Communications of the ACM
What Would the Chatbot Say?
Seeking to explain the unanticipated abilities of large language models.
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 TechNews
The Computer That Stores and Processes Information at the Same Time
Computer scientists claim they can now store and process information simultaneously like a human brain by using nanoscale electronic components.
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Microsoft's Plan to Bring About the Era of Gesture Control
While most of the headlines about Microsoft this fall will concern its new operating system, Windows 8, and its new Surface tablet, the company is also working...
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What Comes After the Touch Screen?
In a few short years, the technologies found in today's mobile devices—touch screens, gyroscopes, and voice-control software, to name a few—have radically transformed...
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The Measurement that Would Reveal the Universe as a Computer Simulation
One of modern physics' most cherished ideas is quantum chromodynamics, the theory that describes the strong nuclear force, how it binds quarks and gluons into protons...
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The CIA and Jeff Bezos Bet on Quantum Computing
Inside a blocky building in a Vancouver suburb, across the street from a dowdy McDonald's, is a place chilled colder than anywhere in the known universe.
From ACM TechNews
Statisticians Calculate Probability of Another 9/11 Attack
There is a 50 percent chance of another devastating terrorist attack within the next decade, according to statistics compiled by the Santa Fe Institute's Aaron...
From ACM News
The Moore's Law Moon Shot
It is seemingly a fact of life that every new generation of computing gadget will be significantly more powerful than the one before, but a looming technical roadblock...
From ACM TechNews
Computer Scientists Reproduce the Evolution of Evolvability
Modular systems evolve more easily than non-modular systems, but the evolution of modularity is a key open question for biology.
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Smart Headlights See through Rain and Snow
A prototype headlight system can detect raindrops or snow streaks and "dis-illuminate" them, thereby increasing visibility on the road ahead.
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Biology's Master Programmers
George Church is an imposing figure—over six feet tall, with a large, rectangular face bordered by a brown and silver nest of beard and topped by a thick mop of...
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Intel Reveals Neuromorphic Chip Design
The brain is the most extraordinary of computing machines. It carries out tasks as a matter of routine that would fry the circuits of the most powerful supercomputers...
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Moore's Law Lives Another Day
"[Gordon] Moore is my boss, and if your boss makes a law, then you'd better follow it," says Mark Bohr, who leads Intel's efforts to make advances in microchip...
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Verizon Envisions 4g Wireless in Just About Anything
Tucked away in a new office block in Waltham, Massachusetts, is a kind of wireless Tomorrowland.
From ACM TechNews
How the Cost of Computation Restricts the Processes of Life
Biologists and computer scientists have begun to examine what restrictions the theoretical limits of computation place on the way living things operate, which could...
From ACM News
How the Cost of Computation Restricts the Processes of Life
Back in the 1960s, the IBM physicist Rolf Landauer showed that computation comes with a cost: every (irreversible) calculation, he said, always burns through a...
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Software Translates Your Voice Into Another Language
Researchers at Microsoft have made software that can learn the sound of your voice, and then use it to speak a language that you don't.
From ACM News
Ultrafast Trades Trigger Black Swan Events Every Day, Say Econophysicists
On 6 May 2010, shares on U.S. financial markets suddenly dropped on average by around 10% but in over 300 stocks by more than 60%. Moments later the prices recovered...
From ACM News
How Networks of Biological Cells Solve Distributed Computing Problems
Distributed computing is all the rage these days. The idea is to break down computational tasks into convenient chunks and distribute them across a network to a...
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Turing's Enduring Importance
When Alan Turing was born 100 years ago, on June 23, 1912, a computer was not a thing—it was a person.
From ACM TechNews