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Why Microsoft's Surface Tablet Shames the Pc Industry
From ACM Opinion

Why Microsoft's Surface Tablet Shames the Pc Industry

On June 18, Microsoft beckoned 200 or so members of the media to a grimy, industrial part of Hollywood for what it described as a can’t-miss affair.

The Highly Productive Habits of Alan Turing
From ACM News

The Highly Productive Habits of Alan Turing

June 23 marks the 100th birthday of Alan Turing. If I had to name five people whose personal efforts led to the defeat of Nazi Germany, the English mathematician...

How Flame Virus Has Changed Everything For Online Security Firms
From ACM Opinion

How Flame Virus Has Changed Everything For Online Security Firms

Here's a question: if you connect an unprotected Windows computer to the Internet, how long will it take before it is infected by malicious software?

What Have We Learned: Flame Malware
From ACM Opinion

What Have We Learned: Flame Malware

When the news about the Flame malware first broke several weeks ago, people from all parts of the security community, political world and elsewhere quickly began...

How Depressives Surf the Web
From ACM News

How Depressives Surf the Web

In what way do you spend your time online? Do you check your email compulsively? Watch lots of videos? Switch frequently among multiple Internet applications—from...

Desktop Computers Look More and More Like Smartphones
From ACM Opinion

Desktop Computers Look More and More Like Smartphones

If you're an experienced computer user, you probably remember explaining to newbies how a desktop computer worked: Your photos should go in this folder; your documents...

From ACM Opinion

Apple's Strategy of Built-In Obsolescence

Ross Miller made a good point about Apple's new flagship laptop, in his review for the Verge. Once you take into account that it has a solid-state drive, it's actually...

World's Largest Organization For Computer Professionals Comes Out Against Cispa
From ACM Opinion

World's Largest Organization For Computer Professionals Comes Out Against Cispa

The U.S. Public Policy Council of the Association of Computing Machinery, representing ACM, came out against CISPA, the cybersecurity legislation recently passed...

Google Fights Back in China
From ACM News

Google Fights Back in China

Two giants on the world stage are battling over the future of information.

Apple's Stash of Credit Card Numbers Is Its Secret Weapon
From ACM News

Apple's Stash of Credit Card Numbers Is Its Secret Weapon

That little iPhone in your pocket is perfectly positioned to become a clone of the credit cards in your wallet or purse.

From ACM News

Back to Stuxnet: The Missing Link

Two weeks ago, when we announced the discovery of the Flame malware we said that we saw no strong similarity between its code and programming style with that of ...

From ACM Opinion

Drones, Computer Viruses, and Blowback

Another day, another senior al-Qaeda leader killed by a drone strike. (I can't be the first to point out that being al-Qaeda's No. 2 is like being the drummer for...

How Google and Microsoft Taught Search to 'understand' the Web
From ACM Opinion

How Google and Microsoft Taught Search to 'understand' the Web

Despite the massive amounts of computing power dedicated by search engine companies to crawling and indexing trillions of documents on the Internet, search engines...

Bionic Brains and Beyond
From ACM News

Bionic Brains and Beyond

The National Spelling Bee of 2023 started out like any other, but controversy enveloped the contest when Suzy Hamilton, an 8-year-old from Tulsa, emerged as the...

Is It Possible to Wage a Just Cyberwar?
From ACM Opinion

Is It Possible to Wage a Just Cyberwar?

In the last week or so, cyberwarfare has made front-page news: the United States may have been behind the Stuxnet cyberattack on Iran; Iran may have suffered another...

Why Attack When We Can't Defend?
From ACM Opinion

Why Attack When We Can't Defend?

In December 2010, after we had reverse engineered the Stuxnet virus, I argued that the attackers must have known they would open Pandora's box. Others suggested...

Where Speech Recognition Is Going
From ACM Opinion

Where Speech Recognition Is Going

Until recently, the idea of holding a conversation with a computer seemed pure science fiction. If you asked a computer to "open the pod bay doors"—well, that was...

Why Antivirus Companies Like Mine Failed to Catch Flame and Stuxnet
From ACM Opinion

Why Antivirus Companies Like Mine Failed to Catch Flame and Stuxnet

A couple of days ago, I received an e-mail from Iran. It was sent by an analyst from the Iranian Computer Emergency Response Team, and it was informing me about...

From ACM Opinion

Augmented Reality Offers a New Layer of Intrigue

If you ever come across a photograph of communist-era East Berlin, or modern Pyongyang in North Korea, the cityscapes look drab and featureless. Billboards, advertising...

Apple's Crystal Prison and the Future of Open Platforms
From ACM Opinion

Apple's Crystal Prison and the Future of Open Platforms

Two weeks ago, Steve Wozniak made a public call for Apple to open its platforms for those who wish to tinker, tweak and innovate with their internals. EFF supports...
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