Communications of the ACM
The opinion archive provides access to past opinion stories from Communications of the ACM and other sources by date.
September 2016
From ACM Opinion
An Ode to the Rosetta Spacecraft as It Flings Itself Into a Comet
Today, the European Space Agency's Rosetta spacecraft will engage its thrusters for one final maneuver: a suicidal plunge toward the comet it has been orbiting for two years and chasing for a decade.
From ACM Opinion
Why Big Pharma Wants to Collect 2 Million Genomes
Five months after announcing its intentions to gather genome sequences from 2 million people, pharmaceutical giant AstraZeneca has selected geneticist David Goldstein to head up the task.
From ACM Opinion
Y2k 2.0: Is the .s. Government Set to 'give Away the Internet' Saturday?
Remember the projected Y2K bug disaster? The world's computers would supposedly go haywire as the clock ticked to January 1, 2000, thus destroying the world and ensuing widespread panic.
From ACM Opinion
Why Data Is the New Coal
"Is data the new oil?" asked proponents of big data back in 2012 in Forbes magazine. By 2016, and the rise of big data's turbo-powered cousin deep learning, we had become more certain: "Data is the new oil," stated Fortune.
From ACM Opinion
Online Trackers Follow Our Digital Shadow By 'fingerprinting' Browsers, Devices
As we surf from website to website, we are being tracked—that's not news. What is news, revealed in a recent paper by researchers at Princeton University, is that the tracking is no longer just about the "cookies" that record…
From ACM Opinion
What If the Aliens We Are Looking For Are Ai?
For more than a century we have been broadcasting our presence to the cosmos.
From ACM Opinion
The Internet Is No Place For Public Elections
Despite what your local election officials may tell you, you can’t trust the Internet with your vote.
From ACM Opinion
Grading the Presidential Candidates on Science
Two weeks ago, Scientific American asked for your help in grading the presidential candidates on their answers to 20 questions about various aspects of scientific endeavor.
From ACM Opinion
Ted Cruz Is Wrong About How Free Speech Is Censored on the Internet
Sen. Ted Cruz wants to engineer a United States takeover of a key Internet organization, ICANN, in the name of protecting freedom of expression.
From ACM Opinion
Pro Evolution Soccer 2017 Review: The Finest Soccer Game Ever Made
There are many ways to interpret the beautiful game.
From ACM Opinion
Are the Experts Worried About the Existential Risk of Artificial Intelligence?
If you believe everything you read, you are probably quite worried about the prospect of a superintelligent, killer AI.
From ACM Opinion
For the Debaters: What Shall We Do About the Tech Careening Our Way?
Here's a question I’m hoping comes up at Monday's presidential debate: Secretary Clinton and Mr. Trump, what would you do about self-driving trucks?
From ACM Opinion
An 'interview' With Google's New Digital Assistant
Alphabet Inc.'s Google unit introduced a new digital assistant Wednesday. Bloomberg News put the system through its paces by asking questions, some of which were suggested by AI experts including Oren Etzioni, head of the Allen…
From ACM Opinion
The Cold War Is Over. The Cyber War Has Begun.
Contemplating Russian nuclear threats during the Cold War, the strategist Herman Kahn calibrated a macabre ladder of escalation, with 44 rungs ranging from "Ostensible Crisis" to "Spasm or Insensate War."
From ACM Opinion
'just Because We Can With Data, Doesn't Mean We Should'
Data scientists should have a strong moral compass in order to handle big data, according to DJ Patil, deputy chief technology officer for data policy and chief data scientist at the White House Office of Science and Technology…
From ACM Opinion
Big Step For Quantum Teleportation Won't Bring S Any Closer to Star Trek. Here's Why
Two teams have set new distance records for quantum teleportation: using the weirdness of quantum mechanics to instantly transfer the condition or "state" of one quantum particle to another one in a different location.
From ACM Opinion
The Leaky Myths of Snowden
Oliver Stone's Snowden is a bad movie, stuffed with myth, short on drama.
From ACM Opinion
Neither Hillary Clinton Nor Donald Trump Is Tech Savvy
Rachel Law, the 20-something co-founder of a New York startup called Kip, is sitting next to me at a café, tapping her phone screen to show how the company’s service based on artificial intelligence allows users to shop while…
From ACM Opinion
The Feds Will Soon Be Able to Legally Hack Almost Anyone
Digital devices and software programs are complicated. Behind the pointing and clicking on screen are thousands of processes and routines that make everything work.
From ACM Opinion
Why Scientists Must Share Their Research Code
Many scientists worry over the reproducibility of wet-lab experiments, but data scientist Victoria Stodden's focus is on how to validate computational research: analyses that can involve thousands of lines of code and complex…
From ACM Opinion
How Long ntil Hackers Start Faking Leaked Documents?
In the past few years, the devastating effects of hackers breaking into an organization's network, stealing confidential data, and publishing everything have been made clear
From ACM Opinion
The Time I Went on Border Patrol in a Virtual Reality World
I found myself on a desolate desert road, in front of a man who was leaning against the hood of a banged-up sedan and next to a United States Border Patrol agent who was on the radio of her patrol vehicle, running the sedan's…
From ACM Opinion
Q+a With The First Female Director Of Mit's Largest Research Lab
Daniela Rus is the first female director of MIT's Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory. From her post, she has witnessed and influenced a number of trends that are driving the current digital revolution.
From ACM Opinion
Microsoft's Top Lawyer Becomes a Civil Rights Crusader
When Apple CEO Tim Cook refused to help the FBI get into a mass murderer's iPhone last winter, he was hailed for his boldness in fighting the government on a matter of principle.
From ACM Opinion
The Worlds of H. G. Wells
Herbert George Wells (1866–1946) occupies a singular place in science and culture.
From ACM Opinion
How Scientifically Plausible Is 'star Trek'?
"Star Trek" turns 50 on Sept. 8, and instead of buying it a fancy sports car, our mission is to boldly go down the "Star Trek" rabbit hole, or rather, wormhole, and nerd out about the show to mark this milestone.
From ACM Opinion
The Do-Not-Call List Has a Gaping Hole
Sure, legitimate telemarketers will refrain from calling you if you've put your phone number on it. But criminal telephone spammers will call you anyway because it's become so easy for them to evade U.S. law enforcement.
From ACM Opinion
Paperless Voting Could Fuel 'rigged' Election Claims
Voters in four competitive states will cast ballots in November on electronic machines that leave no paper trail—a lapse that threatens to sow distrust about a presidential election in which supporters of both Donald Trump and…
From ACM Opinion
The Next President Will Decide the Fate of Killer Robots, and the Future of War
The next president will have a range of issues on their plate, from how to deal with growing tensions with China and Russia, to an ongoing war against ISIS.
From ACM Opinion
Before Apple And Facebook, There Was Something More Revolutionary
It's easy to think that the modern era in communication began in the 1990s with the birth of the Internet.