ACM in the News 2015

"Driverless Cars Are Colliding with the Creepy Trolley Problem"
The Washington Post, December 29, 2015
ACM Fellow Daniela Rus, director of MIT’s Artificial Intelligence lab, suggests avoiding the Trolley Problem (i.e., deciding how driverless vehicles can behave appropriately in life-threatening situations) altogether by giving driverless cars enough control and situational awareness to avoid collisions entirely.

"The AI Anxiety"
The Washington Post, December 27, 2015
Despite an attitude of fear toward machine intelligence--a fear chiefly promulgated by the media--most AI researchers think such anxieties are premature. "The progress has not been as steady as people say, and the machine skills are really far from being ready to match our skills," says ACM Fellow Daniela Rus, director of the Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory at MIT.

"Landmark Algorithm Breaks 30-Year Impasse"
Quanta Magazine, December 14, 2015
Developed by University of Chicago theoretical computer scientist Laszlo Babai, the new algorithm for the "graph isomorphism" problem is significantly more efficient than the previous best offering. Babai submitted a paper on his work to ACM's 48th Symposium on Theory of Computing (STOC 2016).

"Got Computer Science? You Should"
Black Enterprise, December 11, 2015
ACM Education Policy Committee Chair Jeffrey Forbes talks about how we can make quality computer science education available to a broader set of students.

"New Education Bill to Get More Coding in Classrooms"
Wall Street Journal, December 10, 2015
The Every Student Succeeds Act, signed into law by President Barack Obama on December 10, recognizes computer science as important an academic subject as math and English. "This week marks a watershed moment for computer science in US schools," says Code.org founder Hadi Partovi. ACM partners with Code.org to bring computing skills to elementary and high school students.

"Untraceable Communication--Guaranteed"
MIT News, December 7, 2015
Untraceable text-messaging system designed to foil even the most powerful adversaries was unveiled by Massachusetts Institute of Technology researchers at ACM's Symposium on Operating Systems Principles (SOSP).

The FTC is getting a new chief technologist: Carnegie Mellon’s Lorrie Cranor
The Washington Post, December 3, 2015
Carnegie Mellon University professor Lorrie Cranor named chief technologist of Federal Trade Commission. Cranor is an ACM Fellow and member of USACM.

"Mass surveillance and a crisis of social responsibility"
University of Auckland, December 1, 2015
Phllip Rogaway, 2009 Paris Kanellakis Award winner, gives talk at University of Auckland on mass surveillance.

"Jack Dongarra Honored for Leadership in HPC"
HPC Wire, December 1, 2015
ACM Fellow Jack Dongarra Honored for Leadership in HPC.

"SC15 Breaks Exhibits and Attendance Records"
HPC Wire, November 20, 2015
ACM Supercomputing conference draws record-breaking 12,903+ registered attendees.

"Blue Sky Ideas Conference Track Held at ACM SIGSPATIAL 2015"
CCC Blog, November 19, 2015
The ACM SIGSPATIAL International Conference on Advances in Geographic Information Systems concentrated on advanced geospatial data research, and three papers won awards under the Computing Research Association's Computing Community Consortium's Blue Sky Ideas track.

"What Are Your Apps Hiding?"
MIT News, November 19, 2015
MIT researchers presented findings at the ACM SIGSPATIAL International Conference on Advances in Geographic Information Systems that much of the data transferred to and from the 500 most popular free applications for Google Android cellphones make little or no difference to the user's experience.

"Tech's Big Gender Diversity Push, One Year in
Fast Company, November 19, 2015
Technology firms' efforts to address the issue of low numbers of women employees was underscored at the annual Grace Hopper Celebration of Women in Computing conference.

"Powering the next billion devices with Wi-Fi"
EurekAlert, November 18, 2015
Vamsi Talla, Best Paper winner at SIGCOMM 2013, uses wi-fi router to power devices.

"Latest Graph500 Ranking of Fastest Supercomputers Released by Leading Universities at SC15"
HPC Wire, November 17, 2015
The 11th Graph500 list of the world's fastest supercomputers was unveiled at ACM'sSupercomputing 2015 conference, with Japan's K-Computer holding the lead position for the second time in a row.

"Japan Chases Title of World's Fastest Computer With New System"
Computerworld, November 16, 2015
Japan says it is developing a new supercomputer with the aim to deliver 100 times more application performance than its current K supercomputer. It shared details about the new supercomputer at ACM'sSC15 conference.

"Get Ready for Your Digital Model"
The Wall Street Journal, November 12, 2015
Within 10 years, people will entrust their data to machine-learning algorithms that build personal digital models of them, writes University of Washington professor and ACM SIGKDD Innovation Award winner Pedro Domingos.

