Communications of the ACM
Generative AI Degrades Online Communities
How large language models are influencing online communities.
From ACM Opinion
What Tumblr Can Tell S About the Future of Media
If there was any doubt left that Tumblr is trying to become more of a mainstream media entity, albeit with its own odd twist, it was removed recently when the service...
From ACM Opinion
Digital First Isn't an Option for Media—It's the Only Way Forward
Everywhere you look in the traditional media industry, you can see signs of turmoil and disruption: to take just a few recent examples, the New York Times is ...
From ACM Opinion
How Can We Make Devices Better? By Studying What People Actually Do
Many new technologies are based on what companies and designers seem to think their users might want to do, or what they envision them wanting to do, but not as...
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
Should Google Be Censoring Videos Just Because They Are Linked to Violence?
After violent attacks on Americans in both Egypt and Libya—including an attack in Libya on Tuesday that killed the American ambassador to that country—Google said...
From ACM Opinion
Big Data and Dna: What Business Can Learn from Junk Genes
The science world was rocked Wednesday by the discovery that the 80 percent of the human genethat scientists throught was "junk" actually contains genetic regulators...
From ACM Opinion
Plagiarism, Defamation, and the Power of Hyperlinks
What do Fareed Zakaria, Jonah Lehrer, and Gawker Media have in common? In different ways, the incidents that have thrust all three into the news recently help to...
From ACM Opinion
Five Things I've Learned from 20 Years of Email
It's been 20 years since I got my first-ever email address. Back then, I read email with a 2,400 bps modem. Today, emails reach me instantaneously on my phone whereever...
From ACM Opinion
There's Only One Truly Open Platform: The Web
As Twitter and Facebook continue to fight a variety of skirmishes in the ongoing "platform wars," with both companies trying to control as much of their networks...
From ACM Opinion
How Will Apple Restore Icloud Trust?
After being on the receiving end of a truly awful hacking attack, Wired writer Mat Honan explained how it happened in detail. And he was very clear about two of...
From ACM Opinion
Here's Why Tablets (yes, Tablets!) Will Replace the Smartphone
I'm sure to get the "you're off your rocker" commentary on this one, but I make a living by looking ahead in the world of mobile technology. And what I see now...
From ACM Opinion
Why We Need a Standard for the Internet of Things
The Internet of things is supposed to connect every aspect of our lives from our homes and cars to the objects we wear and the goods we consume. It's even connecting...
From ACM Opinion
Why the Days Are Numbered For Hadoop As We Know It
Hadoop is everywhere. For better or worse, it has become synonymous with big data. In just a few years it has gone from a fringe technology to the de facto standard...
From ACM Opinion
We Already se Wi-Fi More Than Cellular; Why Not Continue the Trend?
We think of our mobile phones as connecting to mobile networks, but that’s really not the case. When it comes to mobile data, our smartphones are far more reliant...
From ACM Opinion
How and Why You Should Do Data Journalism
One of the big areas of focus for technology companies over the past year has been "big data"—in other words, the idea that there can be a lot of value in finding...
From ACM Opinion
Physical Media Is Dead
Over the weekend, Hunter Walk (a friend of mine who works for YouTube) tweeted about brands offering apps built on the Spotify platform. Spotify is likely to ...
From ACM Opinion
The Personalized Web Is Just an Interest Graph Away
You know how our social graphs are creeping into every aspect of our Web lives, from search results to coupons? Well, get ready for something a lot more personal...
From ACM Opinion
The Rise of the New Information Gatekeepers
The promise of the Internet age is one of unparalleled access to information of all kinds, but it has also seen the rise of some powerful gatekeepers that control...
From ACM Opinion
Misconceptions in Ai: Or Why Watson Can't Talk to Siri
On Tuesday night, I was schooled by Watson on playing Jeopardy in an exhibition match at the Computer History Museum. I discovered that despite our fear of the...
From ACM Opinion
A Google Monopoly Isn't the Point
Even if the Justice Dept. were to establish that Google is a monopoly, it would be hard for anyone to prove that the company's free services have injured consumers...12