Communications of the ACM
Innovation Is Overrated: A Provocation
Digital innovation is not working in the interest of the whole of society. It is time to radically rethink its purpose without…
From ACM Opinion
Large Patent Holders Hate This Reform Proposal. That’s a Good Sign.
The fight over patent reform has turned into a two-front war.
From ACM Opinion
Google Maps Trained S to Follow Directions. Now Its Former Developer Wants S to Explore.
It's not evident from the way his hair flops casually down and across, nor from his equally relaxed demeanor, but John Hanke is one of Google's most important idea...
From ACM Opinion
Microsoft Is Doomed, But First It's Going to Make a Ton of Money
Microsoft stock lost about 10 percent of its value in the wake of a quarterly earnings report on Thursday that investors deemed sub-par. Yet revenue for the second...
From ACM Opinion
The Coming Political Battle Over Bitcoin
Given that Bitcoin first broke into mainstream attention when Gawker explained how to use it to buy drugs, perhaps the surprise is that it took federal regulators...
From ACM Opinion
Name-Brand Genes: Is Our Genetic Makeup What's Next in Personal Branding?
The Supreme Court heard arguments Monday in a case that could decide whether it's possible to patent specific human genes that have been "snipped" out of our DNA...
From ACM Opinion
Immigration and the Knowledge Economy
Earlier this year I started teaching a class on entrepreneurship at an after-school program in my community.
From ACM Opinion
Boing Boing's Cory Doctorow on 'homeland,' Printed Guns, and Heart Hacking
I had the pleasure of spending some time with Cory Doctorow on Feb. 25 at the Jefferson Hotel here in the nation's capital.
From ACM Opinion
What China's Hackers Get Wrong About Washington
"Start asking security experts which powerful Washington institutions have been penetrated by Chinese cyberspies," report my colleagues Craig Timberg and Ellen...
From ACM Opinion
Jill and Scott Kelley on the Petraeus Scandal and Loss of Privacy
We woke up on the morning of Nov. 9 expecting the usual: for one of us, the tending to patients; for the other, the morning rush of packing lunches and getting...
From ACM Opinion
What the Baseball Hall of Fame Decision Could Mean For the Singularity
If you buy into Ray Kurzweil's vision of the Singularity, then the future is a marvelous place where we’re all physically and mentally enhanced and living longer...
From ACM Opinion
Fcc Chief's Painstaking Approach Earns Mixed Reviews in Turbulent Times For Telecom Industry
When he isn't chairing the Federal Communications Commission, Julius Genachowski enjoys a seat at a poker table.
From ACM Opinion
Lessons from an Iranian War Game
Perhaps it was the "fog of simulation." But the scariest aspect of a U.S.-Iran war game staged this week was the way each side miscalculated the other’s responses—and...
From ACM Opinion
Technology Can Be Harnessed to Fight Drug Cartels in Mexico
A couple of months ago we visited Juarez, Mexico, a city right across our border—yet so far away.
From ACM Opinion
Pinterest a Company to Watch on Ip Issues, Expert Says
Pinterest's growth is stabilizing after exploding onto the scene.
From ACM Opinion
A Cyber Risk to the .s.
In a recent briefing to Congress about worldwide threats, FBI Director Robert S. Mueller III said that the danger of cyberattacks will equal or surpass the danger...
From ACM Careers
Dna: The Next Big Hacking Frontier
Imagine computer-designed viruses that cure disease, new bacteria capable of synthesizing an unlimited fuel supply, new organisms that wipe out entire populations...
From ACM Opinion
A Hint of Deterrence in .s. Drone-War Strategy
Here’s the trickiest counterterrorism puzzle for U.S. policymakers: How do you stop al-Qaeda from attacking the American homeland without getting bogged down...
From ACM News
.s. Cyber Approach 'too Predictable' For One Top General
The nation’s second-ranking military official said Thursday that the U.S. approach to protecting its computer systems was "too predictable" and failed to penalize...
From ACM Opinion
A Gold Standard in Cyber-Defense
The history of Internet security is both worrisome and instructive. When the first virus — the "Morris worm"—was launched in 1988, the Internet was a closed system...
From ACM Opinion