"Bringing iPhone-Style Medical Research to the Android World"
The New York Times, November 12, 2015
Apple's introduction of ResearchKit software for its iPhone platform prompted Weill Cornell Medical College professor inaugural ACM-W Athena Lecturer Award recipient Deborah Estrin to launch an effort to embed similar capability within Google's Android platform.

"Star Wars Characters Will Now Teach Your Kids to Code"
Wired, November 9, 2015
In an effort to bring coding to an ever-larger group of kids and students, Code.org partnered with Lucasfilm as part of its annualHour of Codeevent, and recently launched a free online tutorial featuring characters from the upcoming film "Star Wars: The Force Awakens." (ACM is a parter of Code.org.)

"System Recognizes Objects Touched by User, Enabling Context-Aware Smartwatch Apps"
Carnegie Mellon News, November 9, 2015
Researchers at Carnegie Mellon University and Disney Research presented EM-Sense—technology designed to enable smartwatches to automatically recognize what kind of objects users interact with and touch—at theACM Symposium on User Interface Software and Technology (UIST 2015).

"Cities First to Benefit from Internet of Things, if We Can Write Better Software"
TechRepublic, November 5, 2015
A panel led by Google Chief Internet Evangelist and ACM Past President Vint Cerf at a New York University event discussed how city dwellers could be the initial benefactors of the Internet of Things.

"Nomadic Computing Speeds Up Big Data Analytics"
National Science Foundation, November 4, 2015
University of Texas at Austin professor Inderjit Dhillon, a 2014 ACM Fellow, concentrates on expediting big data analytics by using machine learning to reduce data to its most insightful parameters.

Japan chases title of world's fastest computer with new system
PC World, November 16, 2015
Japanese Scientists Offer Sneak Peek at World’s Fastest Supercomputer at ACM's SC15

"IBM's Brain-Like Chip and the Quest for a 'Cognitive Planet'"
TechRepublic, October 29, 2015
IBM's Dharmendra Modha, recipient of the 2009 ACM Gordon Bell Prize, says one of his goals through projects such as the TrueNorth chip is to embed intelligence in network-edge sensors.

"How Wireless 'X-ray Vision' Could Power Virtual Reality, Smart Homes, and Hollywood"
MIT News, October 28, 2015
MIT professor (and 2012 ACM Grace Murray Hopper Award co-recipient) Dina Katabi says potential smart-home applications of the new RF Capture technology could include automatic 911 alerts when a resident has fallen unconscious, or intelligent in-home systems operation.

News from ACM SIGGRAPH Asia 2015, November 2-5, Kobe, Japan
"Streamlining Mobile Image Processing"
MIT News, November 13, 2015
Researchers from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Stanford University, and Adobe Systems unveiled a system that streamlines mobile image processing.

"Disney Software Makes It Easy to Design and Print Custom Walking Robots"
IEEE Spectrum, November 9, 2015
A joint project between ETH Zurich, Carnegie Mellon University, and Disney Research has yielded an interactive design system that enables hobbyists to create custom walking robots that can be printed in three dimensions.

"Amplifying—or Removing—Visual Variation"
MIT News, November 5, 2015
MIT researchers present studies detailing methods for either amplifying or removing digital image defects.

"Puzzle Lamps Attain New Dimensions With Disney Research Computer Design Tool"
EurekAlert, October 30, 2015
Disney researchers have developed an interactive design tool they say makes it easier to create more intricate decorations.

"STEM Definition Expanded to Include Computer Science"
SD Times, October 26, 2015
President Barack Obama has officially signed the Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math (STEM) Education Act of 2015 into law, expanding the STEM definition to include computer science. Officially including computer science in the definition of STEM signals the importance of a computer science education, says Della Cronin, who handles federal affairs for Code.org (of which ACM is a partner).

"Manipulating Faces from Aafar in Real Time"
The New York Times, October 26, 2015
Computer scientists from Stanford University and the University of Erlangen-Nuremberg in Germany say they have created a process dubbed "live facial re-enactment" that can instantaneously transfer facial expressions. They will present their work atSIGGRAPH Asia 2015next month.

"The Future of Encryption"
National Science Foundation, October 22, 2015
National Science Foundation (NSF)-supported researchers are developing new methods to ensure the security of important data. One technique is called fully homomorphic encryption, developed by ACM Grace Murray Hopper Award recipient Craig Gentry in 2010 while he was a graduate student.

