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Don't Fear the Robot Overlords; Embrace Them as Coworkers
From ACM Opinion

Don't Fear the Robot Overlords; Embrace Them as Coworkers

In a chilly warehouse just outside of Boston, the brute toils away. It's 600 pounds of orange and black metal and whirring motors, a massive robotic arm that picks...

Google Isn't the Company that We Should Have Handed the Web Over To
From ACM Opinion

Google Isn't the Company that We Should Have Handed the Web Over To

With Microsoft's decision to end development of its own Web rendering engine and switch to Chromium, control over the Web has functionally been ceded to Google....

Modeling in Engineering and Science
From Communications of the ACM

Modeling in Engineering and Science

Understanding behavior by building models.

The ­S Needs to Engage China on Tech, Or Risk Isolating Itself
From ACM Opinion

The ­S Needs to Engage China on Tech, Or Risk Isolating Itself

The contrast could hardly be more striking. In October, Vice President Mike Pence delivered a blistering speech accusing China of stealing prized US technology...

Classical and Quantum Computers Are Vying for Superiority
From ACM Opinion

Classical and Quantum Computers Are Vying for Superiority

Will 2019 be the year when quantum computers show they have the right stuff? Google says so; one of the company's labs, in Santa Barbara, California, has promised...

Time Travel Is Possible, but Only If You Have an Object with Infinite Mass
From ACM Opinion

Time Travel Is Possible, but Only If You Have an Object with Infinite Mass

The concept of time travel has always captured the imagination of physicists and laypersons alike. But is it really possible? Of course it is.

Is the ­.S. Lagging in the Quest for Quantum Computing?
From ACM Opinion

Is the ­.S. Lagging in the Quest for Quantum Computing?

A quantum computer capable of breaking the strongest codes protecting online communications and computer data is highly unlikely to appear within the next decade...

Mars Beckons
From ACM Opinion

Mars Beckons

The science and technology behind NASA's latest space explorer to land on Mars are so awe-inducing that it's hardly surprising when scientists commenting on the...

 Inspired by Sci-Fi, an Airplane with No Moving Parts and a Blue Ionic Glow
From ACM Opinion

Inspired by Sci-Fi, an Airplane with No Moving Parts and a Blue Ionic Glow

Since their invention more than 100 years ago, airplanes have been moved through the air by the spinning surfaces of propellers or turbines.

A Chance Gardener
From Communications of the ACM

A Chance Gardener

Harvesting open source products and planting the next crop.

How Will We Outsmart A.I. Liars?
From ACM Opinion

How Will We Outsmart A.I. Liars?

During the summer before the 2016 presidential election, John Seymour and Philip Tully, two researchers with ZeroFOX, a security company in Baltimore, unveiled...

Video Doesn't Capture Truth
From ACM Opinion

Video Doesn't Capture Truth

The White House has revoked the press pass of Jim Acosta, CNN's chief White House correspondent, after a testy exchange between the reporter and President Trump...

The Case Against Quantum Computing
From ACM Opinion

The Case Against Quantum Computing

Quantum computing is all the rage. It seems like hardly a day goes by without some news outlet describing the extraordinary things this technology promises.

Surveillance Kills Freedom By Killing Experimentation
From ACM Opinion

Surveillance Kills Freedom By Killing Experimentation

In my book Data and Goliath, I write about the value of privacy. I talk about how it is essential for political liberty and justice, and for commercial fairness...

Sci-Fi Movies Are the Secret Weapon that Could Help Silicon Valley Grow Up
From ACM Opinion

Sci-Fi Movies Are the Secret Weapon that Could Help Silicon Valley Grow Up

If there's one line that stands the test of time in Steven Spielbergs 1993 classic "Jurassic Park," it's probably Jeff Goldblum's exclamation, "Your scientists...

Your Smartphone Photos Are Totally Fake, and You Love It
From ACM Opinion

Your Smartphone Photos Are Totally Fake, and You Love It

The little camera on this phone has a superpower: It can see things our eyes cannot.

How to Hack an Election (Without Touching the Machines)
From ACM Opinion

How to Hack an Election (Without Touching the Machines)

On Monday morning, just 24 hours before polls opened in the US midterm elections, President Trump sounded an alarm with a Tweet: "Law Enforcement has been strongly...

The Internet Is Splitting in Two Amid ­.S. Dispute With China
From ACM Opinion

The Internet Is Splitting in Two Amid ­.S. Dispute With China

Western bigwigs were a no-show at China's biggest web conference. But in their absence, the local overseers of the nation's technology industry were only too happy...

The House Science Committee May Soon Become... Pro-Science
From ACM Opinion

The House Science Committee May Soon Become... Pro-Science

For the past eight years, climate science has been under a sort of spell in the House of Representatives.

Colonizing Mars Means Contaminating Mars, and Never Knowing for Sure If It Had Its Own Native Life
From ACM Opinion

Colonizing Mars Means Contaminating Mars, and Never Knowing for Sure If It Had Its Own Native Life

The closest place in the universe where extraterrestrial life might exist is Mars, and human beings are poised to attempt to colonize this planetary neighbor within...
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