Communications of the ACM
The opinion archive provides access to past opinion stories from Communications of the ACM and other sources by date.
July 2014
From ACM Opinion
Will Computers Ever Replace Teachers?
The classroom looked like a call center.
From ACM Opinion
The Hazards of Probing the Internet's Dark Side
Late last year, hackers breached Target's data security and stole information from millions of credit cards.
From ACM Opinion
Stop Complaining About the Facebook Study. It's a Golden Age For Research
Several years ago, my student and I studied anonymous email server data from 40,000 students, faculty and staff at a large university.
From ACM Opinion
Seeker, Doer, Giver, Ponderer
James H. Simons likes to play against type.
From ACM Opinion
Billy Beane on the Future of Sports: A Tech-Driven Revolution
Baseball—my passion and profession for three decades—has been at the forefront of the analytics revolution sweeping through sports.
From ACM Opinion
Arm Tries to Spread Its Chips to Forests, Felds, and Factories
Forest fire on the way? Building stress getting too high? Farmland too moist?
From ACM Careers
Keeping Time By Rubidium at the Naval Observatory
You know when you dial a number, and a man reads you the exact time at the tone? That precise timekeeping starts at the Naval Observatory in Washington, D.C.
From ACM Opinion
7 Things You Should Know About Tor
We posted last week about the Tor Challenge and why everyone should use Tor.
From ACM Opinion
Should Facebook Manipulate sers?
Should we worry that technology companies can secretly influence our emotions?
From ACM Opinion
Snowden Asylum in Germany?
Revelations by Edward Snowden about U.S. surveillance continue to shake Germany more than one year after he came forward as a National Security Agency whistleblower.
From ACM Opinion
How My Dad's Equation Sparked the Search For Extraterrestrial Intelligence
A few days before Halloween in 1961, a young astronomer was mulling over a fairly serious problem.
From ACM Opinion
Studying Your sers: Facebook's Greatest Hits
Facebook's massive psychological experiment involving almost 700,000 unwitting users has attracted plenty of attention and outrage, but it's far from the only time the company has used its enormous data set to conduct social…
From Communications of the ACM
The Business of the State
Considering the opportunities and challenges for commercial firms involved with government business process outsourcing.
From Communications of the ACM
That Classroom 'Magic'
Effective teaching practices for broadening participation in computer science.
From Communications of the ACM
Licensing Professional Software Engineers: Seize the Opportunity
Professional organizations should be in the forefront of the ongoing discussion about licensing professional software engineers.
From Communications of the ACM
Structural Challenges and the Need to Adapt
Broadening the conversation about scholars and scholarship in computing and information research.
From Communications of the ACM
Watching TV on Internet-Connected Devices
The ABC vs. Aereo case has potentially far-reaching consequences.
From Communications of the ACM
Toward a Pedagogy of Ethical Practice
Teaching computing ethics in a manner that allows students to address both abstract ethical knowledge and actual ethical practice.