Communications of the ACM
Generative AI Degrades Online Communities
How large language models are influencing online communities.
From ACM Opinion
Apple: An End to Skeuomorphic Design?
Why do most smartphones make a clicking noise, like a camera shutter closing, when you take a picture with them? Why do the virtual pages of a book on a tablet...
From ACM Opinion
Bruces Sterling's Vision of the Future City
In 2050, the Earth's population is expected to hit 10 billion, and 75% of those people will live in cities.
From ACM Opinion
Qwerty Keyboards: Time For a Rethink?
Q-W-E-R-T-Y. Six letters that define so much of our waking lives.
From ACM Opinion
Are We Really Facing Cyberwar?
A few weeks ago I was standing by a railway track in the small town of Gaithersburg in Maryland as a CSX freight train blasted through the level crossing; its horn...
From ACM Careers
Becoming Biohackers: Learning the Game
When you have lunch courtesy of the FBI, you are offered chicken Caesar salad, hamburger, or fish.
From ACM Opinion
The Small Business of 2063
Our world is changing faster than ever and, in recent years, a number of transformative technologies have moved from science fiction and the research and development...
From ACM Opinion
Computer Code Frees S to Think in New Ways
At the start of 2012, Michael Bloomberg, the mayor of New York tweeted: "My New Year's resolution is to learn to code with Codecademy."
From ACM Opinion
How Hackers Exploit 'the Seven Deadly Sins'
This isn't the high tech wizardry of Hollywood but is a good, old-fashioned confidence trick.
From ACM Opinion
The Psychology of Tetris
Shapes fall from the sky, all you have to do is to control how they fall and fit within each other.
From ACM Opinion
James Bond Fails the Tech Test in Skyfall
As a self-confessed technology geek, there have been numerous occasions when my enjoyment of a movie has been marred by technological impossibilities.
From ACM Opinion
Can Schools Survive in the Age of the Web?
If you fancy a top-class education but can't afford the fee or the time, there is now an alternative.
From ACM Opinion
Stuxnet Shifts the Cyber Arms Race p a Gear
Over the last 25 years we've seen a massive change in how we think about information.
From ACM Opinion
Alan Turing: Is He Really the Father of Computing?
When Alan Turing arrived to start work at the National Physical Laboratory at Teddington, south-west London, he was 33 years old. It was October 1945 and he was...
From ACM Opinion
Alan Turing: Why the Tech World's Hero Should Be a Household Name
I've worked in computing, and more specifically computer networking, nearly all my life. It's an industry in a constant state of innovation, always pushing beyond...
From ACM Opinion
'barcode Everyone at Birth'
If I were empress of the Universe I would insist on every individual having a unique ID permanently attached—a barcode if you will—an implanted chip to provide...
From ACM Opinion
How I Traced My Ancestry Back to the Stone Age
I recently had a genetic test to find out more about where my ancestors came from.
From ACM Opinion
Rethinking the Social Network
At some point later this year, Facebook will connect one in every seven people on the planet. When it passes the billion user mark—and really it is a question of...
From ACM Opinion
Pinterest: Hot New Network or Another Quora?
After a decade of struggle, the social networking battlefield has quietened down. Facebook is the undisputed champion, while Twitter serves for instant news and...
From ACM Opinion
The Internet Is Broken; We Need to Start Over
Last year, the level and ferocity of cyberattacks on the Internet reached such a horrendous level that some are now thinking the unthinkable: let the Internet wither...
From ACM Opinion