"What It Will Take to Make Computer Science Education Available in All Schools"
The Conversation, October 22, 2015
On average, as of 2010, states had adopted only 55% of the35 recommended learning standardsdeveloped by theComputer Science Teachers Association. A2013 report by ACM and CSTAstates that only two states and the District of Columbia specifically require CS certification to teach computer science classes.

"White House National Strategic Computing Initiative Workshop"
CCC Blog, October 22, 2015
At the workshop, Kathy Yelick (2013–2014 ACM-W Athena Lecturer and 2015 Ken Kennedy Award recipient) gave a presentation titled "More Data, More Science, and Moore's Law."

"'Our Time to Lead': An Interview With Telle Whitney at Grace Hopper 2015"
The Huffington Post, October 19, 2015
In an interview at the2015 Grace Hopper Celebration of Women in Computing, Anita Borg Institute for Women and Technology CEO (and former ACM Secretary/Treasurer) Telle Whitney said 2015 is "our time to lead," noting this theme is highlighted at GHC so women can avail themselves of leadership training tools.

"Hilary Mason: Use Data Science and Machine Intelligence to Build a Better Future"
TechRepublic, October 14, 2015
Algorithms are enabling machines to perform increasingly "creative" functions that people previously thought only humans could do, such as re-imagining artwork like the Mona Lisa, said Fast Forward Labs CEO Hilary Mason this week in her opening keynote at the2015 Grace Hopper Celebration of Women in Computing.

"Vint Cerf and 260 Experts Give FCC a Plan to Secure Wi-Fi Routers"
Computerworld, October 14, 2015
A group of 260 network and cybersecurity experts, including Google chief Internet evangelist and ACM past president Vint Cerf, have sent an open letter to the US Federal Communications Commission (FCC) critiquing the agency's recently proposed rules for Wi-Fi routers and RF devices and offering an alternative proposal.

"Flowing Toward Red Blood Cell Breakthroughs"
Oak Ridge National Laboratory, October 13, 2015
A team of researchers from Brown University, ETH Zurich, and the Swiss National Supercomputing Center is using Oak Ridge National Laboratory's Cray XK7 Titan supercomputer to help understand and fight diseases affecting red blood cells. The team's research has made it a finalist for this year's ACM Gordon Bell Prize—one of the most prestigious awards in high performance computing—to be presented at theSC15 supercomputing conference.

"Obama Won't Seek Access to Encrypted User Data"
The New York Times, October 10, 2015
Peter G. Neumann (Chair of ACM's Committee on Computers and Public Policy and founder of ACM RISKS Forum) lauds the decision, but warns law enforcement will still exert heavy pressure to allow access.

"New Programming Approach Seeks to Make Large-Scale Computation More Reliable"
UChicago News, October 7, 2015
ACM Fellow Andrew Chien and his colleagues at Univeristy of Chicago's Computation Institute are experimenting with a new technique that enables applications to not only save work that is underway, but also to offer flexible error-check and self-repair while in operation.

"MIT Prof. Constantinos Daskalakis Solves Life's Equations"
The National Herald, October 6, 2015
2008 ACM Doctoral Dissertation Award recipient talks about the Nash Equilibrium and meeting John Nash.

"For the Real Hits of Fashion Week, Look to Computer Science"
Science News, October 5, 2015
Researchers from Taiwan and University of Rochester presented algorithms that enable a computer to identify trends that make their way from the runway to the street at theACM Multimedia Conference.

"Defining Scalable OS Requirements for Exascale and Beyond"
HPC Wire, October 5, 2015
Robert Wisniewski, chief software architect for extreme scale computing at Intel and an ACM Distinguished Scientist, says system software for exascale systems is becoming more complex, and the compute node operating system (OS) will play a critical role in helping to realize the potential of exascale systems.

"Microsoft, Tesla Say Software-Defined Batteries Could Mix and Match Power on the Fly"
PC World, October 2, 2015
Researchers from Microsoft, Tesla, and other organizations presented a paper at theACM Symposium on Operating Systems Principles, advocating for what they call software-defined batteries.

"Stanford Computer Scientist Christopher Ré Named MacArthur Fellow"
Stanford Report, September 30, 2015
MacArthur Foundation recognizes Ré (an ACM SIGMOD/PODS Best Paper Award recipient) with "genius grant" for his work in big-data analytics.

"Soft Robotic Hand Can Pick Up and Identify a Wide Array of Objects"
MIT News, September 30, 2015
"Grasping is an important step in being able to do useful tasks; with this work we set out to develop both the soft hands and the supporting control and planning systems that make dynamic grasping possible," says MIT professor and 2014 ACM Fellow Daniela Rus.

