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subjectComputers And Society
authorThe New Yorker
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An edited collection of advanced computing news from Communications of the ACM, ACM TechNews, other ACM resources, and news sites around the Web.


This Is Your Avatar Speaking
From ACM News

This Is Your Avatar Speaking

Last year, in a lab at the University of Barcelona, an anonymous woman was fitted with headphones, a microphone, a head-mounted virtual-reality display, a motion...

Netflix's Secret Special Algorithm Is a Human
From ACM Opinion

Netflix's Secret Special Algorithm Is a Human

On the opening night of this year's Sundance Film Festival, two films, as usual, had their premières, gaining maximum exposure to reporters and critics.

We Know How You Feel
From ACM News

We Know How You Feel

Three years ago, archivists at A.T. & T. stumbled upon a rare fragment of computer history: a short film that Jim Henson produced for Ma Bell, in 1963.

Print Thyself
From ACM News

Print Thyself

In February of 2012, a medical team at the University of Michigan's C. S. Mott Children's Hospital, in Ann Arbor, carried out an unusual operation on a three-month...

A Print Magazine For Hackers
From ACM News

A Print Magazine For Hackers

On a Saturday afternoon earlier this summer, dozens of hackers, journalists, and activists sat on the floor in a darkened hallway of the Pennsylvania Hotel in Midtown...

The Solace of Oblivion
From ACM News

The Solace of Oblivion

October 31, 2006, an eighteen-year-old woman named Nikki Catsouras slammed her father's sports car into the side of a concrete toll booth in Orange County, California...

The Hazards of Going on Autopilot
From ACM Opinion

The Hazards of Going on Autopilot

At 9:18 P.M. on February 12, 2009, Continental Connection Flight 3407, operated by Colgan Air, took off from Newark International Airport.

Sleeping with the Enemy
From ACM News

Sleeping with the Enemy

The Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology, in Leipzig, is a large, mostly glass building shaped a bit like a banana.

What Your Cell Phone Can't Tell the Police
From ACM Opinion

What Your Cell Phone Can't Tell the Police

On May 28th, Lisa Marie Roberts, of Portland, Oregon, was released from prison after serving nine and a half years for a murder she didn't commit.

What Comes After the Turing Test?
From ACM Opinion

What Comes After the Turing Test?

Over the weekend, the news broke that a "supercomputer" program called "Eugene Goostman"—an impersonation of a wisecracking, thirteen-year-old Ukranian boy—had...

"we're at Greater Risk": General Keith Alexander
From ACM Opinion

"we're at Greater Risk": General Keith Alexander

Since Edward Snowden's revelations about government surveillence, we know more about how the National Security Agency has been interpreting Section 215 of the Patriot...

What Makes an Alien Intelligent?
From ACM News

What Makes an Alien Intelligent?

On Thursday, astronomers announced that they'd reached a new milestone in the search for Earth's "twin," or a planet much like ours that orbits in what's known...

The Electronic Holy War
From ACM News

The Electronic Holy War

In May, 1997, I.B.M.'s Deep Blue supercomputer prevailed over Garry Kasparov in a series of six chess games, becoming the first computer to defeat a world-champion...

Building the Google of Blood, One Tube at a Time
From ACM News

Building the Google of Blood, One Tube at a Time

The first shipment arrives at 4 A.M.

Starman
From ACM Opinion

Starman

It was a mild October day in Hollywood, but a trace of artificial snow remained on the ground as Neil deGrasse Tyson, the director of the Hayden Planetarium, at...

The Daunting Challenge of Secure Email
From ACM News

The Daunting Challenge of Secure Email

When users of Lavabit, an encrypted e-mail service, logged on to the site this past August, they found a bewildering letter on the site's main page.

Why We Should Think About the Threat of Artificial Intelligence
From ACM Opinion

Why We Should Think About the Threat of Artificial Intelligence

If the New York Times's latest article is to be believed, artificial intelligence is moving so fast it sometimes seems almost "magical."

Nasa's Asteroid-In-A-Bag Recipe
From ACM News

Nasa's Asteroid-In-A-Bag Recipe

"It’s not as crazy as it seemed at the beginning," Charles Elachi, the director of NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, told the Washington Post, about NASA's latest...

How Facebook Makes ­s ­nhappy
From ACM Opinion

How Facebook Makes ­s ­nhappy

No one joins Facebook to be sad and lonely.

How the N.S.A Cracked the Web
From ACM News

How the N.S.A Cracked the Web

It's been nearly three months since Edward Snowden started telling the world about the National Security Agency's mass surveillance of global communications.
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