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Does Digital Age Overcomplicate Design?
From ACM Opinion

Does Digital Age Overcomplicate Design?

There is a scene in the television series "Boss" in which the mayor of Chicago, played by Kelsey Grammer, is discovered by his wife washing bed sheets by hand at...

Apple: The 64-Bit Question
From ACM News

Apple: The 64-Bit Question

There's been an interesting sideshow in tech land since Apple unveiled the iPhone 5S last week: Does having the first 64-bitmicroprocessor in a phone mean anything...

Civics For a Digital Age
From ACM Opinion

Civics For a Digital Age

Over half of the world’s population lives in urban environments, and that number is rapidly growing according to the World Health Organization.

To Boldly Go Nowhere, For Now
From ACM Opinion

To Boldly Go Nowhere, For Now

On Aug. 20, NASA's administrator formally welcomed the newest candidates of the astronaut corpsand released a space exploration roadmap that includes robotic and...

The New National Identity Is What Smartphone You Prefer, and Nobody's Quite Sure Why
From ACM Opinion

The New National Identity Is What Smartphone You Prefer, and Nobody's Quite Sure Why

In a fascinating note at Asymco, mobile analyst and ex-Nokian Horace Dediu details how people's taste in smartphones varies from place to place:

Behold! Jonathan Ive's Apple
From ACM Opinion

Behold! Jonathan Ive's Apple

Apple is today releasing the much-anticipated iOS 7, and with it, the biggest overhaul of its mobile operating system since it debuted in 2007 with the original...

Ios 7, Thoroughly Reviewed
From ACM Opinion

Ios 7, Thoroughly Reviewed

When we reviewed iOS 6 a year ago, we called it a "spit-and-polish" release and stand by that assessment today.

The 'legalization' of China’s Internet Crackdown
From ACM Opinion

The 'legalization' of China’s Internet Crackdown

Internet usage—especially microblogging on Sina Weibo, China’s largest Twitter-like social media site—is presenting new challenges and new attempts to meet them...

Forget Moocs
From ACM Opinion

Forget Moocs

For a year or two there, free online classes seemed like they just might be the future of higher education.

Cryptographers Have an Ethics Problem
From ACM Opinion

Cryptographers Have an Ethics Problem

Last week, I visited the MIT computer science department looking for a very famous cryptographer.

How Robots Can Trick You Into Loving Them
From ACM Opinion

How Robots Can Trick You Into Loving Them

I like to think of my Roomba as cute and industrious.

If 'e.t.' Finds Voyager 1, Will It Phone Earth?
From ACM Opinion

If 'e.t.' Finds Voyager 1, Will It Phone Earth?

In 1519, Portuguese explorer Ferdinand Magellan launched the expedition that completed the first circumnavigation of the globe. And so humanity learned the full...

Grand Theft Auto V Lives ­p to Hype, Steals Its Car, Sets House on Fire
From ACM Opinion

Grand Theft Auto V Lives ­p to Hype, Steals Its Car, Sets House on Fire

I'm trying to put into words how difficult a situation it is attempting to summarize my thoughts on a game that I've only been playing for two weeks when I know...

The Message Voyager 1 Carries For Alien Civilizations
From ACM Opinion

The Message Voyager 1 Carries For Alien Civilizations

The year was 1977.

Trigger Finger: Apple Fires Biometrics Into the Mainstream
From ACM Opinion

Trigger Finger: Apple Fires Biometrics Into the Mainstream

By adding a fingerprint scanner to its newest mobile phone, Apple Inc. is offering a tantalizing glimpse of a future where your favorite gadget might become a biometric...

The Real Reasons Apple's 64-Bit A7 Chip Makes Sense
From ACM Opinion

The Real Reasons Apple's 64-Bit A7 Chip Makes Sense

Apple injected a lot of marketing hyperbole into its claims about the wonders of 64-bit computing when it showed off the A7 processor at the heart of the new ...

How Facebook Makes ­s ­nhappy
From ACM Opinion

How Facebook Makes ­s ­nhappy

No one joins Facebook to be sad and lonely.

How Startup Culture Is Killing Innovation
From ACM Opinion

How Startup Culture Is Killing Innovation

Far from being the measure of disgrace it once was, failure now seems to be a sort of badge of honor. Somewhere along the way, it got to be uncool to reduce one's...

Apple's New Iphone 'touch Id' Makes Fingerprint Scans Easy, But Don't Ditch Passcodes Yet
From ACM Opinion

Apple's New Iphone 'touch Id' Makes Fingerprint Scans Easy, But Don't Ditch Passcodes Yet

The latest iPhone has arrived, and along with it what may be the slickest integration of biometric security yet: A fingerprint scanner built seamlessly into the...

Should Students ­se a Laptop in Class?
From ACM Opinion

Should Students ­se a Laptop in Class?

There's a widely shared image on the Internet of a teacher's note that says: "Dear students, I know when you're texting in class. Seriously, no one just looks down...
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