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Etch a Sketch Lives On in Browser-Based Chrome Labs Project
From ACM Opinion

Etch a Sketch Lives On in Browser-Based Chrome Labs Project

Everyone who remembers the Etch A Sketch slabs of yesteryear remembers how difficult it was to translate your vision onto its "magic screen," and how proud youWeb...

Google Isn't the Company that We Should Have Handed the Web Over To
From ACM Opinion

Google Isn't the Company that We Should Have Handed the Web Over To

With Microsoft's decision to end development of its own Web rendering engine and switch to Chromium, control over the Web has functionally been ceded to Google....

Honoring the '80s, Def Con's Badge Is also a Text Adventure
From ACM Opinion

Honoring the '80s, Def Con's Badge Is also a Text Adventure

Nearly 30,000 people came to Las Vegas last week for the 26th edition of DEF CON, the iconic security conference. And no small amount of the mental energy of that...

Why Cops Won't Need a Warrant to Pull the Data Off Your Autonomous Car
From ACM Opinion

Why Cops Won't Need a Warrant to Pull the Data Off Your Autonomous Car

Lt. Saul Jaeger, who commands the traffic unit at the Mountain View Police Department, remembers the first time a few years ago when he was given a demo of Waymo's...

License Expired: The Ars Technica 2018 Deathwatch
From ACM Opinion

License Expired: The Ars Technica 2018 Deathwatch

Wow, that 2017, though. Quite a year. Let's grab a Juicero and take a moment to reflect on the utter dumpster fires that we've witnessed over the past 12 months...

The Real Lesson of that Self-Driving Shuttle's First-Day Accident
From ACM Opinion

The Real Lesson of that Self-Driving Shuttle's First-Day Accident

Wednesday was supposed to be the triumphant launch of a free, driverless shuttle in downtown Las Vegas.

Hacking the Vote: Threats Keep Changing, but Election It Sadly Stays the Same
From ACM Opinion

Hacking the Vote: Threats Keep Changing, but Election It Sadly Stays the Same

The outcome of the 2016 presidential election is history. But allegations of voter fraud, election interference by foreign governments, and intrusions into state...

The End of an Era Came Long Before the End of Cassini
From ACM Opinion

The End of an Era Came Long Before the End of Cassini

I have now been writing about science for nearly a dozen years, which means my career more or less overlaps with that of the Cassini probe.

Is Beaming Down In star Trek a Death Sentence?
From ACM Opinion

Is Beaming Down In star Trek a Death Sentence?

In the 2009 movie Star Trek, Captain Kirk and Sulu plummeted down toward the planet Vulcan without a parachute. "Beam us up, beam us up!" Kirk shouted in desperation...

Tracking the Spread of Culture Through Folktales
From ACM Opinion

Tracking the Spread of Culture Through Folktales

There's a reason why the premise of American Gods is so alluring: the US is home to a wild and glorious mishmash of gods, folktales, and cultural heritage.

Zuckerberg and Musk Are Both Wrong About AI
From ACM Opinion

Zuckerberg and Musk Are Both Wrong About AI

Back in 2015, a group of business leaders and scientists published an "open letter" about how controlling artificial superintelligence might be the most urgent...

First the Cloud, Now AI Takes on the Scientific Method
From ACM Opinion

First the Cloud, Now AI Takes on the Scientific Method

Back when I was doing research, one of my advisors once joked that, if you wait long enough, you can produce an old result using new methods, manage to get it published...

Forget Mars, Let's Go Colonize Titan!
From ACM Opinion

Forget Mars, Let's Go Colonize Titan!

For a while now, there's been a debate in the US over how to direct NASA's next major human spaceflight initiative.

Explaining the ­pside and Downside of D-Wave's New Quantum Computer
From ACM Opinion

Explaining the ­pside and Downside of D-Wave's New Quantum Computer

D-Wave, a company based in British Columbia, has announced a new version of its quantum annealer: the D-Wave 2000Q. As the name suggests, the number of bits has...

You Won't Believe What Nasa Hid from US This Year
From ACM Opinion

You Won't Believe What Nasa Hid from US This Year

As the federal agency at the forefront of exploring outer space, NASA winds up being the front door for all manner of alien conspiracies.

Here's What a 'digital Miranda Warning' Might Look Like
From ACM Opinion

Here's What a 'digital Miranda Warning' Might Look Like

Anyone who has ever watched an American crime movie or television show can practically recite the Miranda warning by heart, even if they don't know its official...

What the Trump Win Means For Tech, Science, and Beyond
From ACM Opinion

What the Trump Win Means For Tech, Science, and Beyond

Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump defeated Democrat Hillary Clinton. Trump will now become the 45th president, succeeding President Barack Obama.

George Orwell Never Dreamed of Advertising as Invasive as Yahoo's Proposal
From ACM Opinion

George Orwell Never Dreamed of Advertising as Invasive as Yahoo's Proposal

Yahoo wants to take advertising to the next level—that is, the Orwellian level—bombarding people in public places with targeted advertising served up by the surveillance...

Y2k 2.0: Is the ­.s. Government Set to 'give Away the Internet' Saturday?
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...

Everyone Gets the Future Wrong: Lo and Behold Movie Review
From ACM Opinion

Everyone Gets the Future Wrong: Lo and Behold Movie Review

Hackers? Check. Driverless cars? Check. SpaceX? Check. Robots? Check. Elon Musk? Check. ARPANET? Check. Video game addicts? Check. Brainscans? Check. Internet of...
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