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subjectHuman Computer Interaction
authorThe New York Times
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With Playstation 4, Sony Aims For Return to Glory
From ACM Opinion

With Playstation 4, Sony Aims For Return to Glory

For the Sony Corporation, a tech industry also-ran, the moment of reckoning is here.

Why We Love Beautiful Things
From ACM Opinion

Why We Love Beautiful Things

Great design, the management expert Gary Hamel once said, is like Justice Potter Stewart's famous definition of pornography—you know it when you see it.

A Fuzzy and Shifting Line Between Hacker and Criminal
From ACM Opinion

A Fuzzy and Shifting Line Between Hacker and Criminal

In January 2011, I was assigned to cover a hearing in Newark, where Daniel Spitler, then 26, stood accused of breaching AT&T's servers and stealing 114,000 email...

Talking, Walking Objects
From ACM Opinion

Talking, Walking Objects

Meeting Simon for the first time was one of the most sublime experiences I've had. With every coy head nod, casual hand wave and deep eye gaze, I felt he already...

Guns, Maps and Data That Disturb
From ACM Opinion

Guns, Maps and Data That Disturb

Should data have a conscience?

From ACM Opinion

Sneaky Apps That Track Cellphones

A perversion of smartphone technology called "stalking apps"—precise, secretive trackings of the movements of cellphone users—is increasingly a matter of national...

Opening the Doors to the Life of Pi
From ACM Opinion

Opening the Doors to the Life of Pi

For those of us who have been intoxicated by the powers and possibilities of mathematics, the mystery isn't why that fascination developed but why it isn't universal...

From ACM Opinion

I Am Not Big Brother

I've grown accustomed to reading inaccurate accounts of my day job. I'm in political data.

How to Devise Passwords That Drive Hackers Away
From ACM Opinion

How to Devise Passwords That Drive Hackers Away

Not long after I began writing about cybersecurity, I became a paranoid caricature of my former self.

Fresh Windows, but Where’s the Start Button?
From ACM Opinion

Fresh Windows, but Where’s the Start Button?

Over the years, Keith McCarthy has become used to a certain way of doing things on his personal computers, which, like most others on the planet, have long run...

And the Firewalls Came Tumbling Down
From ACM Opinion

And the Firewalls Came Tumbling Down

There's much to like about "This Machine Kills Secrets," Andy Greenberg's well-reported history of WikiLeaks and the many projects it has inspired, but one unintentionally...

Where's the Discussion of Trojan Horses?
From ACM Opinion

Where's the Discussion of Trojan Horses?

The Mykonos Vase, discovered in 1961 in the Cyclades, is one of the earliest accounts of the Trojan Horse, used as a subterfuge by the Greeks to enter the city...

What Makes Google's Maps So Good
From ACM Opinion

What Makes Google's Maps So Good

Wow. Nothing makes you appreciate something like losing it.

The Internet? We Built That
From ACM Opinion

The Internet? We Built That

Who created the Internet and why should we care? These questions, so often raised during the Bush-Gore election in 2000, have found their way back into the political...

Why Wi-Fi Is Often So Slow
From ACM Opinion

Why Wi-Fi Is Often So Slow

A number of Internet service providers, including Comcast Corp. and Verizon Communications Inc., have recently upped the maximum speeds of broadband they offer...

From ACM Opinion

When Gps Tracking Violates Privacy Rights

For the right to personal privacy to survive in America in this digital age, courts must be meticulous in applying longstanding privacy protections to new technology...

Why '­ser Friendly' Is So Friendly: A Tribute to Bill Moggridge
From ACM Opinion

Why '­ser Friendly' Is So Friendly: A Tribute to Bill Moggridge

Some considered it an inspired choice, others simply surprising, when Bill Moggridge was appointed director of the Smithsonian Cooper-Hewitt National Design Museum...

From ACM Opinion

A New Kind of Warfare

Cybersecurity efforts in the United States have largely centered on defending computer networks against attacks by hackers, criminals, and foreign governments,...

Architecture and the Lost Art of Drawing
From ACM Opinion

Architecture and the Lost Art of Drawing

It has become fashionable in many architectural circles to declare the death of drawing. What has happened to our profession, and our art, to cause the supposed...

From ACM Opinion

Apple Case Muddies the Future of Innovations

Apple's victory on Friday in a patent lawsuit against Samsung could, if upheld, give its rivals a kick in the pants to create more original products.
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