Communications of the ACM
The opinion archive provides access to past opinion stories from Communications of the ACM and other sources by date.
February 2013
From ACM Careers
The Other Ted Prize
Sergey Brin waltzed in for a try and threw up a score of 250,953, first time out of the gate and with Google Glass still perched on his face.
From ACM Opinion
On Today's Battlefield, Is Information More Important Than Firepower?
Halo, Borderlands, Call of Duty, Medal of Honor, Battlefield, Metal Gear Solid—these kinds of games taught a generation to see enemies as red dots on a mini-map.
From ACM Opinion
Review: Strong Passwords and Other Security Tips
Rarely does a week go by without news of another hacking incident, whether it's Chinese hackers accused of breaking in to The New York Times' computer systems or Burger King finding its Twitter account taken over by pranksters…
From ACM Opinion
Hackers Could se 'the Internet of Things' to Turn Everyday Devices Into Paths of Attack
The "Internet of Things" is great—we'll soon be able to build apps for our cars, thermostats, refrigerators, and more. But what happens when attackers get into your company's system through an ice maker instead of the phishing…
From ACM Opinion
Interview with Creators of Romo Iphone Robot
One of the biggest charmers at TED2013 so far has been Romo the Robot, who rolled and whizzed around the stage with one of his creators, Keller Rinaudo.
From ACM Opinion
Is It Time To Take Cyborg Rights Seriously? A Q&a With Neil Harbisson.
Harbisson was born without the ability to see color, but a device he calls his "eyeborg" allows him to now "hear" color.
From ACM Opinion
The 3 Most-Important Things at Mobile World Congress
Gadget fans walked away this week from Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, the annual geek fest for connected devices, grumbling about a glaring lack of breakthrough products.
From ACM Opinion
The Art of Cyberwar
The New York Times’ front-page report last week that the Chinese army is hacking into America's most sensitive computer networks from a 12-story building outside Shanghai might finally persuade skeptics that the threat of "cyber…
From ACM Opinion
The Next Frontier Is Inside Your Brain
The Obama administration is planning a multiyear research effort to produce an "activity map" that would show in unprecedented detail the workings of the human brain, the most complex organ in the body.
From ACM Opinion
Why Marissa Mayer's Ban on Remote Working at Yahoo Could Backfire Badly
Not long after her arrival at Yahoo, new CEO Marissa Mayer started handing out carrots to her new employees, including new smartphones, free food, and other Google-style amenities.
From ACM Opinion
How Google Did the Right Thing with the Nascar Crash Video, and Why It Matters
At a NASCAR event on Saturday, debris created by a serious crash flew into the stands and injured a number of fans.
From ACM Opinion
How Augmented-Reality Content Might Actually Work
Augmented reality is very exciting. The promise of it is this: all the information on the Internet overlaid on the real world exactly where and when you need it.
From ACM Opinion
The Ar-15 Is More Than a Gun. It's a Gadget
I was shaking as I shouldered the rifle and peered through the scope at the small steel target 100 yards downrange.
From ACM Opinion
What China's Hackers Get Wrong About Washington
"Start asking security experts which powerful Washington institutions have been penetrated by Chinese cyberspies," report my colleagues Craig Timberg and Ellen Nakashima, "and this is the usual answer: almost all of them."
From ACM Opinion
Steve Ballmer on the Strategy Behind His Strangest Product
Windows 8, the most recent version of Microsoft's operating system, is the most ambitious and the strangest major product ever released by the software giant.
From ACM Opinion
Calling Out the Robocaller
Last month, the Haggler was sitting at home when the phone rang.
From ACM Opinion
The Mystery of Google Street View's Blurred Brooklyn Brownstone
We've all had shifty neighbors.
From ACM Opinion
Inside Google's Ultrabook Gambit
Cloud computing has been around for some time now. But not many people believe they can do all their computing in the cloud. Not many, that is, outside the brainaics at the Googleplex.
From ACM News
How Secure Is the Papal Election?
As the College of Cardinals prepares to elect a new pope, security people like me wonder about the process. How does it work, and just how hard would it be to hack the vote?
From ACM Opinion
The Definitive Story of Steve Wozniak, Steve Jobs, and Phone Phreaking
Like the flap of a butterfly's wings causing a hurricane half a world away, the ripples of unintended consequences from Ron Rosenbaum's "Secrets of the Little Blue Box" continued to spread.
From ACM Careers
Private .s. Firms Take Major Role Vs. Cyberattacks
When Kevin Mandia, a retired military cybercrime investigator, decided to expose China as a primary threat to U.S. computer networks, he didn't have to consult with American diplomats in Beijing or declassify tactics to safely…
From ACM Opinion
The Newest Overhyped Mobile Industry Buzzword: Lte-Advanced
Admittedly, mobile technology evolves at a very fast pace. But somewhere along the way we seem to have skipped an entire generation of networks.
From ACM Opinion
With Playstation 4, Sony Aims For Return to Glory
For the Sony Corporation, a tech industry also-ran, the moment of reckoning is here.
From ACM Opinion
Windows 8: Design Over sability
Windows 8 is a computer science masterpiece trapped inside a user interface kerfuffle.
From ACM Opinion
The Brain Is Not Computable
Miguel Nicolelis, a top neuroscientist at Duke University, says computers will never replicate the human brain and that the technological Singularity is "a bunch of hot air."
From ACM Opinion
How Samsung Is Out-Innovating Apple
There's no arguing that Apple set the standard for modern mobile devices with the iPhone and the iPad. It didn't take long after those two products launched for competitors to rush out their own copycat devices.
From ACM Opinion
Why Mapping the Human Brain Matters
It turns out that President Barack Obama’s head-scratching mention of a project to map the human brain in his most recent State of the Union speech was more than just a casual comment.
From ACM Opinion
Sony's Playstation 4: Five Things We Want to Know
New York, 6pm Wednesday, the next generation starts.
From ACM Opinion
The Boy Wonder of Buzzfeed
"BenSmithing is now an official term!" shouted Michael Hastings, a BuzzFeed reporter and author, at his book release party in Chelsea on a subfreezing night in January.
From ACM Opinion
Why We Love Beautiful Things
Great design, the management expert Gary Hamel once said, is like Justice Potter Stewart's famous definition of pornography—you know it when you see it.