"Scientists Stop and Search Malware Hidden in Shortened URLs on Twitter"
Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council, September 25, 2015
Cardiff University researchers presented a technique for detecting tweets containing malicious links at the2015 IEEE/ACM International Conference on Advances in Social Networks Analysis and Mining.

ACM Conference on Computer and Communications Security (CCS 2015):
"UMD Researchers Present Paper on Innovative Work for Ensuring Integrity in Cloud-Hosted Databases"
University of Maryland, October 8, 2015
Researchers at the University of Maryland presented a new method for verifying the integrity and completeness of cloud data.

"UAB Research Studies Cyberattacks Through the Lens of EEG and Eye Tracking"
UAB News, October 22, 2015
Researchers from the University of Alabama at Birmingham presented a study about users' susceptibility to, and ability to detect, certain cyberattacks.

"Researchers Find 85 Percent of Android Devices Insecure"
Threatpost, October 14, 2015
University of Cambridge have developed a scorecard for Android devices dubbed FUM, a number from 0 to 10 that breaks down how often manufacturers and network operators patch their devices. They presented their research at theACM CCS Workshop on Security and Privacy in Smartphones and Mobile Devices.

ACM International Joint Conference on Pervasive and Ubiquitous Computing (UbiComp 2015):
"Deep Learning Machine Predicts Human Activity"
R&D Magazine, October 13, 2015
Model that allows a computer to predict with over 83% accuracy the activities a human engages in during the day presented by Georgia Tech researchers.

"Affordable Camera Reveals Hidden Details Invisible to the Naked Eye"
University of Washington News and Information, October 13, 2015
Researchers at the University of Washington and Microsoft Research are developing HyperCam, affordable camera technology that could soon enable consumers to tell if fruits or vegetables are ripe or starting to rot underneath the surface.

"Code.org Trains 15,000 Teachers in Computer Science"
USA Today, September 10, 2015
Code.org and its partners (which include ACM) have trained more than 15,000 computer science teachers this year, who will use those skills to teach more than 600,000 pupils in kindergarten through 12th grade, according to Code.org founder Hadi Partovi.

"Vint Cerf Wants Your Help Re-Imagining the Internet"
InformationWeek, September 10, 2015
Google chief Internet Evangelist and ACM past president Vint Cerf is starting a new project to solicit ideas from the public about how to improve the Internet, specifically to address issues such as education and what he calls the "Digital Dark Age."

"New Tool Reduces Smartphone Battery Drain From Faulty Apps"
Purdue University News, September 10, 2015
A new software tool that can reduce smartphone battery power drain by 16 percent was developed by Purdue researchers. They presented their findings atACM's MobiCom 2015 conference.

"Humanizing Technology: A History of Human-Computer Interaction"
The New York Times, September 7, 2015
ACM SIGCHI Lifetime Achievement Award recipient Ben Schneiderman wants to make the history of human-computer interaction more prominent with what he calls "the Human-Computer Interaction Pioneers Project," a website on which he profiles pioneers in the field.

"'Molecular Tweeting' Could Hold the Key to Busting Superbugs"
Scientific American, August 31, 2015
Carnegie Mellon University (CMU) researchers are using the metaphor of Twitter to help them better understand the ways communication among bacteria can lead to antibiotic resistance. They presented their findings this month at theACM Conference on Bioinformatics, Computational Biology, and Health Informatics (ACM BCB), and atACM's International Conference on Nanoscale Computing and Communication (ACM NANOCOM).

"Tired of Memorizing Passwords? A Turing Award Winner Came Up With This Algorithmic Trick"
Network World, August 31, 2015
1995 ACM A. M. Turing Award winning-scientist Manuel Blum is working on what he calls "human computable" passwords that are not only relatively secure but also don't require us to memorize a different one for each site. He demonstrated his method at last month at theHeidelberg Laureate Forum.

"Why the World's Top Computing Experts are Worrying About Your Data"
Computerworld, August 26, 2015
Many of the world's top computer science experts met at theHeidelberg Laureate Forumto determine how the widespread collection of data about consumers can be prevented from causing harm in the future.

"Understanding the Google Computer, and Making It Better"
CCC Blog, August 26, 2015
Google engineers, in collaboration with researchers at Harvard University, presented detailed performance characteristics on warehouse-scale computers that power Internet-based services and the cloud at ACM'sInternational Symposium on Computer Architecture (ISCA).

"Crash-Tolerant Data Storage"
MIT News, August 24, 2015
MIT) researchers will detail the first computer file system that mathematically ensures no loss of data when the system crashes at theACM Symposium on Operating Systems Principles (SOSP)in October.

