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The FAA Rigorously Tested the Boeing 737's Software
From ACM Opinion

The FAA Rigorously Tested the Boeing 737's Software

Two Boeing 737 Max 8 airplanes have crashed under similar circumstances in the past six months, one in October in Indonesia and the other in Ethiopia last week....

7 Arguments Against the Autonomous-Vehicle ­Utopia
From ACM Opinion

7 Arguments Against the Autonomous-Vehicle ­Utopia

Self-driving cars are coming. Tech giants such as Uber and Alphabet have bet on it, as have old-school car manufacturers such as Ford and General Motors.

Video Doesn't Capture Truth
From ACM Opinion

Video Doesn't Capture Truth

The White House has revoked the press pass of Jim Acosta, CNN's chief White House correspondent, after a testy exchange between the reporter and President Trump...

How the Enlightenment Ends
From ACM Opinion

How the Enlightenment Ends

Three years ago, at a conference on transatlantic issues, the subject of artificial intelligence appeared on the agenda. I was on the verge of skipping that session—it...

The Era of Fake Video Begins
From ACM Opinion

The Era of Fake Video Begins

In a dank corner of the internet, it is possible to find actresses from Game of Thrones or Harry Potter engaged in all manner of sex acts. Or at least to the world...

Enough With the Trolley Problem
From ACM Opinion

Enough With the Trolley Problem

You know the drill by now: A runaway trolley is careening down a track. There are five workers ahead, sure to be killed if the trolley reaches them.

My Cow Game Extracted Your Facebook Data
From ACM Opinion

My Cow Game Extracted Your Facebook Data

For a spell during 2010 and 2011, I was a virtual rancher of clickable cattle on Facebook.

Retweets Are Trash
From ACM Opinion

Retweets Are Trash

A couple of months ago, I made a small tweak to my Twitter account that has changed my experience of the platform.

China's Dystopian Tech Could Be Contagious
From ACM Opinion

China's Dystopian Tech Could Be Contagious

For all the particularities of life in China, its big cities offer a familiar cosmopolitanism.

The New Way Your Computer Can Be Attacked
From ACM Opinion

The New Way Your Computer Can Be Attacked

On January 3, the world learned about a series of major security vulnerabilities in modern microprocessors. Called Spectre and Meltdown, these vulnerabilities were...

8 Overly Confident, Mostly Pessimistic Predictions About Tech in 2018
From ACM Opinion

8 Overly Confident, Mostly Pessimistic Predictions About Tech in 2018

It was a very strange year for technology companies. They have become a "bipartisan whipping boy," a new sexist institution, responsible for the muddying of the...

Driverless Cars Could Make Transportation Free For Everyone, With a Catch
From ACM Opinion

Driverless Cars Could Make Transportation Free For Everyone, With a Catch

As self-driving cars inch closer to everyday reality, journalists, futurists, economists, and ethicists have weighed in with numerous predictions about autonomous...

A ­nified Theory of Meme Death
From ACM Opinion

A ­nified Theory of Meme Death

Memes aren't built to last. This is an accepted fact of online life.

How Driverless Cars Will Change the Feel of Cities
From ACM Opinion

How Driverless Cars Will Change the Feel of Cities

It's 6 p.m. in Tempe, Arizona and pitch-black outside. I'm standing in the middle of a five-lane thoroughfare, among a group of people too numerous for the narrow...

Should Children Form Emotional Bonds with Robots?
From ACM Opinion

Should Children Form Emotional Bonds with Robots?

When i brought the robot home from the Apple Store, I knew I was inviting a new kind of strangeness into our lives.

The Coming Software Apocalypse
From ACM News

The Coming Software Apocalypse

There were six hours during the night of April 10, 2014, when the entire population of Washington State had no 911 service.

You Are Already Living Inside a Computer
From ACM Opinion

You Are Already Living Inside a Computer

Suddenly, everything is a computer. Phones, of course, and televisions. Also toasters and door locks, baby monitors and juicers, doorbells and gas grills. Even ...

When Companies Get Hacked, Should They Be Allowed to Hack Back?
From ACM Opinion

When Companies Get Hacked, Should They Be Allowed to Hack Back?

There is an old debate (at least, counting in internet years) that tends to crop up after major cybersecurity breaches such as the widespread WannaCry ransomware...

For Google, Everything Is a Popularity Contest
From ACM Opinion

For Google, Everything Is a Popularity Contest

When I saw that Google had introduced a "Classic Papers" section of Google Scholar, its search tool for academic journals, I couldn't help but stroke my chin professorially...

The Mysterious Printer Code That Could Have Led the Fbi to Reality Winner
From ACM Opinion

The Mysterious Printer Code That Could Have Led the Fbi to Reality Winner

Across the computer security world yesterday, heads were shaking.
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