Communications of the ACM
Generative AI Degrades Online Communities
How large language models are influencing online communities.
From ACM Opinion
The Death of the Open Web
The Web is a teeming commercial city. It's haphazardly planned. Its public spaces are mobbed, and signs of urban decay abound in broken links and abandoned projects...
From ACM Opinion
The Cyborg Insects Are Coming!
Telepathic helmets. Grid-computing swarms of cyborg insects, some for surveillance, some with lethal stingers. New cognitive-enhancement drugs. (What? AdderallProvigil...
From ACM Opinion
Why Publishers Should Beware the App Store
In a brilliant column published 16 years ago, the Italian philosopher Umberto Eco explained the difference between Apple and Microsoft in terms of the divide between...
From ACM Opinion
Immigration and Ids: A Modest Proposal
All Americans--whether brown, white, or black--should be required to carry a passport showing they are red, white, and blue.
From ACM Opinion
10 Reasons Why Android Will Dominate the Mobile Market
Google's Android mobile operating system platform has outsold the iPhone in the first quarter of 2010 according to The NPD Group, a consumer market research and...
From ACM Opinion
Just How Fragile Is the Internet?
In 1998, a hacker told Congress that he could bring down the Internet in 30 minutes by exploiting a certain flaw that sometimes caused online outages. In 2003...
From ACM Opinion
Apple: The Microsoft of Mobile?
Apple could soon be the target of an antitrust investigation by either the Federal Trade Commission or the Department of Justice, according to numerous press reports...
From ACM Opinion
Facebook's 'evil Interfaces'
Social networking companies don't have it easy. Advertisers covet their users' data, and in a niche that often seems to lack a clear business model, selling (or...
From ACM Opinion
Google's Nightmare: Facebook 'like' Replaces Links
Facebook dropped a bombshell on the tech industry last week in the form of a Web-wide "Like" button and the launch of the "Open Graph". Using this new platform,...
From ACM Opinion
Why We Should Learn the Language of Data
"How can global warming be real when there’s so much snow?" Hearing that question—repeatedly—this past February drove Joseph Romm nuts. A massive snowstorm had...
From ACM Opinion
Today Facebook, Tomorrow the World
With a dizzying array of announcements this week, it seems almost inevitable that the web will become, at least for the near future, an extension of Facebook. Like...
From ACM Opinion
App Rejected? There's a Rule For That.
The story could have been programmed to draw media coverage, were it not for its implausibility: Apple (a reader magnet) banned a future Pulitzer Prize winner's...
From ACM Opinion
Internet Age Needs Clear Regulation, Computer Law Expert Says
Tracy Mitrano, Cornell University's director of IT Policy says the recent U.S. Federal Appeals Court decision in Comcast v. FCC and the FCC's efforts to enforce...
From Communications of the ACM
Great Computing Museums of the World, Part Two
The second of a two-part series highlighting several of the world's museums dedicated to preserving, exhibiting, and elucidating computing history.
From Communications of the ACM
Is Mobile Email Addiction Overlooked?
Studying the prevalence of mobile email addiction and the associated possible implications for organizations.
From Communications of the ACM
Can IT Lean Against the Wind?
Lessons from the global financial crisis.
From Communications of the ACM
How to Make Progress in Computing Education
Improving the research base for computing education requires securing competitive funding commitments.
From Communications of the ACM
Cloud Computing and Electricity: Beyond the Utility Model
Assessing the strengths, weaknesses, and general applicability of the computing-as-utility business model.
From ACM Opinion
A Less Personal Computer
In Web parlance, "chrome" is the part of the browser that surrounds the page: the address bar, the "Back" button, and those all-important bookmarks. Chrome is also...
From ACM Opinion