Communications of the ACM
The opinion archive provides access to past opinion stories from Communications of the ACM and other sources by date.
September 2012
From ACM Opinion
What Makes Google's Maps So Good
Wow. Nothing makes you appreciate something like losing it.
From ACM Opinion
Apple Needs to Find Its Exit Strategy From China
"IPhone5 Launch Causes Riots" You'd expect to see headlines like this when consumers beat down doors and trample each other, yet these riots were in China, among workers at Foxconn, a major supplier to Apple and other U.S. companies…
From ACM Opinion
Could the Internet Ever 'Wake Up'?
In the world of sci-fi movie geekdom, Aug. 29, 1997, was a turning point for humanity: On that day, according to the Terminator films, the network of U.S. defense computers known as Skynet became self-aware—and soon launched …
From ACM Opinion
The Internet? We Built That
Who created the Internet and why should we care? These questions, so often raised during the Bush-Gore election in 2000, have found their way back into the political debate this season—starting with one of the most cited texts…
From ACM News
Apple-Google Maps Talks Crashed Over Voice-Guided Directions
Google Chairman Eric Schmidt says Apple should have continued to use Google’s mapping application in iOS 6 instead of swapping it out for its poorly received home-brewed replacement, and given the sour reception Apple’s Maps…
From ACM Opinion
Interview With Eugene Kaspersky
Eugene Kaspersky has had an interesting, varied life, with more than his share of adventures, successes and challenges. He's seen and done a lot, but when he learned that he was going to receive an honorary degree from Plymouth…
From ACM Opinion
Why Everyone (not Just Geeks) Should Care About Big Data
Hugo Campos has a cardiac defibrillator implanted in his body. It sends data about his heart to his doctors and back to the manufacturer, but it takes days to get access to this data himself—if he can access it all.
From ACM Opinion
Meet Mira, the Supercomputer That Makes niverses
Cosmology is the most ambitious of sciences. Its goal, plainly stated, is to describe the origin, evolution, and structure of the entire universe, a universe that is as enormous as it is ancient.
From ACM Opinion
Who's Behind the Wheel? Nobody.
The Mazda Raceway at Laguna Seca is a 2.2-mile asphalt roller coaster plunging and soaring across California's tawny Monterey highlands.
From ACM Opinion
Why Wi-Fi Is Often So Slow
A number of Internet service providers, including Comcast Corp. and Verizon Communications Inc., have recently upped the maximum speeds of broadband they offer residential customers to as much as 305 megabits per second.
From ACM Opinion
Disconnect Between Application Development and Security Getting Wider
There is a widening gulf between application developers and security decision makers inside the enterprise, and it’s starting to cost companies serious money.
From ACM Opinion
Google News at 10: How the Algorithm Won Over the News Industry
In April of 2010, Eric Schmidt delivered the keynote address at the conference of the American Society of News Editors in Washington, D.C. During the talk, the then-CEO of Google went out of his way to articulate—and then reiterate—his…
From ACM Opinion
When Gps Tracking Violates Privacy Rights
For the right to personal privacy to survive in America in this digital age, courts must be meticulous in applying longstanding privacy protections to new technology. This did not happen in an unfortunate ruling last month by…
From ACM Opinion
If Design's No Longer the Killer Differentiator, What Is?
We already know that design matters. Product design. Industrial design. Experience design. Supply chain design. Witness the renewed fervor for the iPhone 5 today: It goes way beyond function to sheer desire.
From BLOG@CACM
Nomenclaturing: Let's Ture to the Max!
Christos Papadimitriou's recently published reminiscences include the fascinating story of how he learned about Turing Machines: As a bored undergraduate in a Greek university, he happened to see the definition buried within …
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 moved toward war even as the players thought they were choosing…
From ACM Opinion
Apple and the Specter of Decline
Things look good for Apple right now.
From ACM Opinion
Air Force Video Compares Facebook, Iphone to Atom Bombs
The world of tomorrow is going to be a dark and sinister place, according to a group of Air Force futurists. One reason why it'll be so scary: Facebook.
From ACM Opinion
An Open Letter to Wikipedia
Dear Wikipedia, I am Philip Roth. I had reason recently to read for the first time the Wikipedia entry discussing my novel "The Human Stain."
From ACM Opinion
The Iphone 5's A6 Chip Could Be Apple's Sweetest Revenge Against Samsung
Four years ago, Apple set out on a dangerous path. It spent about $300 million on a struggling chip designer called PA Semi. The purchase signaled that Apple intended to design its own chips for devices like the iPhone.
From ACM Opinion
5 Ideas to Help Everyone Make the Most of Big Data
Big data is going mainstream, but there are still plenty of lessons to be learned from Silicon Valley data scientists whose businesses depend on data to survive.
From ACM Opinion
Nasa-Jpl Director Charles Elachi Talks About Latest Mars Mission
The car-sized Mars rover Curiosity, which landed on the Red Planet last month, is the biggest, most expensive and most ambitious planetary mission in many years.
From ACM Opinion
Arturo Bejar, Facebook Director of Engineering
Facebook engineering director Arturo Bejar is a numbers guy by training. But he's also in charge of the giant social network's foray into what it calls "compassion research"—using advanced social science tools to help Facebook's…
From ACM Opinion
Iphone 6: 9 Most-Wanted Features
The iPhone 5 is here and millions of people will buy it and love it. But its arrival also starts the clock ticking on the next iPhone.
From ACM News
It's Official: The Era of the Personal Computer Is Over
As a signpost on the road to the so-called Post-PC Era we’ve been hearing about for so many years, this one is pretty hard to argue with: As of this year, personal computers no longer consume the majority of the world’s memory…
From ACM Opinion
Breaking p the Echo
It is well known that when like-minded people get together, they tend to end up thinking a more extreme version of what they thought before they started to talk.
From ACM Opinion
Investing in Our Future; Investing in Research
The future of the American university and of American innovation is in jeopardy, threatened by cuts in government-sponsored research funding, according to Caroline Whitacre, Vice President for Research at Ohio State University…
From ACM TechNews
Despite a Slowdown, Smartphone Advances Are Still Ahead
Apple's new iPhone 5 has faster chips and a bigger screen, but these improvements lack the dramatic impact the first iPhone had in 2007. However, analysts say breakthroughs in smartphone materials, software, and batteries could…
From ACM TechNews
Intel Seeks to Eliminate Computer Passwords With Wave of Hand
Intel researchers recently demonstrated a system that has the potential to do away with computer passwords.
From ACM Opinion
Iphone 5? Yawn. What Will the 'phone' of 2022 Look Like?
The near-term future of phones is fairly well-established. The iPhone 5 was released Wednesday and its similarity to every Apple phone since 2007 serves as a reminder that our current mobile devices have been sitting on the same…