UbiComp2015:
"Making IoT Configuration More Secure and Easy-to-Use"
University of Southampton, September 10, 2015
Researchers at the University of Southampton say they have identified easy-to-use techniques that will make the process of configuring Internet of Things (IoT) devices more secure.

"Android Widgets May Boost Effectiveness of Sleep-Monitoring Apps"
Penn State News, September 8, 2015
Researchers at Penn State have developed SleepTight, an Android sleep-monitoring app widget that serves as a data-capturing tool and provides visual reminders of the user's activities and sleep patterns.

"Your Smartphone Can Tell If You're Bored"
Technology Review, September 2, 2015
Researchers at Telefonica Research in Spain have developed an algorithm that enables a smartphone to determine whether or not its user is bored.

"Vint Cerf: 'Sometimes I'm Terrified' by the IoT"
Network World, August 25, 2015
Google chief Internet evangelist and ACM past president Vint Cerf says he finds certain aspects of the Internet of Things (IoT) worrisome, particularly its integration of appliances and bug-prone software.

"At Microsoft, Software-Defined Networking Takes Cloudy Turn"
eWeek, August 20, 2015
Microsoft has thrown its support behind software-defined networking and made it a major part of its presentation at ACM'sSIGCOMM 2015 conferencein London.

"IBM's 'Rodent Brain' Chip Could Make Our Phones Hyper-Smart"
Wired, August 17, 2015
IBM researchers say they have built the digital equivalent of a rodent brain encompassing 48 TrueNorth chips, an experimental processor designed to emulate neurons. TrueNorth is currently suitable for only one aspect of deep learning—enabling the neural network to execute models it has been trained for—but IBM's Dharmendra Modha, 2009 ACM Gordon Bell Prize recipient, notes this is appropriate.

"For 40 Years, Computer Scientists Looked for a Solution That Doesn't Exist"
Boston Globe, August 10, 2015
Creating a faster method for performing the "edit distance" calculation—a challenge computer scientists have worked on for four decades—was demonstrated as futile by MIT researchers at theACM Symposium on the Theory of Computing (STOC 2015).

"Children Beating Up Robot Inspires New Escape Maneuver System"
IEEE Spectrum, August 6, 2015
Research by Japanese researchers to see how mall patrons would react to a social robot was presented at the10th ACM/IEEE International Conference on Human-Robot Interaction (HRI 2015).

"Intelligent Robots Don't Need to Be Conscious to Turn Against Us"
Business Insider, August 5, 2015
University of California, Berkeley professor Stuart Russell, founder of the university's Center for Intelligent Systems and 2005 ACM Karl V. Karlstrom Outstanding Educator Award recipient, says artificial intelligence (AI) does not have to achieve consciousness to be threatening.

"Turing Award-Winner Stonebraker on the Future of Taming Big Data"
Forbes, July 29, 2015
In a lecture at MIT's 9th Annual Chief Data Officer & Information Quality Symposium, 2014 ACM A. M. Turing Award recipient Michael Stonebraker discussed how the future of big data usage hinges on several factors, one of which is the need to exploit falling computer memory costs to store data longer and retrieve it at faster speeds.

"Artificial Intelligence Expert Likens AI Dangers to Nuclear Weapons"
Naked Security, July 24, 2015
University of California professor Stuart Russell, 2005 recipient of the ACM Karl V. Karlstrom Outstanding Educator Award, says the risks of artificial intelligence (AI) research are as grave as those of nuclear technology.

"What Is a 'Computer' Anymore?"
The Atlantic, July 20, 2015
IBM Cognitive Computing Group founder Dharmendra Modha, recipient of the ACM Gordon Bell Prize in 2009, foresees computers becoming increasingly adaptable to humans, instead of vice-versa, with the emergence of brain-inspired computing and its integration into modern computing infrastructures.

"Research Reveals How Advertisers Play the Online Bidding Game"
Cornell Chronicle, July 14, 2015
Researchers led by Cornell University professor Eva Tardos have proposed a method for estimating what advertisers feel an ad is worth based on what computer scientists call "no-regret learning." The research was selected for the Best Paper Award at the16th ACM Conference on Economics and Computation (EC15).

"Firing Squad Synchronization, Computer Science's Most Macabre-Sounding Problem"
Motherboard, July 14, 2015
The solution to the problem of getting a firing squad to fire in sync was worked out by computer science pioneers John McCarthy (1971 ACM A. M. Turing Award recipient) and Marvin Minsky (1969 Turing Award recipient) in the early 1960s.

