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Forget the Robot Singularity Apocalypse. Let's Talk About the Multiplicity
From ACM Opinion

Forget the Robot Singularity Apocalypse. Let's Talk About the Multiplicity

For a species that's conquered Earth and traveled through space and invented the Slapchop, we humans sure are insecure when it comes to technology.

Can Robots Tighten the Bolts on a Rickety Caregiver Sector?
From ACM Opinion

Can Robots Tighten the Bolts on a Rickety Caregiver Sector?

In 2015 I was watching a dress rehearsal for a play about love, loss and aging. In a climactic scene, the lead actress gesticulated and shouted, while her co-star...

Beyond The bitcoin Bubble
From ACM Opinion

Beyond The bitcoin Bubble

layer innocent nothing argue pottery winner cotton menu task slim merge maid   The sequence of words is meaningless: a random array strung together by an algorithm...

In 2018, Voice Assistants Will Make the Leap Out of Your Home
From ACM Opinion

In 2018, Voice Assistants Will Make the Leap Out of Your Home

At one section of Google's giant outdoor booth at CES was an impromptu, carney-style one-man show, with a guy wearing dark sunglasses and a white Google Assistant...

Congress Renews Warrantless Surveillance, and Makes It Even Worse
From ACM Opinion

Congress Renews Warrantless Surveillance, and Makes It Even Worse

In 2013, Edward Snowden revealed that the National Security Agency was legally collecting millions of Americans' phone calls and electronic communications—including...

Nissan Wants to Make You a Better Driver By Reading Your Mind
From ACM Opinion

Nissan Wants to Make You a Better Driver By Reading Your Mind

Might the car of the future be able to read your mind?

There Is No Such Thing as 'the' Blockchain
From ACM Opinion

There Is No Such Thing as 'the' Blockchain

How do you quadruple your stock price without lifting a finger?

Exoplanet Science 2.0
From ACM Opinion

Exoplanet Science 2.0

It is more than two decades since we learnt that the Universe is awash with other worlds. Since 1992, more than 3,500 exoplanets have been discovered orbiting stars...

Even Realistic Videogames Like Call of Duty Won't Help ­S Win Wars
From ACM Opinion

Even Realistic Videogames Like Call of Duty Won't Help ­S Win Wars

Millennials can now storm the beaches of Normandy and fight Nazis with a new level of realism.

Trust in Digital Technology Will Be the Internet's Next Frontier, For 2018 and Beyond
From ACM Opinion

Trust in Digital Technology Will Be the Internet's Next Frontier, For 2018 and Beyond

After decades of unbridled enthusiasm—bordering on addiction—about all things digital, the public may be losing trust in technology.

The Big Tech Trends to Follow at Ces 2018
From ACM Opinion

The Big Tech Trends to Follow at Ces 2018

Imagine this: When you leave the house, your air conditioner and lights turn off automatically. Then when a motion sensor detects a person in the house, like your...

8 Overly Confident, Mostly Pessimistic Predictions About Tech in 2018
From ACM Opinion

8 Overly Confident, Mostly Pessimistic Predictions About Tech in 2018

It was a very strange year for technology companies. They have become a "bipartisan whipping boy," a new sexist institution, responsible for the muddying of the...

What Telegram Owes Iranians
From ACM Opinion

What Telegram Owes Iranians

After the 2009 Green Movement—a failed attempt to overturn a stolen presidential election through street protests—the Iranian political establishment took away...

10 Ways Tech Will Shape Your Life in 2018, For Better and Worse
From ACM Opinion

10 Ways Tech Will Shape Your Life in 2018, For Better and Worse

Is the outlook for technology in 2018 exciting—or slightly terrifying? Flip a coin. You'd be right either way.

3 Brain Technologies to Watch in 2018
From ACM Opinion

3 Brain Technologies to Watch in 2018

Technologies to detect brain activity—fine, we'll come right out and call it mind reading—as well as to change it are moving along so quickly that "a bit of a gold...

License Expired: The Ars Technica 2018 Deathwatch
From ACM Opinion

License Expired: The Ars Technica 2018 Deathwatch

Wow, that 2017, though. Quite a year. Let's grab a Juicero and take a moment to reflect on the utter dumpster fires that we've witnessed over the past 12 months...

New York City's Bold, Flawed Attempt to Make Algorithms Accountable
From ACM Opinion

New York City's Bold, Flawed Attempt to Make Algorithms Accountable

The end of a politician's time in office often inspires a turn toward the existential, but few causes are as quixotic as the one chosen by James Vacca, who this...

Driverless Cars Could Make Transportation Free For Everyone, With a Catch
From ACM Opinion

Driverless Cars Could Make Transportation Free For Everyone, With a Catch

As self-driving cars inch closer to everyday reality, journalists, futurists, economists, and ethicists have weighed in with numerous predictions about autonomous...

How Law and Computer Science Can Work Together to Improve the Information Society
From Communications of the ACM

How Law and Computer Science Can Work Together to Improve the Information Society

Seeking to remedy bad legislation with good science.

The Year the Home Button Died
From ACM Opinion

The Year the Home Button Died

The most convincing lie Steve Jobs ever told was "you already know how to use it."
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