Communications of the ACM
The Promise of Holographic Displays
The computational expense of creating three-dimensional images that can be viewed by all is just one factor holding them back… 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.
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Why Math Works
Most of us take it for granted that math works—that scientists can devise formulas to describe subatomic events or that engineers can calculate paths for spacecraft...
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Light at the End of the Racetrack: How Pixar Explored the Physics of Light for Cars 2
Although the stories told by Pixar Animation Studios take place in richly realized fantasy realms, the science and technology required to create those worlds...
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A Test For Consciousness
How will we know when we've built a sentient computer? By making it solve a simple puzzle.
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The Rise of a New Science Superpower?
Since the turn of the 21st century, the number scientific papers published predominantly by Chinese researchers in any of the Nature journals has risen from six...
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Can Tornado Prediction Be Improved?
Advances in computer modeling and other technologies still cannot overcome the fundamental complexity of thunderstorm and subsequent tornado formation.
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Why Bayes Rules: The History of a Formula That Drives Modern Life
Google has a small fleet of robotic cars that since autumn have driven themselves for thousands of miles on the streets of Northern California without once striking...
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Being John Malkovich: Personal Control of Individual Brain Cells
In philosophy of mind, a "cerebroscope" is a fictitious device, a brain-computer interface in today's language, which reads out the content of somebody's brain...
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Hackers Harness Microsoft's Kinect For Business and Pleasure
Gamers and hackers could control the office as well as games with Microsoft's Kinect.
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Electric Currents Move Racetrack Memory Bits with Precision
The moving bits in the proposed data-storage scheme do not stop and start instantaneously, but their motion is easy to quantify.
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Diminishing Returns?: U.s. Science Productivity Continues to Drop
A historic downward shift in U.S. research efficiency is described in a new report on science publication trends, showing that while funding rose, the quantity...
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Would Wiretapping Laws Spell the End of Quantum Encryption?
A new effort to ensure that the government can gain back-door access to encrypted messages could thwart one of the most promising applications of physics for...
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When Will We Be Able to Build Brains Like Ours?
When physicists puzzle out the workings of some new part of nature, that knowledge can be used to build devices that do amazing things--airplanes that fly, radios...
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Pentagon Turns to 'softer' Sciences
By highlighting the limits of traditional military technology, the drawn-out conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan have spurred the U.S. defense department to shake...
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De-Worming Software More Effective at Detecting Infected Network Computers Before Contagion Can Spread
More than a year after being launched by hackers on a campaign to infect computers running Microsoft Windows, the Conficker worm's effects are still being felt....
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Group Thinker: Researcher Gets $2.9 Million to Further Develop Swarm Intelligence
Swarm intelligence is a branch of artificial intelligence that attempts to get computers and robots to mimic the highly efficient behavior of colony insects such...
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Binary Body Double: Microsoft Reveals the Science Behind Project Natal for Xbox 360
When Nintendo's Wii game console debuted in November 2006, its motion-sensing handheld "Wiimotes" got players off the couch and onto their feet. Now Microsoft...
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