"Cutting Cost and Power Consumption for Big Data"
MIT News, July 10, 2015
MIT researchers are developing a new system that could enable flash-based servers to perform as well as RAM-based servers, but at less cost and using less energy. They presented their system at theInternational Symposium on Computer Architecture (ISCA).

PLDI 2015:
"Computer Program Fixes Old Code Faster Than Expert Engineers"
MIT News, July 9, 2015
MIT researchers presented Helium, a program designed to automatically fix existing code without requiring the original source, at ACM's SIGPLAN conference on Programming Language Design and Implementation.

"Researchers Look to Bots, Big Data to Fix Software Flaws"
eWeek, July 22, 2015
MIT researchers presented Code Phage, which is able to take pieces of one code that can counter a vulnerability and graft it into another piece of software.

SIGGRAPH 2015:
"Erase Obstructions From Photos With a Click"
Technology Review, August 4, 2015
IT researchers presented algorithm to separate an image's foreground from its background in order to remove unwanted obstructions.

"MIT Camera Culture Group Develops the 'eyeSelfie' to Help Monitor Eye Health"
Boston Globe, August 5, 2015
MIT Media Lab researchers developed eyeSelfie, a low-cost, handheld device for taking images of the retina, optic nerve, and vasculature.

"3D Cursors Sculpt at SIGGRAPH"
EE Times, August 9, 2015
University of Montreal researchers demonstrated a system that uses a tablet to control a 3D cursor that can be used to draw and manipulate objects in 3D simulations.

"Information in Bright Sunlight and Darkness"
Carnegie Mellon News, August 10, 2015
Researchers at Carnegie Mellon University (CMU) and the University of Toronto have created a mathematical model to help address a major problem of depth-sensing cameras: their inability to work in bright light, especially sunlight.

"UMass Amherst Computer Scientists Introduce New Graphics Software"
UMass Amherst, August 11, 2015
Computer scientists from the University of Massachusetts Amherst led by Evangelos Kalogerakis have developed a software modeling program that can compare the style similarity of 3D objects.

"Animation Research Moves Forward, One Wardrobe at a Time"
Georgia Tech News Center, August 11, 2015
Georgia Institute of Technology researchers developed algorithm that enables virtual characters to intelligently manipulate simulated cloth in order to put on clothes and get dressed.

Nothing cryptic: Israeli scientist works to simplify information security
JNS.org, June 24, 2015
2014 ACM-Infosys Foundation Award in Computing Sciences recipient Dan Boneh talks about ensuring security and privacy for mobile phone users, PDF document sharers, and others.

When to Keep Fitness Goals a Secret
The Wall Street Journal, June 15, 2015
Proceedings paper from CHI 2015showed that people who used Facebook were less likely to set fitness goals in the first place than others who kept their commitments to themselves.

Longstanding Problem Put to Rest
MIT News, June 10, 2015
In their STOC 2015 conference paper, MIT researcher Piotr Indyk (who, along with Andrei Broder and Moses S. Charikar, received the 2012 ACM Paris Kanellakis Theory and Practice Award) and MIT student Arturs Backurs demonstrate new solution to NP-complete problem.

Microsoft Algorithm Improves Directions in Large Networks for Bing Maps
EurekAlert, June 9, 2015
Microsoft researchers say Customizable Route Planning more accurately estimates the time needed for turns, U-turns, road closures, and traffic jams. The research leveraged a classic algorithm by 1972 ACM A.M. Turing Award recipient Edsger Dijkstra.

Closing the Computer Science Gender Gap: How One Woman Is Making a Difference in Many Lives
The Conversation, June 8, 2015
Maria Klawe, president of Harvey Mudd College and former president of ACM, says the decline of women's participation in computer science (CS) can be reversed.

Code.org Inks 11 New Partnerships to Help Expand Computer Science Education
GeekWire, June 3, 2015
Code.org this week announced 11 new partnerships with organizations dedicated to helping the computer science education advocate reach even more schools than it could on its own. (ACM is a partner of Code.org.)

To Handle Big Data, Shrink It
MIT News, May 20, 2015
MIT researchers will present an algorithm that finds the smallest possible approximation of a matrix that guarantees reliable computations at the 47th ACM Symposium on Theory of Computing (STOC 15).

Tech Giants Don't Want Obama to Give Police Access to Encrypted Phone Data
The Washington Post, May 19, 2015
A group of more than 140 technology companies, prominent technologists, and civil society groups have signed a letter addressed to President Barack Obama urging him to reject any government proposals that might allow law enforcement to force technology companies to install backdoors or otherwise weaken the encryption they use to secure their devices and data. The signatories include USACM, as well as policy experts such as SRI International Computer Science Lab principal scientist Peter G. Neumann, moderator of the ACM Risks Forum.

