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dateMore Than a Year Ago
subjectTheory
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An edited collection of advanced computing news from Communications of the ACM, ACM TechNews, other ACM resources, and news sites around the Web.


Microchips' Optical Future
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Microchips' Optical Future

To keep energy consumption under control, future chips may need to move data using light instead of electricity—and the technical expertise to build them may reside...

From ACM News

The Mathematics of Taste

The design of aromas—the flavors of packaged food and drink and the scents of cleaning products, toiletries and other household items—is a multibillion-dollar business...

From ACM News

Speed Limit For Birds

The northern goshawk is one of nature’s diehard thrill-seekers.

Traditional Social Networks Fueled Twitter's Spread
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Traditional Social Networks Fueled Twitter's Spread

We've all heard it: The Internet has flattened the world, allowing social networks to spring up overnight, independent of geography or socioeconomic status.

Data Mining Without Prejudice
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Data Mining Without Prejudice

A new technique for finding relationships between variables in large data sets makes no prior assumptions about what those relationships might be.

Putting the 'art' in Artificial Intelligence
From ACM News

Putting the 'art' in Artificial Intelligence

Like many kids, Antonio Torralba began playing around with computers when he was 13 years old. Unlike many of his friends, though, he was not playing video games...

Robots in Reality
From ACM News

Robots in Reality

Consider the following scenario: A scout surveys a high-rise building that's been crippled by an earthquake, trapping workers inside. After looking for a point...

Important Step Toward Computing with Light
From ACM News

Important Step Toward Computing with Light

There has been enormous progress in recent years toward the development of photonic chips—devices that use light beams instead of electrons to carry out their...

Tiny Stamps for Tiny Sensors
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Tiny Stamps for Tiny Sensors

Advances in microchip technology may someday enable clinicians to perform tests for hundreds of diseases—sifting out specific molecules, such as early stage cancer...

Seeing Through Walls
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Seeing Through Walls

Researchers at MIT's Lincoln Lab have developed new radar technology that provides real-time video of what’s going on behind solid walls.

Milestone For MIT Press's Bestseller
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Milestone For MIT Press's Bestseller

On Thursday, Aug. 4, the MIT Press held a party in MIT's Stata Center to celebrate the sale of the 500,000th copy of the textbook Introduction to Algorithms....

A New Planning Tool Helps Direct Traffic on Aircraft Carriers
From ACM News

A New Planning Tool Helps Direct Traffic on Aircraft Carriers

On the deck of an aircraft carrier, where up to 60 aircraft are crammed into 4.5 acres (1.8 hectares), real estate is at a premium. While aircraft directors wave...

Scientists Unveil Tools for Rewriting the Code of Life
From ACM News

Scientists Unveil Tools for Rewriting the Code of Life

MIT and Harvard researchers have developed technologies that could be used to rewrite the genetic code of a living cell, allowing them to make large-scale edits...

Safer Skies
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Safer Skies

The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) has mandated that by 2020, all commercial aircraft—and small aircraft flying near most airports—must be equipped with...

Layer ­pon Layer
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Layer ­pon Layer

Graphene, a form of pure carbon arranged in a lattice just one atom thick, has interested countless researchers with its unique strength and its electrical and...

Streamlined Rules For Robots
From ACM News

Streamlined Rules For Robots

With the explosion of the Internet and the commoditization of autonomous robots (such as the Roomba) and small sensors (such as the ones in most cell phones),...

Long Live the Qubit!
From ACM News

Long Live the Qubit!

A quantum computer is a device—still largely theoretical—that could perform some types of calculations much more rapidly than classical computers. While a bit...

Honing Household Helpers
From ACM News

Honing Household Helpers

Imagine a robot able to retrieve a pile of laundry from the back of a cluttered closet, deliver it to a washing machine, start the cycle and then zip off to the...

Tracking the Flow of Knowledge
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Tracking the Flow of Knowledge

Do scientists' job locations have any impact on the way their work spreads? Or, in today’s highly networked world, does research flow around the globe without...

Toward Faster Transistors
From ACM News

Toward Faster Transistors

In the 1980s and '90s, competition in the computer industry was all about "clock speed"—how many megahertz, and ultimately gigahertz, a chip could boast. But...
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