Communications of the ACM
The opinion archive provides access to past opinion stories from Communications of the ACM and other sources by date.
January 2018
From ACM Opinion
Making Sense of Bitcoin and Its Wild Price Ride
The initial price of Bitcoin, set in 2010, was less than 1 cent.
From ACM Opinion
Trump Puts Science and Technology By the Wayside
Donald Trump's first State of the Union address failed to quell concerns over scientific policies.
From ACM Opinion
5 Ways Election Interference Could (and Probably Will) Worsen in 2018 and Beyond
If you thought 2016 was bad, just wait for the sequel.
From ACM Opinion
Bubble, Bubble, Fraud and Trouble
The other day my barber asked me whether he should put all his money in Bitcoin. And the truth is that if he'd bought Bitcoin, say, a year ago he'd be feeling pretty good right now.
From ACM Opinion
Technology to Watch in 2018
For all the excitement surrounding the gene-editing tool CRISPR, it is not that efficient or precise. It's hard to make many changes at once.
From ACM Opinion
My Pacemaker Is Tracking Me from Inside My Body
A month before turning 34, I received an unexpected birthday gift: a cloud-connected pacemaker.
From ACM Opinion
For AI to Get Creative, It Must Learn the Rules, Then How to Break 'em
American poet Ralph Waldo Emerson once said, "Every artist was first an amateur." He likely never thought those words would apply to machines.
From ACM Opinion
Cyberwar: An rgent Problem
In the desperate scramble to rearm before the second world war there was always an undercurrent of pessimism.
From ACM Opinion
I Wore the VR Glove that Fools Your Skin As Well As Your Eyes
I weigh the rock in my hand, then toss it back to the ground.
From ACM Opinion
The Dangers of Keeping Women Out of Tech
Maria Klawe has done what tech has not. For the past 11 years, she has served as the president of Harvey Mudd College, where the number of women in its computer science program has grown from 10 percent to 40 percent.
From ACM Opinion
Artificial Intelligence's 'black Box' Is Nothing to Fear
Alongside the excitement and hype about our growing reliance on artificial intelligence, there's fear about the way the technology works.
From ACM Opinion
Remembering rsula Le Guin, Imaginer of Difficult Worlds
Ursula Le Guin imagined the future for a living, but her most prescient statement may have come in a speech.
From ACM Opinion
Apple Can't Resist Playing By China's Rules
Apple is selling out. It's not about the latest version of the iPhone, but the huge cache of personal data that will be going directly to the largest, and one of the harshest, authoritarian regimes in the world: the Communist…
From ACM Opinion
Why the I.r.s. Fears Bitcoin
The extraordinary rise in the value of Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies has led many people to worry that this market is a giant bubble.
From ACM Opinion
The New Way Your Computer Can Be Attacked
On January 3, the world learned about a series of major security vulnerabilities in modern microprocessors. Called Spectre and Meltdown, these vulnerabilities were discovered by several different researchers last summer, disclosed…
From ACM Opinion
China's Breathtaking Transformation Into a Scientific Superpower
The National Science Foundation and the National Science Board have just released their biennial "Science & Engineering Indicators," a voluminous document describing the state of American technology.
From ACM TechNews
D. Fox Harrell on His Video Game For the #metoo Era
In an interview, Massachusetts Institute of Technology professor D. Fox Harrell discusses the development of Grayscale, a video game designed to make players sensitive to workplace sexual misconduct.
From ACM Opinion
Google Boss Says AI Is 'more Profound Than Electricity'
Google CEO Sundar Pichai believes artificial intelligence could have "more profound" implications for humanity than electricity or fire, according to recent comments.
From ACM Opinion
How Technology Is (and Isn't) Changing Our Reading Habits
Given that you write about the books industry, how do you prefer to read books? On a Kindle or iPad or some other device, or printed books?
From ACM Opinion
I Am a Roboticist in a Cheese Factory
Most people think about robots as autonomous machines guided by artificial intelligence.
From ACM Opinion
Forget the Robot Singularity Apocalypse. Let's Talk About the Multiplicity
For a species that's conquered Earth and traveled through space and invented the Slapchop, we humans sure are insecure when it comes to technology.
From ACM Opinion
Steam Not Stem: Why Scientists Need Arts training
From biotech to climate change, advances in technology raise significant moral questions. To engage responsibly, our next generation of scientists need training in the arts and ethics.
From ACM Opinion
Can Robots Tighten the Bolts on a Rickety Caregiver Sector?
In 2015 I was watching a dress rehearsal for a play about love, loss and aging. In a climactic scene, the lead actress gesticulated and shouted, while her co-star cowered before her—stuttering, repeating himself, faltering in…
From ACM Opinion
Beyond The bitcoin Bubble
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The sequence of words is meaningless: a random array strung together by an algorithm let loose in an English dictionary.
From ACM Opinion
In 2018, Voice Assistants Will Make the Leap Out of Your Home
At one section of Google's giant outdoor booth at CES was an impromptu, carney-style one-man show, with a guy wearing dark sunglasses and a white Google Assistant jumpsuit loudly and enthusiastically giving away free electronics…
From ACM Opinion
Congress Renews Warrantless Surveillance, and Makes It Even Worse
In 2013, Edward Snowden revealed that the National Security Agency was legally collecting millions of Americans' phone calls and electronic communications—including emails, Facebook messages, and browsing histories—without a …
From ACM Opinion
Nissan Wants to Make You a Better Driver By Reading Your Mind
Might the car of the future be able to read your mind?
From ACM Opinion
Meltdown and Spectre Expose the Dark Side of Superfast Computers
Hundreds of gadget makers and software companies at this week's annual Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas are staking the success of their newest products on the latest and greatest processors from Intel, AMD, ARM and…
From ACM Opinion
There Is No Such Thing as 'the' Blockchain
How do you quadruple your stock price without lifting a finger?
From ACM Opinion
Exoplanet Science 2.0
It is more than two decades since we learnt that the Universe is awash with other worlds. Since 1992, more than 3,500 exoplanets have been discovered orbiting stars other than our Sun.