Communications of the ACM
Generative AI Degrades Online Communities
How large language models are influencing online communities.
From ACM Opinion
Bitcoin Is Not Just Digital Currency. It's Napster For Finance.
In 2013, bitcoin's valuation didn't just skyrocket, but its infrastructure, services, and adoption exploded as well, culminating in recent announcements that major...
From ACM Opinion
Bitcoin—boom or Bubble?
The baffling Bitcoin boom is either an exercise in self-delusion—a high-tech Ponzi scheme that will come crashing down—or an imaginative new Internet technology...
From ACM Opinion
It's the 30th Anniversary of the Supreme Court's Monumental Decision About Betamax
Those of us who came of age in the Internet era may not know that they owe their ability to go online to a court decision 30 years ago today about a mechanically...
From ACM Opinion
When Google Closes the Nest Deal, Privacy Issues For the Internet of Things Will Hit the Big Time
Google rocked the smart home market Monday with its intention to purchase connected home thermostat maker Nest for $3.2 billion, which will force a much-needed...
From ACM Opinion
How Isaac Asimov Got 2014 Both So Right and So Wrong
In 1964, legendary writer of science fiction and science fact Isaac Asimov visited the World's Fair, where a General Electric pavilion chronicling advances in electric...
From ACM Opinion
'net Neutrality' Ruling Opens Door For Two-Tiered Internet Market
An "Open Internet" became endangered this week at a time when the U.S. increasingly relies on Internet services to deliver everything from education to entertainment...
From ACM Opinion
A Victory For an nfettered Internet
A federal appeals court in Washington slapped the Federal Communications Commission on Tuesday for overstepping its legal authority by trying to regulate Internet...
From ACM Opinion
I Spent Two Hours Talking With the Nsa's Bigwigs. Here's What Has Them Mad
My expectations were low when I asked the National Security Agency to cooperate with my story on the impact of Edward Snowden’s leaks on the tech industry.
From ACM Opinion
Why Google Bought Nest: A Theory
Google is acquiring Nest, makers of a smart thermostat, for a reported $3.2 billion.
From ACM Opinion
Why Her Will Dominate i Design Even More Than Minority Report
A few weeks into the making of Her, Spike Jonze's new flick about romance in the age of artificial intelligence, the director had something of a breakthrough.
From ACM Opinion
Why We Don't Trust Technology Companies
Last October, T-Mobile made an astonishing announcement: from now on, when you travel internationally with a T-Mobile phone, you get free unlimited text messages...
From ACM Opinion
8 Hypotheses About Tech in 2014
If there was a feeling that defined the cultural backdrop for 2013, it was technoanxiety.
From ACM Opinion
10 Bold Predictions For 2014
At the beginning of each year, it's possible to make predictions about the future of the tech sector simply by extrapolating from data in the latest Mary Meeker...
From ACM Opinion
When Doctors 'google' Their Patients
I remember when I first looked up a patient on Google.
From ACM Opinion
The Internet of Things Is Wildly Insecure—and Often npatchable
We're at a crisis point now with regard to the security of embedded systems, where computing is embedded into the hardware itself—as with the Internet of Things...
From ACM Opinion
Making It
In January of 1903, the small Boston magazine Handicraft ran an essay by the Harvard professor Denman W. Ross, who argued that the American Arts and Crafts movement...
From ACM Opinion
Why Snowden Won't (and Shouldn't) Get Clemency
I regard Daniel Ellsberg as an American patriot.
From ACM Opinion
Edward Snowden, Whistle-Blower
Seven months ago, the world began to learn the vast scope of the National Security Agency's reach into the lives of hundreds of millions of people in the United...
From ACM Opinion
The Nsa's Metadata Program Is Perfectly Constitutional
Last month two judges issued two different opinions about the NSA's controversial bulk metadata collection program.
From ACM Opinion