Communications of the ACM
The opinion archive provides access to past opinion stories from Communications of the ACM and other sources by date.
June 2017
From ACM Opinion
Privacy in the Cellphone Age
Odds are you need to use that phone in your pocket many times a day—and doing so leaves you no choice but to constantly relay data revealing your location and movements to Verizon, AT&T or whatever cellphone company you pay for…
From ACM Opinion
Robots Will Be More seful If They Are Made to Lack Confidence
Confidence in your abilities is usually a good thing—as long as you can recognise when it's time to ask for help.
From ACM Opinion
The Mysterious Printer Code That Could Have Led the Fbi to Reality Winner
Across the computer security world yesterday, heads were shaking.
From ACM News
Enigma: Why the Fight to Break Nazi Encryption Still Matters
It was night when three British sailors and a 16-year-old canteen assistant boarded a sinking U-boat off the coast of Egypt.
From ACM Opinion
Why Apple Is Struggling to Become an Artificial-Intelligence Powerhouse
In 2011, Apple became the first company to place artificial intelligence in the pockets of millions of consumers when it launched the voice assistant Siri on the iPhone.
From ACM Opinion
How to Call B.s. on Big Data: A Practical Guide
"Nothing that you will learn in the course of your studies will be of the slightest possible use to you," the Oxford philosophy professor John Alexander Smith told his students, in 1914, "save only this: if you work hard and …
From ACM Opinion
Who Will Pay For the Future If Not the Robots?
RRobots are taking over the world's workforce—and why shouldn't they?
From ACM Opinion
20 Years After Deep Blue: How AI Has Advanced Since Conquering Chess
Twenty years ago IBM's Deep Blue computer stunned the world by becoming the first machine to beat a reigning world chess champion in a six-game match.
From ACM Opinion
Military-Funded Prosthetic Technologies Benefit More Than Just Veterans
In 1905, an Ohio farmer survived a railroad accident that cost him both of his legs.
From Communications of the ACM
This Is For Everyone
Sir Tim Berners-Lee on the formative years of the world wide web, and the challenges it now faces.
From Communications of the ACM
Forced Exception Handling
You can never discount the human element in programming.
From Communications of the ACM
Remaining Trouble Spots with Computational Thinking
Addressing unresolved questions concerning computational thinking.
From Communications of the ACM
Trustworthiness and Truthfulness Are Essential
Their absence can introduce huge risks . . .
From Communications of the ACM
The Influence and Promise of Alliances
Evaluating the influence of broadening participation efforts on students, faculty, organizations, and the computing education infrastructure.