Code.org Targets High School Computer Science
USA Today, May 14, 2015
Code.org (of which ACM is a partner) is collaborating with College Board to work to expand computer science in US high schools and increase the number of female and minority students taking computer science courses. Code.org CEO Hadi Partovi says the nonprofit will provide the curriculum, tools, training, and funding to school districts that qualify.

Self-driving cars getting dinged in California
msn.com, May 11, 2015
A higher priority is teaching cars to avoid causing a serious accident that could set public and political acceptance of the technology back years, says ACM SIGBED Chair Raj Rajkumar.

Girls Just Want to Code. The Trick Is Making Sure They Don't Stop
CNet, May 8, 2015
Harvey Mudd College president and former ACM president Maria Klawe cites the trend of intimidation by a classroom where males are a majority discouraging girls' pursuit of STEM degrees as a clear argument for changing how schools teach computer science.

Nepal: CRICIS Computing Is Needed
CCC Blog, May 7, 2015
Texas A&M University computer science professor and ACM 2014 Lawler Award recipient Robin Murphy says the recent earthquake in Nepal illustrates the need for critical real-time computing and information systems (CRICIS) computing.

Internet Pioneer Vint Cerf Calls for Rapid Web Security Enhancements
eWeek, May 5, 2015
The need for security was a recurring theme of the remarks made by Internet pioneer and past ACM president Vint Cerf at the National Press Club.

One Way to Reduce Email Stress: Re-Invent the Mailing List
MIT News, April 27, 2015
MIT CSAIL researchers present prototype system Murmur—which they hope will improve the experience of using email mailing lists by incorporating popular social media features such as upvoting, following, and blocking—at CHI 2015.

RSA: Panel Calls NSA Access to Encryption Keys a Bad Idea
Network World, April 22, 2015
Panelists at the RSA 2015 security conference's cryptography panel this week expressed skepticism about the encryption key escrow schemes being put forward by the US government to ensure it has access to encrypted communications data. On the panel were 2002 ACM A.M. Turing Award co-recipients Ron Rivest and Adi Shamir, and Whitfield Diffie, co-recipient of the ACM 1996 Paris Kanellakis Award.

Vigilance Is the Price of Secure Computing
Chronicle of Higher Education, April 20, 2015
ACM SIGACCESS Chair Andrew Sears believes that a serious and sustained investment in cybersecurity education is key to keeping the US safe.

Explore Resources for Women Undergrads in Science, Engineering
US News & World Report, April 20, 2015
ACM-W Chair Valerie Barr cites the importance of "celebrations"—face-to-face mentoring events—to network and build community, and provide support for women in STEM.

These Nightmare Bracelets Were Made by a New 3D Printing Design Method
Motherboard, April 9, 2015
New type of user interface called Tactum that uses skin as the primary input method will win "best paper honorable mention" at CHI 2015.

Stanford Crypto Expert Dan Boneh Wins $175K Computer Science Award
Network World, March 31, 2015
Stanford University's Dan Boneh honored by ACM and Infosys Foundation for his cryptography work.

Wearable Technology Can Help With Public Speaking
University of Rochester NewsCenter, March 30, 2015
University of Rochester team presented an intelligent user interface for smart glasses at ACM's Intelligent User Interfaces Conference (IUI 2015).

Reviewing Online Homework at Scale
MIT News, March 30, 2015
Massachusetts Institute of Technology researchers have developed a system that automatically compares students' solutions to programming assignments, and batches those that use the same methods. They presented the OverCode system at CHI 2015.

Finger-Mounted Reading Device for the Blind
MIT News, March 10, 2015
MIT researchers will present a paper describing the device at the ACM CHI 2015 conference.

What Can We Do to Improve Computer Education?
Opensource.com, March 6, 2015
The SIGCSE 2015 Technical Symposium provided an opportunity to address issues with computer programs, curricula, and courses at all levels of instruction.

Kids and Robots Learn to Write Together
Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Lausanne, March 4, 2015
Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (EPFL) researchers presented their teaching tool, called CoWriter, at the ACM/IEEE International Conference on Human-Robot Interaction.

Dozens of Tech, Education, and Nonprofit Execs Urge Passage of Washington Computer Science Bill
GeekWire, March 4, 2015
More than 50 business and education leaders have signed a strongly worded appeal to the Washington state House of Representatives, urging them to vote for a bill that would expand computer science education in the state's schools. Among the 53 signers of the letter are Code.org CEO Hadi Partovi.

