Communications of the ACM
A Healthy Dose of AI
Building artificial intelligence into medical devices can speed diagnoses and potentially improve treatments and outcomes.
From ACM NewsAn 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
Wireless Revolution May Reach Inside Microchips
Wireless technology is often credited with making us more productive. Now it looks like it could also improve the inner workings of our computers. Wireless transmission...
From ACM TechNews
Web Science: Exploring the Network Without Guesswork
University of Southampton professor Nigel Shadbolt, speaking at a recent conference on the emerging discipline of Web science, says the Internet has become such...
From ACM News
Army of Smartphone Chips Could Emulate the Human Brain
If you have a smartphone, you probably have a slice of Steve Furber's brain in your pocket. By the time you read this, his 1-billion-neuron silicon brain will be...
From ACM TechNews
Barcodes Help Objects Tell Their Stories
Five U.K. academic institutions have collaborated to create the Tales of Things, a Web site based on the concept of the Internet of things that enables users to...
From ACM News
Robots Look to the Cloud for Enlightenment
With the phrase "web 2.0" falling out of vogue, the most exciting new uses of the internet are now all about the cloud, a term for servers invisibly doing smart...
From ACM News
Entangle Qubits for a True Random Number Machine
Pure randomness is surprisingly difficult to create, even if you draw on the inherent randomness of quantum mechanics. Now, though, a "true" random number generator...
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Visual Tricks Can Make Downloads Seem Quicker
Twiddling our thumbs while waiting for files to download is one of the great frustrations of our high-speed, technologically interconnected world. Computer scientists...
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Look, No Hands: Cars That Drive Better Than You
With his jeans, white trainers and stripy top, Bob is every inch the well-dressed 6-year-old. He's standing in the middle of a hotel car park and, scarily, I'm...
From ACM News
Are Machines Ready to Break Down Language Barriers?
Even in an era of global networks and cheap travel, international communication still faces one great barrier: we don't all speak the same language. But that gap...
From ACM TechNews
Human Arm Transmits Broadband
Korea University researchers have developed a method for transmitting data at a rate of 10 megabits per second through a person's arm, between two electrodes on...
From ACM TechNews
Sending Botnets the Way of Smallpox
University of Tulsa researchers have published a legal study on three "technically feasible" compulsory vaccination scenarios that governments could consider to...
From ACM TechNews
Body Acoustics Can Turn Your Arm Into a Touchscreen
Researchers from Carnegie Mellon University and Microsoft have developed Skinput, a skin-based interface that turns the human body into a touchscreen.
From ACM News
Cellphone Traces Reveal You're So Predictable
We may all like to consider ourselves free spirits. But a study of the traces left by 50,000 cellphone users over three months has conclusively proved otherwise...
From ACM News
Typos May Earn Google $500m a Year
Google may be earning $500 million a year via companies and individuals who register deceptive Web site addresses. The claim centers on a controversial scheme known...
From ACM News
.s. Networks and Power Grid nder (mock) Cyber-Attack
Unknown hackers have taken out U.S. cellphone networks in an ongoing cyber-attack that will soon knock out parts of the nation's electricity grid – say the officials...
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Smart Dust Could Give Early Warning of Space Storms
A SWARM of "smart dust" spacecraft, positioned at a sweet spot between the Earth and the sun, could alert us to the approach of dangerous space storms well before...
From ACM News
Unplugged: Goodbye Cables, Hello Energy Beams
LET'S face it: power cables are unsightly dust-traps. PCs, TVs and music players are becoming slicker every year, but the nest of vipers in the corner of everyAn...
From ACM TechNews
Internet Backbone Breaks the 100-Gigabit Barrier
A new 900-kilometer fiber-optic link between Paris and Frankfurt is the first step to creating a high-speed Internet backbone with enough capacity to satisfy bandwidth...
From ACM TechNews
How Crowdsourcing Is Helping in Haiti
The revolution in texting, social networking, and crowdsourcing has enabled innovations such as the 4636 texting service, which is aiding the disaster relief efforts...
From ACM News