Communications of the ACM
The opinion archive provides access to past opinion stories from Communications of the ACM and other sources by date.
October 2013
From ACM Opinion
As We May Type
In 1984, the personal-computer industry was still small enough to be captured, with reasonable fidelity, in a one-volume publication, the Whole Earth Software Catalog.
From ACM Opinion
N.s.a. Director Gives Firm and Broad Defense of Surveillance Efforts
The director of the National Security Agency, Gen. Keith B. Alexander, said in an interview that to prevent terrorist attacks he saw no effective alternative to the N.S.A.'s bulk collection of telephone and other electronic metadata…
From ACM Opinion
A Court Order Is an Insider Attack
Commentators on the Lavabit case, including the judge himself, have criticized Lavabit for designing its system in a way that resisted court-ordered access to user data.
From ACM Opinion
Think You Can Live Offline Without Being Tracked? Here's What It Takes
Nico Sell, the cofounder of a secure communication app called Wickr, has appeared on television twice.
From ACM Opinion
Attn Girls: Stay Interested in STEM
I was a freshman in college when I first laid my hands on a computer. It gave me an instant connection to loved ones and the world around me. That computer ignited my journey towards a Ph.D. in computer science.
From ACM Opinion
Three Questions For Microsoft's New Head of Research, Peter Lee
Microsoft's new head of research, Peter Lee, is tasked with helping the company invent the future.
From ACM Opinion
What Last Week's Anti-.s. Shift in Internet Governance Means to You
Last week a group of the Internet's governing organizations announced they were effectively turning their backs on the United States.
From ACM Opinion
Anant Agarwal Answers Questions About Edx and the Future of Education
A few weeks ago Slashdot readers had the chance to ask Anant Agarwal, the President of edX, about the future of education and the growth of MOOCs. Here are his answers to those questions.
From ACM Opinion
Intel Sees a Future Where We Will Form 'relationships' with Our Gadgets
Rugged individualists aside, many people find themselves increasingly connected not just to one another but also to the devices that make those connections possible.
From ACM News
Here's Everything You Should Know About Nsa Address Book Spying in One Faq
A new report from The Washington Post, based on documents provided by whistleblower Edward Snowden, reveals that the National Security Agency is collecting hundreds of millions of address books around the world, including many…
From ACM Opinion
The Argument For Making the Misuse of Your Personal Data a Felony
Craig Mundie is Microsoft's senior advisor to the CEO, spending his time on big-picture stuff such as (according to his bio) "key strategic projects within the company, as well as with government and business leaders around the…
From ACM Opinion
Breaking the Internet
Brazilian President Dilma Rouseff's recent indictment of the United States' cyber-spying practices has profound global repercussions for the U.S vision of a borderless, open Internet.
From ACM Opinion
The Nobel Prize in Physics Is Really a Nobel Prize in Math
This year's Nobel Prize in Physics has been awarded to François Englert and Peter W. Higgs for the prediction of the Higgs boson, which was experimentally confirmed 50 years later with the help of the Large Hadron Collider (LHC)…
From ACM Opinion
Three Questions For Tech Education Pioneer Scot Osterweil
Scot Osterweil, the creative director of the Education Arcade and a professor at the MIT Media Lab, explains why educators need to encourage more creativity — and how that could help build a better, more leisurely future.
From ACM Opinion
Playing War: How the Military ses Video Games
According to popular discourse, video games are either the divine instrument of education’s future or the software of Satan himself, provoking young men to carry out all-too-real rampages.
From ACM Opinion
A Conversation With Lavabit's Founder
In a video interview, Lavabit founder Ladar Levison discusses how he has become a symbol in the backlash against U.S. government spying.
From ACM Opinion
The Double Danger of the Nsa's 'collect It All' Policy on Surveillance
By now, most people are aware that the NSA collects massive amounts of information on ordinary Americans.
From ACM Opinion
The Evil Genius of Fantasy Football
Watching football means watching young men damage their brains.
From ACM Opinion
Here's Why Cops Should Be Required to Wear a Lapel Camera While on Duty
Police officers in Rialto, Calif., carry cameras to record their every action while on duty.
From ACM Opinion
Yep, Apple's A7 Looks Twice As Fast–at Least For Fractal Math
Is Apple's A7 chip twice as fast at processing and graphics, as Apple promised when announcing the new iPhone 5S?
From ACM Opinion
Mongodb's Eliot Horowitz: The Database Renaissance Has Begun
MongoDB's CTO and cofounder Eliot Horowitz talks about the growing strength of the NoSQL market and the issues involved with alternatives to the traditional relational database model.
From ACM Opinion
The Many Meanings of Open
I was recently asked to talk about the idea of "open," and I realized the term is used in at least eight different ways.
From ACM Opinion
Nobel Prizes 2013: Computer Models That Can Mimic Life
We talk about computer modeling a lot in the context of climate science—powerful algorithms that help scientists get a better idea of how climate systems work, how they spin off into weather, and how the systems and the weather…
From ACM Opinion
The Godfather of Apple Design Spots 4 Looming Tech Trends
Before there was Jony Ive, there was Hartmut Esslinger.
From ACM Opinion
Want to Evade Nsa Spying? Don't Connect to the Internet
Since I started working with Snowden’s documents, I have been using a number of tools to try to stay secure from the NSA.
From ACM Opinion
A Second Look at the 'second Screen'
Social-media enthusiasts, especially those on Twitter, tend to think their hobby is more popular than it really is. If you're on Twitter a lot, and the people you know best are on Twitter a lot, it's easy to delude yourself into…
From ACM Opinion
Humans 1, Robots 0
Computers seem to be replacing humans across many industries, and we're all getting very nervous.
From ACM Opinion
Google in Jeopardy: What If IBM's Watson Dethroned the King of Search?
Remember Watson, IBM's Jeopardy! champion?
From ACM Opinion
Graphene: 'miracle Material' Will Be in Your Home Sooner Than You Think
Just under 10 years ago, the Dutch-British physicist Andre Geim stumbled across a substance that would revolutionize the way we understand matter and win him and his colleague Kostya Novoselow the 2010 Nobel Prize for Physics…
From ACM Opinion
How Tom Clancy Changed Video Games
The widespread mourning of Tom Clancy's death last week is clear testament to a man who managed to have a significant impact across a range of media.