneous Translation Between Any Two Languages
Would-be travelers of the galaxy, rejoice: The Chinese tech giant Baidu has invented a translation system that brings us one step closer to a software Babel fish...
From ACM News
How Political Campaigns Weaponize Social Media Bots
In the summer of 2017, a group of young political activists in the United Kingdom figured out how to use the popular dating app Tinder to attract new supporters...
From ACM News
AI on a MEMS Device Brings Neuromorphic Computing to the Edge
In order to achieve the edge computing that people talk about in a host of applications including 5G networks and the Internet of Things (IoT), you need to pack...
From ACM News
60 Years of DARPA's Favorite Toys
This year, the U.S. Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) turned 60. To celebrate, DARPA held a conference in Washington, D.C. One of the highlights...
From ACM TechNews
Insect-Inspired Vision System Helps Drones Pass Through Small Gaps
A new system allows a drone to fly through very small and completely unknown gaps using a single camera and onboard processing.
From ACM News