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The Problem with Algorithms: Magnifying Misbehaviour
From ACM Opinion

The Problem with Algorithms: Magnifying Misbehaviour

By the time you read these words, much of what has appeared on the screen of whatever device you are using has been dictated by a series of conditional instructions...

Here's What You Need to Know About the Future of Gesture-Based ­i Design
From ACM Opinion

Here's What You Need to Know About the Future of Gesture-Based ­i Design

Smartphone screens across the globe are embracing clean design in an effort to feature content on high-end pixel real estate.

Among the Nsa's Own Tips For Securing Computers: Remove the Webcam
From ACM News

Among the Nsa's Own Tips For Securing Computers: Remove the Webcam

Seems like everything gets hacked these days. Baby monitors. White House employees' personal email. Toilets.

Picture This: Is There Life After Photoshop?
From ACM Opinion

Picture This: Is There Life After Photoshop?

For almost all its 23-year existence, Photoshop has dominated the digital retouching and design world.

Maybe Everybody Should Not Learn to Code
From ACM Opinion

Maybe Everybody Should Not Learn to Code

In the past few years, programming has gone mainstream, as celebrities from Chris Bosh to President Obama jump on the "everyone should learn to code" bandwagon.

Why Can't Email Be Secure?
From ACM Opinion

Why Can't Email Be Secure?

Coming on the heels of our announcement that we had shut down our Silent Mail service, we received a comment about securing email communications.

It's Time to Reform the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act
From ACM Opinion

It's Time to Reform the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act

This year the U.S. Congress is considering changes to the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act (CFAA), the primary law that governs cyber crime and fraud on the Internet...

What Does It Really Matter If Companies Are Tracking US Online?
From ACM Opinion

What Does It Really Matter If Companies Are Tracking US Online?

Say you, like me, went to bed a little early last night.

How to Think About Drones
From ACM Opinion

How to Think About Drones

Consider David. The shepherd lad steps up to face in single combat the Philistine giant Goliath.

The New York Times Was Losing $5 Per Second Thanks to Its Web Site Outage
From ACM News

The New York Times Was Losing $5 Per Second Thanks to Its Web Site Outage

The New York Times is still reeling from a massive Web outage that took down its homepage, its corporate Web site, and everything in between.

The Giant Hurdle For the Internet of Things
From ACM Opinion

The Giant Hurdle For the Internet of Things

Everyone's talking about the Internet of Things, a proposed network of intelligent devices that could one day automate much of the world around us. HVAC and lighting...

Lego Mindstorms Ev3 Means Giant Robots, Powerful Computers
From ACM Opinion

Lego Mindstorms Ev3 Means Giant Robots, Powerful Computers

Gummi Bears. That's what playing with Lego bricks reminds me of—sitting cross-legged on the floor in the back room of my parents' house on Saturday mornings, ahere...

How Wearable Technology Could Transform Business
From ACM Opinion

How Wearable Technology Could Transform Business

Once upon a time seeing your life flash before your eyes was something people did their best to avoid. The arrival of Google Glass seems to have changed that.

From ACM Opinion

We Need a Moratorium on 'Brain-Like' Tech Stories

My "aha" moment arrived two decades ago while I was an undergrad student (and dilettante "futurist," though I didn’t know the word then), sitting in the Great Hall...

Counterfeits Can Kill ­.s. Troops. So Why Isn't Congress and Dod Doing More to Stop It?
From ACM Opinion

Counterfeits Can Kill ­.s. Troops. So Why Isn't Congress and Dod Doing More to Stop It?

Sometime in the not-to-distant future, a submarine will sink. An air defense missile will detonate far from its intended target. These chilling scenarios will...

WikiLeaks' Teenage Benedict Arnold
From ACM Opinion

WikiLeaks' Teenage Benedict Arnold

When he met Julian Assange for the first time, Sigurdur Thordarson admired the WikiLeaks founder's attitude and quickly signed up to the cause.

What Motivates Free Software Licencing Decisions?
From ACM Opinion

What Motivates Free Software Licencing Decisions?

Free software licenses can be divided into two broad categories: copyleft licenses and permissive licenses. The licenses reflect a particular view about fairness...

How Steve Jobs Turned Technology — And Apple — Into Religion
From ACM Opinion

How Steve Jobs Turned Technology — And Apple — Into Religion

The technological values promoted by Apple are part of the Faustian bargain of technology, which both giveth and taketh away.

If We Landed on Europa, What Would We Want to Know?
From ACM Opinion

If We Landed on Europa, What Would We Want to Know?

Most of what scientists know of Jupiter's moon Europa they have gleaned from a dozen or so close flybys from NASA's Voyager 2 spacecraft in 1979 and NASA's Galileo...

From ACM Opinion

The End of Integrated Systems

I always travel with a pair of binoculars and, to the puzzlement of my fellow airline passengers, spend part of every flight gazing through them at whatever happens...
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