Communications of the ACM
Generative AI Degrades Online Communities
How large language models are influencing online communities.
From ACM Opinion
Now 4 Billion People Know the Joy of Txt
Here's a question: What's bigger and far more important than Facebook? Hint: it's very low-tech and doesn't need a smartphone or even an Internet connection.
From ACM Opinion
Why the Death of DRM Would Be Good News for Readers, Writers, and Publishers
At the end of April, Tor Books, the world's largest science fiction publisher, and its UK sister company, Tor UK, announced that they would be eliminating digital...
From ACM Opinion
Graphic Designers Are Ruining the Web
What happens when you click on a Weblink? Here's one answer: A request goes from your computer to a server identified by the URL of the desired link. The server...
From ACM Opinion
Tides Are Changing For Web Surfers
David Weinberger has a new book out entitled Too Big to Know in which he argues that one of the implications of a comprehensively networked society is that the...
From ACM Opinion
Welcome to the Desktop Degree
Once upon a time, a very long time ago, in 1995 to be precise, a scholar named Eli Noam published an article in the prestigious journal Science under the titleElectronics...
From ACM Opinion
Five Predictions For the Communications World in 2012
In the coming year, mobile Internet devices and in particular smartphones will continue to bring the biggest changes to the way we communicate. For the first...
From ACM Opinion
Programming Should Take Pride of Place in Our Schools
If we don't change the way ICT is thought about and taught, we're shutting the door on our children's futures.
From ACM Opinion
Voice Recognition: Has It Come of Age?
The man sits down in front of the computer and says, affably: "Computer!"
From ACM Opinion
Could 3D Printing End Our Throwaway Culture?
There's a tiny knob missing from my hands-free car kit, which I keep meaning to replace. The thing is, I don't think I can buy parts for it, so I probably need...
From ACM Opinion
Dennis Ritchie: The Other Man Inside Your Iphone
The groundbreaking work he did with Ken Thompson led to the operating system behind everything from set-top boxes to the iPhone, but who sings the praises of...
From ACM Opinion
Steve Jobs: A Man of Contradiction and Genius
When historians look back at the life of Steve Jobs, they will chronicle a man of contradiction and genius. But for the legions of Apple fans, it's personal.
From ACM Opinion
Vint Cerf: Facebook Could Be Next Aol or IBM
Vint Cerf, Google's chief internet evangelist, and the man who designed a key building block of the Internet, warned that Facebook's "closed" architecture meant...
From ACM Opinion
Kids Today Need a Licence to Tinker
Back to school time and millions of British kids are heading back to classrooms to embark on the national curriculum so beloved of busybody ministers.
From ACM Opinion
Beware: Europe's 'unitary Patent' Could Mean nlimited Software Patents
Just as the U.S. software industry is experiencing the long-anticipated all-out software patent wars, the European Union has a plan to follow the same course....
From ACM Opinion
Why Google Had to Have Motorola Mobility
For several years now, Google has been following a vow made by former CEO Eric Schmidt: mobile first. New CEO Larry Page is taking that dictum to a new level...
From ACM Opinion
Steve, Please Buy S a Carrier!
What should Apple do with its $76bn in cash? It could do worse than spend some of it on acquiring its own mobile carrier.
From ACM Opinion
Why Lulzsec Had No Choice but to Disband
After just 50 days, the group said it was ceasing individual operations. Why, when you might have thought things were going so well?
From ACM Opinion
Networks Are Not Always Revolutionary
"For most artists," as the famous Tim O'Reilly aphorism has it "the problem isn't piracy, it's obscurity." To me, this is inarguably true and self-evident—the...
From ACM Opinion