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The Touch-Screen Generation
From ACM Opinion

The Touch-Screen Generation

On a chilly day last spring, a few dozen developers of children’s apps for phones and tablets gathered at an old beach resort in Monterey, California, to show off...

The District Court's Remarkable Order Striking Down the Nsl Statute
From ACM Opinion

The District Court's Remarkable Order Striking Down the Nsl Statute

On Friday, EFF received the long-awaiting ruling on its 2011 petition to set aside a National Security Letter (NSL) issued to a telecommunications company. The18...

From ACM Opinion

Googling You

The settlement last week between a group of state attorneys general and Google over the company’s improper data collection from home wireless networks shows the...

10 Companies Chasing Innovations That Really Matter
From ACM Careers

10 Companies Chasing Innovations That Really Matter

PayPal co-founder Max Levchin faced some flak recently when he announced he was starting a new company in the already crowded field of digital payments.

Qwerty Keyboards: Time For a Rethink?
From ACM Opinion

Qwerty Keyboards: Time For a Rethink?

Q-W-E-R-T-Y. Six letters that define so much of our waking lives.

From 'wargames' to Aaron Swartz: How ­.s. Anti-Hacking Law Went Astray
From ACM Opinion

From 'wargames' to Aaron Swartz: How ­.s. Anti-Hacking Law Went Astray

Aaron Swartz, the Internet activist who committed suicide while facing the possibility of a felony criminal conviction, was prosecuted under a law that was never...

Rethinking Objects and Form Are Key to 3D Printing Revolution
From ACM Opinion

Rethinking Objects and Form Are Key to 3D Printing Revolution

3D printing has already changed the game for manufacturing specialized products such as medical devices but the real revolution will come when designers start to...

Steve Mann: My 'augmediated' Life
From ACM Opinion

Steve Mann: My 'augmediated' Life

Back in 2004, I was awakened early one morning by a loud clatter. I ran outside, only to discover that a car had smashed into the corner of my house.

Why the Pencil Is Still the Most Important Tool For Digital Designers
From ACM Opinion

Why the Pencil Is Still the Most Important Tool For Digital Designers

Looking for digital inspiration, or staring at an empty computer screen?

Can Your Boss Read Your Email?
From ACM Opinion

Can Your Boss Read Your Email?

Harvard faculty members responded with shock after the Boston Globe revealed that theuniversity’s administration had searched 16 faculty deans’ email accounts to...

How Samsung Broke Away from the Android Pack
From ACM Opinion

How Samsung Broke Away from the Android Pack

As successful as Samsung's Galaxy S franchise is now, it's easy to forget the Korean consumer electronics giant's first attempt at the American smartphone market...

Homunculism
From ACM Opinion

Homunculism

According to Wikipedia, Ray Kurzweil is an "American author, inventor, futurist, and director of engineering at Google. Aside from futurology, he is involved in...

Everything We Know About What Data Brokers Know About You
From ACM News

Everything We Know About What Data Brokers Know About You

Data companies are scooping up enormous amounts of information about almost every American. They sell information about whether you're pregnant or divorced or trying...

Why Private Companies Won't Make ­p For Cuts in Government Science Funding
From ACM Opinion

Why Private Companies Won't Make ­p For Cuts in Government Science Funding

The budget cuts that took effect last week could wipe out as much as $54 billion in federal funding of science, research, and innovation over the next five years...

Google Glass: Is It a Threat to Our Privacy?
From ACM Opinion

Google Glass: Is It a Threat to Our Privacy?

If you haven't heard about the excitement around Google Glass—the head-mounted glasses that can shoot video, take pictures, and broadcast what you're seeing to...

6 Things I Want to Do with Nfc
From ACM Opinion

6 Things I Want to Do with Nfc

Tapping your phone on a console to pay for fries and a Coke is cool. Yet until the stars align, it's not how you'll be using NFC, the Near Field Communications...

From ACM Opinion

Shedding More Light on National Security Letters

Our users trust Google with a lot of very important data, whether it’s emails, photos, documents, posts or videos.

Are We Really Facing Cyberwar?
From ACM Opinion

Are We Really Facing Cyberwar?

A few weeks ago I was standing by a railway track in the small town of Gaithersburg in Maryland as a CSX freight train blasted through the level crossing; its horn...

Eye-Tracking Smartphones Have Arrived. What About the Privacy Implications?
From ACM Opinion

Eye-Tracking Smartphones Have Arrived. What About the Privacy Implications?

Last March, I wrote in Slate about eye-tracking, which could allow computers and smartphones of the future to collect information not only about what we read, but...

Computer Interfaces: Tech's Next Great Frontier
From ACM Opinion

Computer Interfaces: Tech's Next Great Frontier

Consider the tongue. It's sensitive yet muscular, packed with taste buds and nerves, and without its acrobatic ability humans wouldn’t be able to eat or talk. It's...
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