Communications of the ACM
Generative AI Degrades Online Communities
How large language models are influencing online communities.
From ACM Opinion
Was the Space Shuttle a Mistake?
Forty years ago, I wrote an article for Technology Review titled "Shall We Build the Space Shuttle?" Now, with the 135th and final flight of the shuttle at hand...
From ACM News
Real .s. Stealth-Tech Advantage: Its Assembly Lines
For more than 20 years, the U.S. Air Force had a world monopoly on radar-evading technology—and with it, a huge advantage over any rival. Several generations...
From ACM Opinion
Why Gadgets Flop
According to the old saying, you learn more from a failure than a success. Well, if that's the case, the consumer electronics industry ought to have a master's...
From ACM Opinion
Apple Multitouch Patent Is All About x Lock-In
Apple notched a significant win last week when it was awarded a key patent related to basic multitouch functionality. The patent was first called "hugely problematic"...
From ACM News
Big Win For the Losers at D-Wave
Does D-Wave's first big sale disprove the quantum computing naysayers?
From ACM Opinion
How I Failed, Failed, and Finally Succeeded at Learning How to Code
When Colin Hughes was about 11 years old his parents brought home a rather strange toy. It wasn't colorful or cartoonish; it didn't seem to have any lasers or...
From ACM News
Parting Shots from a Mars Rover
NASA is no longer sending commands to the Spirit rover on Mars, but the long-silent robot still has a few more chances to phone home. Not that anyone is expecting...
From ACM Opinion
One on One: Jaron Lanier
Jaron Lanier, a partner architect at Microsoft Research, has had a long and varied career in technology. Mr. Lanier popularized the term "virtual reality" in...
From ACM News
How Computers Got US Into Space
When you look back at the past 50 years of human spaceflight, don't forget the computer scientists who helped make it possible.
From ACM Opinion
There's No Data Sheriff on the Wild Web
A company suffers a catastrophic attack on its servers. Gone are names, email addresses, home phone numbers, passwords, credit card numbers. Everything ends up...
From ACM Opinion
Five Gadgets that Will Be Dead in Five Years
If there's one thing that's predictable in the technology world, it's that things change. Products that were commonplace 10 years ago (PDAs, CRT televisions,...
From ACM Opinion
Will Amazon's Recent Server Failures Slow the Rise of Cloud Computing?
Last Thursday morning around 5 a.m. eastern time, Amazon suffered a major data center outage. These sorts of outages happen now and then, but they seldom makewhy...
From ACM Opinion
Your Iphone Is Tracking You. So What.
Have you heard the news? Two researchers have discovered that the iPhone keeps a minute-by-minute, time-stamped log of everywhere you go. That’s right: Your phone...
From ACM Opinion
Got an Iphone or 3g Ipad? Apple Is Recording Your Moves
A hidden file in iOS 4 is regularly recording the position of devices.
From ACM Opinion
Patently Obvious
On Monday the Supreme Court will consider whether to fundamentally alter the way American patent law is litigated. Specifically, in the context of an otherwise...
From ACM News
Why Cisco's Flip Flopped in the Camera Business
Cisco is shutting down a business unit that it bought for over half-a-billion dollars: the Flip camcorder division. That's a shame, considering how high the Flip...
From ACM Opinion
Forget Space Travel: It's Just a Dream
The clash of two titans—physics and chemistry—are major barriers to human space travel to Mars and beyond, and may well make it impossible... at least with current...
From ACM News
Japan Has Shifted 13 Feet!
What does Japan's earthquake mean for GPS? Friday's 9.0-magnitude earthquake was so powerful that it actually widened Japan. While parts of the country barely...
From ACM Opinion
The Future of Mobile Gadgets
I got my first cell phone a little more than a decade ago, just as I was finishing college and looking for my first job. I didn't need a mobile phone; none of...
From ACM News