Flexible Sensors Turn Skin into a Touch-Sensitive Interaction Space for Mobile Devices
Saarland University, March 4, 2015
Researchers at Saarland and Carnegie Mellon universities will present their iSkin project at the ACM CHI 2015 conference. Their paper won the conference's Best Paper Award.

SC15 Chair on HPC Transforms, Diversity Outreach, and Austin
HPC Wire, March 3, 2015
In an interview, Jackie Kern, general chair of the SC15 conference, shares her agenda for the year and plans for the November event. To publicize the conference, SC15 has launched a blog and newsletter featuring news about the future of the SC conference series.

Why Computers Still Struggle to Tell the Time
PC World, March 2, 2015
Speaking at ACM's Applicative conference, George Neville-Neil, ACM Queue's Kode Vicious columnist said the problem stems largely from the hardware most computers use to tell time: often inexpensive crystal oscillators that lose precision over time.

Could IBM's Brain-Inspired Chip Change the Way Computers Are Built?
The Washington Post, March 2, 2015
Dharmendra Modha, head of brain-inspired computing at IBM who received the ACM Gordon Bell Prize in 2009 for his work on cortical simulations, says the company wants to create a "brain in a box" that consumes less than 1 kilowatt of power.

Communicating Science Broadly: NSF launches new multimedia features to showcase research
NSF.gov, February 26, 2015
A new video interview series with NSF-funded scientists and program officers features ACM Distinguished Speaker and Distinguished Member Juan Gilbert.

Queen's Researchers in Bid to Develop World's Fastest Supercomputers
Queen's University Belfast, February 24, 2015
"This project sheds valuable insight on how to use many core-based systems effectively, proving major benefits for a wide range of scientific endeavors that depend on large-scale simulations," says ACM Fellow and 2013 Ken Kennedy Award recipient Jack Dongarra.

Google's Vint Cerf Warns of "Digital Dark Age"
BBC News, February 13, 2015
ACM past president Vint Cerf, one of the pioneers of Internet technology and now a vice president and Chief Internet Evangelist at Google, worries about a forthcoming "digital Dark Age" in which the rapid pace of technological advancement will leave behind mountains of data people will no longer be able to access.

Researcher Receives $1 Million NSF Grant to Devise New Supercomputing Model
Texas Tech Today, February 10, 2015
Texas Tech University professor and George Michael HPC Fellowship recipient Yong Chen has received a $1-million grant from the National Science Foundation to create a faster and improved method for supercomputing.

Legislators Want Computer Science to Count for Language Requirement
Campus Technology, February 9, 2015
Only 40 percent of high schools count credits earned in a computer science class toward requirements, while the rest treat such courses as electives, according to a recent study by the Computer Science Teachers Association (CSTA).

School Leaders Mostly Mystified by Computer Science Education
THE Journal, February 2, 2015
A disparity exists in the type of computer science (CS) education available to students in higher- versus lower-income schools, according to a new Oracle Academy survey of US teachers administered by the Computer Science Teachers Association (CSTA).

Sustained Investment in Research Is Needed to Combat Cyberthreats, CISE AD Tells Congress
Computing Research Policy Blog, January 29, 2015
In testimony before the U.S. House Science, Space, and Technology Committee's Research and Technology Subcommittee on Tuesday, Computer and Information Science and Engineering (CISE) assistant director and ACM Fellow Jim Kurose said sustained basic research investment is necessary for countering growing cyberthreats.

Out of Control AI Will Not Kill Us, Believes Microsoft Research Chief
BBC News, January 28, 2015
Microsoft Research chief and ACM Fellow Eric Horvitz, who recently received the AAAI Feigenbaum Prize for outstanding advances in artificial intelligence (AI) research, thinks AI systems eventually could achieve consciousness, but he doubts they could become a threat to humanity.

MOOCs Aim to Strengthen Computer Science and Physics Teaching in Middle and High Schools
Forbes, January 13, 2015
Many agree that one of the best ways to close the gender and diversity gaps in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) is to begin educating students in those fields earlier in their K-12 careers, writes Harvey Mudd College president and former ACM president Maria Klawe.

The Hype Is Dead, but MOOCs Are Marching On
Knowledge@Wharton, January 5, 2015
Coursera co-founder and recipient of the 2007 ACM-Infosys Foundation Award in the Computing Sciences Daphne Koller says much of the cooling of enthusiasm for massive open online courses in the past two years has more to do with outsized expectations than unimpressive performance.