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
The Web Way to Learn a Language
The young woman seated next to us at the sushi bar exuded a vaguely exotic air; her looks and style, we thought, made it likely that she was not American born. ...
From ACM News
In Digital Combat, U.s. Finds No Easy Deterrent
On a Monday morning earlier this month, top Pentagon leaders gathered to simulate how they would respond to a sophisticated cyberattack aimed at paralyzing the...
From ACM News
If Your Password Is 123456, Just Make It Hackme
Back at the dawn of the Web, the most popular account password was “12345.” Today, it’s one digit longer but hardly safer: “123456.” Despite all the reports...
From ACM News
Fearing Hackers Who Leave No Trace
The crown jewels of Google, Cisco Systems or any other technology company are the millions of lines of programming instructions, known as source code, that make...
From ACM News
Now, Electronics That Obey Hand Gestures
The technology industry is going retro — moving away from remote controls, mice and joysticks to something that arrives without batteries, wires or a user manual...
From ACM TechNews
Wanted: Cyber Ninjas
U.S. colleges are adding courses and specialized degrees in the once-exotic field of cybersecurity to try to meet the growing demands for computer security skills...
From ACM TechNews
At Argonne Lab, a Shift From Radioactivity to Supercomputers
Argonne National Laboratory is phasing out its use of radioactive materials in favor of supercomputers for the purpose of conducting research. "The past was the...
From ACM News
Are Doctors Ready for Virtual Visits?
For over a decade now, health care experts have been promoting telemedicine, or the use of satellite technology, video conferencing and data transfer through phones...
From ACM News
Despite Risks, Internet Creeps Onto Car Dashboards
LAS VEGAS — To the dismay of safety advocates already worried about driver distraction, automakers and high-tech companies have found a new place to put sophisticated...
From ACM TechNews
Computer Science Education: It's Not Shop Class
The U.S. National Science Foundation (NSF) has a plan to reform U.S. high school computer science education by giving the curriculum a much-needed update. NSF...
From ACM News
Obama to Name Chief of Cybersecurity
Nearly seven months after highlighting the vulnerability of banking, energy and communications systems to Internet attacks, the White House on Tuesday is expected...
From ACM TechNews
New Programs Aim to Lure Young Into Digital Jobs
Educators and technologists say both the image of computing work and computer science education in high schools need to change to fill what are expected to be the...
From ACM News
A Deluge of Data Shapes a New Era in Computing
In a speech given just a few weeks before he was lost at sea off the California coast in January 2007, Jim Gray, a database software pioneer and a Microsoft researcher...
From ACM TechNews
In India, Anxiety Over the Slow Pace of Innovation
Even as India has emerged as a growing hub of technological know-how and outsourcing business, there is anxiety within India that the country is not living up to...
From ACM TechNews
Optimism as Artificial Intelligence Pioneers Reunite
An optimistic outlook has returned to the field of artificial intelligence (AI) 45 years after the pronouncement by computer scientist John McCarthy that a thinking...
From ACM TechNews
Local Governments Offer Data to Software Trackers
Local governments are trying to make government data more accessible to citizens, and some are turning over data to programmers to make it more usable. One example...
From ACM News
Open Source as a Model For Business Is Elusive
SAN FRANCISCO — In many ways, MySQL embodies the ideals of the populist software movement known as open source, in which a program’s creator releases it to the...
From ACM TechNews
A Translator Tool With a Human Touch
Nearly 100 IBM researchers are working on n.Fluent, a project to create an automatic translation tool that is fast and accurate enough to be used in instant-messaging...
From ACM TechNews
White House Pushes Science and Math Education
U.S. President Barack Obama on Monday (November 23) announced Educate to Innovate, a campaign to enlist companies and nonprofit groups to donate time and money...
From ACM TechNews