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From ACM Opinion

Zeitgeist 2012: What Piqued Your Curiosity This Year?

As 2012 comes to a close, it's time for our 12th annual Year-End Zeitgeist—an in-depth look at the "spirit of the times" as seen through the billions of searches...

How Design Can Help Voice Interaction Go Big
From ACM Opinion

How Design Can Help Voice Interaction Go Big

Recently there's been a lot of comparison between Apple's Siri and Google's Voice Search. Microsoft's voice breakthroughs have also captured headlines.

Beyond Quad-Core: What's Next For Mobile Processing Power
From ACM Opinion

Beyond Quad-Core: What's Next For Mobile Processing Power

Remember when a quad-core processor was the ultimate indicator of a super-smartphone?

Inside the Secret World of the Data Crunchers Who Helped Obama Win
From ACM Opinion

Inside the Secret World of the Data Crunchers Who Helped Obama Win

In late spring, the backroom number crunchers who powered Barack Obama's campaign to victory noticed that George Clooney had an almost gravitational tug on West...

Technology Helps Track a Terrorist in 'the Finish'
From ACM Opinion

Technology Helps Track a Terrorist in 'the Finish'

In late summer 2010, at the end of a morning briefing, one of President Obama's security advisers said, "Mr. President, Leon and the guys at Langley think they...

Google's Little Nemo Tribute: Maybe The Best Google Doodle Ever
From ACM Opinion

Google's Little Nemo Tribute: Maybe The Best Google Doodle Ever

Winsor McCay (1869–1934) was one of the first important creators of both comic strips and animation, and a pretty fair political cartoonist to boot.

Digital First Isn't an Option for Media—It's the Only Way Forward
From ACM Opinion

Digital First Isn't an Option for Media—It's the Only Way Forward

Everywhere you look in the traditional media industry, you can see signs of turmoil and disruption: to take just a few recent examples, the New York Times is ...

What Makes Google's Maps So Good
From ACM Opinion

What Makes Google's Maps So Good

Wow. Nothing makes you appreciate something like losing it.

Apple-Google Maps Talks Crashed Over Voice-Guided Directions
From ACM News

Apple-Google Maps Talks Crashed Over Voice-Guided Directions

Google Chairman Eric Schmidt says Apple should have continued to use Google’s mapping application in iOS 6 instead of swapping it out for its poorly received home...

Why Everyone (not Just Geeks) Should Care About Big Data
From ACM Opinion

Why Everyone (not Just Geeks) Should Care About Big Data

Hugo Campos has a cardiac defibrillator implanted in his body. It sends data about his heart to his doctors and back to the manufacturer, but it takes days to get...

Google News at 10: How the Algorithm Won Over the News Industry
From ACM Opinion

Google News at 10: How the Algorithm Won Over the News Industry

In April of 2010, Eric Schmidt delivered the keynote address at the conference of the American Society of News Editors in Washington, D.C. During the talk, thearticulate...

Reflecting on the Facebook IPO
From Communications of the ACM

Reflecting on the Facebook IPO

Exploring some factors that reflect a company's worth.

5 Ideas to Help Everyone Make the Most of Big Data
From ACM Opinion

5 Ideas to Help Everyone Make the Most of Big Data

Big data is going mainstream, but there are still plenty of lessons to be learned from Silicon Valley data scientists whose businesses depend on data to survive...

Should Google Be Censoring Videos Just Because They Are Linked to Violence?
From ACM Opinion

Should Google Be Censoring Videos Just Because They Are Linked to Violence?

After violent attacks on Americans in both Egypt and Libya—including an attack in Libya on Tuesday that killed the American ambassador to that country—Google said...

The ­ncanny Valley of Internet Advertising
From ACM Opinion

The ­ncanny Valley of Internet Advertising

If you ask an Internet ad guy to defend himself—to explain why you, dear Web surfer, should feel comfortable letting him serve you ads based on everything you do...

Forget the Desktop
From ACM Opinion

Forget the Desktop

Every morning I wake up too early, reach for my iPad, and scan the morning's tech headlines. This is a pathetic enough existence, but the Web sites I frequent aren't...

Meet Gauss, the Latest Weapon in the ­nfolding ­.s.-Israeli Cyberwar
From ACM Opinion

Meet Gauss, the Latest Weapon in the ­nfolding ­.s.-Israeli Cyberwar

To the steadily growing list of digital weapons that appear to have been jointly created by the combined resources of the U.S. and Israel, we can now add another...

Can Data Mining Stop the Killing?
From ACM Opinion

Can Data Mining Stop the Killing?

Would Total Information Awareness have stopped James Eagan Holmes?

Marissa Mayer Is in Over Her Head
From ACM Opinion

Marissa Mayer Is in Over Her Head

One evening in the spring of 1999, Marissa Mayer got a recruiting email from a tiny search company. "I was in a long-distance relationship at the time, so I was...

From ACM Opinion

Technology Can Be Harnessed to Fight Drug Cartels in Mexico

A couple of months ago we visited Juarez, Mexico, a city right across our border—yet so far away.
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