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
'Smart' House Texts You If There's a Problem
It may look low-tech, but a smart doll's house could one day change the way we live, its inventors claim. Part of a project called InterHome, it is designed to...
From ACM TechNews
Emotional Robots: Will We Love Them or Hate Them?
Scientists have theorized that many technologies would function better if they were aware of their users' emotional states, and progress in this field includes...
From ACM TechNews
Laser Light Switch Could Leave Transistors in the Shade
Researchers from the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology have developed an optical transistor that uses one laser beam to control another, potentially forming...
From ACM TechNews
Building a Crash-Proof Internet
The Internet's susceptibility to earthquakes, accidents, and other disruptions appears to be greater than people originally assumed, and a great deal of the Net's...
From ACM TechNews
Magnet and Glue Turn Tongue Into Joystick
New ScientistGeorgia Tech University professors Maysam Ghovanloo and Xueliang Huo have developed a headset that enables a person to precisely control a wheelchair...
From ACM TechNews
Physics Brings Realism to Virtual Reality
The latest multi-core processors and smart software are enabling physicists and engineers to simulate the real world with unprecedented accuracy to create more...
From ACM TechNews
'secret' Questions Leave Accounts Vulnerable
The secret questions some Web sites ask new users to answer for verification purposes in case a password is forgotten are actually far less secure and far easier...
From ACM TechNews
'governor' Would Teach Military Robots the Rules of War
Georgia Institute of Technology robotics engineer Ron Arkin is researching how military robots could be programmed to act ethically and obey the rules of engagement...
From ACM TechNews
Synthetic Cells Get Together to Make Electronics
University of Oxford chemists, working with colleagues at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst, have built a network of artificial cells that acts like an...
From ACM TechNews
Looking Forward to the Smarter Smartphone
Cutting-edge research suggests there are major changes in store for smartphones. For example, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology's Brandon Taylor and Michael...
From ACM News
Virtual Power Plants Could Tame Coming Grid Chaos
Fears over energy security and climate change have led to record investment in renewable energy. But a major problem threatens to stall progress towards a more...
From ACM TechNews
Instant Sex Change Served p By Video Software
Software developed by University of East Anglia computer scientist Barry-John Theobald and Weta Digital's Iain Matthews can take a live video feed of a person talking...
From ACM TechNews
Robots Rolling Toward Farm Revolution
Carnegie Mellon University roboticist Tony Stentz says that in the near future the farming industry may undergo a significant change as robotic farmhands become...
From ACM News
Fake Web Traffic Can Hide Secret Chat
The Internet's underlying technology can be harnessed to let people exchange secret messages, perhaps allowing free, coded speech under oppressive regimes. So says...
From ACM TechNews
Software to Track Our Emotional Outbursts
Sentiment analysis agents are designed to teach computers to comprehend the emotions expressed in text just as well as people do, and early adopters include big...
From ACM TechNews
Could the Net Become Self-Aware?
The Internet is similar to the human brain in that it has a complex network of nodes for holding, processing, recalling, and transmitting information. The Web...
From ACM TechNews
Harnessing Spammers to Solve AI Problems
Some Completely Automated Public Turing Test To Tell Computers and Humans Apart (CAPTCHAs) security systems are already being solved by spammers, but CAPTCHA co...
From ACM TechNews
Could Quantum Mathematics Shake Up Google?
Pedro Carpena, a physicist at the University of Malaga in Spain, has used a mathematical technique for studying disorder in quantum systems to extract keywords...
From ACM TechNews
The Mobile Future of the Keyboard
Touchscreen keyboards could stand some improvement before they become the norm in smartphones and make their way to desktop computers, gaming devices, and even...
From ACM TechNews