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
Why Google Went Instant
The service, an engineering marvel, could boost Google's bottom line.
From ACM News
Searching For Fun
Research suggests that search engines could tap into users' need to be entertained.
From ACM TechNews
A Search Service that Can Peer Into the Future
Yahoo!'s Barcelona research lab has developed Time Explorer, a prototype news search engine that generates timelines that stretch into the future as well as the...
From ACM News
Fewer Ads, More Clicks
Search engines get smarter at predicting when we'll respond to a pitch.
From ACM News
Computing with Secrets, but Keeping them Safe
A novel technique could see future Web services work with sensitive data without ever being able to read it. Several implementations of a mathematical proof unveiled...
From ACM News
Tracking H1n1 Through the Internet
Next flu season, mining Internet sites such as Facebook, Twitter, and Google news may provide a faster way to track the spread of H1N1 than reports from official...
From ACM News
Real-Time Search
How do you parse a tweet? Five years ago, that question would have been gibberish. Today, it's perfectly sensible, and it's at the front of Amit Singhal's mind....
From ACM News
Combing Medical Records For Research
When the stimulus bill passed last year--allocating $20 billion to help doctors and hospitals adopt electronic medical records (EMRs)--many scientists were excited...
From ACM News
A Faster Wireless Web
Transfers of large amounts of data across the Internet to wireless devices suffer from a key problem: The Transmission Control Protocol (TCP) used to send and receive...
From ACM News
Wi-Fi at the Speed of Light
A wireless network that uses reflected infrared light instead of radio waves has transmitted data through the air at a speed of one gigabit per second—six to 14...
From ACM News
Getting a Grip on Online Buzz
Big-name companies increasingly recognize the importance of discussions about their products on social media sites such as Facebook and Twitter. But keeping track...
From ACM News
Searching For Disease Clues in Genetic Diversity
Over the last few years, scientists have discovered hundreds of genetic variants linked to disease. But the vast majority of that research has focused on people...
From ACM News
New Life For Magnetic Tape
Music lovers may have long forsaken them, but magnetic tapes still reign supreme when it comes to storing vast amounts of digital data. And new research from IBM...
From ACM News
How Google Ranks Tweets
To deliver useful search returns from the so-called real-time Web--such as seconds-old Twitter "tweets" reporting traffic jams--Google has adapted its page-ranking...
From ACM News
Bringing Color to E-Readers
One of the hot topics at the Consumer Electronics Show this week in Las Vegas is color e-readers, with several companies showcasing new products. While E-Ink has...
From ACM TechNews
Splitting p Search
Researchers at Yahoo!'s Labs in Barcelona, Spain, have developed a distributed search approach that spreads the search index and additional data out over a larger...
From ACM News
Faster Maintenance with Augmented Reality
In the not-too-distant future, it might be possible to slip on a pair of augmented-reality (AR) goggles instead of fumbling with a manual while trying to repair...
From ACM TechNews
Adding Trust to Wikipedia, and Beyond
WikiTrust, developed by University of California, Santa Cruz (UCSC) researchers, helps users evaluate information published on Wikipedia by automatically assigning...
From ACM TechNews
How to Build Anonymity Into the Internet
At the 9th annual Privacy Enhancing Technologies Symposium, security researchers discussed alternatives to existing systems designed to help Internet users maintain...
From ACM TechNews