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Can We Really ­pload Johnny Depp's Brain?
From ACM Opinion

Can We Really ­pload Johnny Depp's Brain?

When Wally Pfister's Transcendence is released on April 17, millions of moviegoers will be asking themselves, "Could we really upload Johnny Depp into a computer...

The Story of Cortana, Microsoft's Siri Killer
From ACM Opinion

The Story of Cortana, Microsoft's Siri Killer

Technically, Cortana isn't supposed to exist for at least another 500 years, but that's not stopping Microsoft from bringing her to life this week.

Bots on the Beat
From ACM Opinion

Bots on the Beat

On March 24 at 2:36 p.m., the New York Post reported that the body of former Nets basketball player Quinton Ross had been found in a shallow grave on Long Island...

Hey, Robot: Which Cat Is Cuter?
From ACM Opinion

Hey, Robot: Which Cat Is Cuter?

One recent morning, while contemplating writing this column, I scrolled through thousands and thousands of listings for mundane microgigs on Mechanical Turk, or...

The Dream of Intelligent Robot Friends
From ACM Opinion

The Dream of Intelligent Robot Friends

Karotz is an Internet-enabled console in the shape of an abstracted rabbit.

Is Multicore Hardware For General-Purpose Parallel Processing Broken?
From Communications of the ACM

Is Multicore Hardware For General-Purpose Parallel Processing Broken?

The current generation of general-purpose multicore hardware must be fixed to support more application domains and to allow cost-effective parallel programming.

From ACM Opinion

Why Google Doesn't Have a Research Lab

Research vice presidents at some computing giants, such as Microsoft and IBM, rule over divisions housed in dedicated facilities carefully insulated from the rat...

The Future of Brain Implants
From ACM News

The Future of Brain Implants

What would you give for a retinal chip that let you see in the dark or for a next-generation cochlear implant that let you hear any conversation in a noisy restaurant...

Why You Should Embrace Surveillance, Not Fight It
From ACM Opinion

Why You Should Embrace Surveillance, Not Fight It

I once worked with Steven Spielberg on the development of Minority Report, derived from the short story by Philip K. Dick featuring a future society that uses surveillance...

From ACM Opinion

Why Robots Will Not Be Smarter Than Humans By 2029

In the last few days we've seen a spate of headlines like 2029: the year when robots will have the power to outsmart their makers, all occasioned by an Observer...

Language Barriers
From ACM Opinion

Language Barriers

The British scientist and polymath Stephen Wolfram has always had big ambitions.

An Easy Way to Improve the Olympics: Make Performance Enhancements Legal
From ACM Opinion

An Easy Way to Improve the Olympics: Make Performance Enhancements Legal

In February 2013, Lindsey Vonn—perhaps the most accomplished female skier in American history—tore her anterior cruciate ligament in a crash in the mountains of...

Why Watson Is Real Artificial Intelligence
From ACM Opinion

Why Watson Is Real Artificial Intelligence

Artificial intelligence is here now.

Some Predict Computers Will Produce a Jobless Future. Here's Why They're Wrong.
From ACM Opinion

Some Predict Computers Will Produce a Jobless Future. Here's Why They're Wrong.

Will "smart machines" steal our jobs?

Last Call For Bad Calls
From ACM Opinion

Last Call For Bad Calls

Technology will soon make officials at high-level sports events as obsolete as elevator operators, their skill set as useful as knowing how to make a wood tennis...

Baxter and the Second Machine Age
From ACM News

Baxter and the Second Machine Age

The Industrial Revolution of the 18th century is not just the story of steam power, but steam started it all.

A Creator of Skynet Ponders Google
From ACM Opinion

A Creator of Skynet Ponders Google

After an eight-year detour in which he served as governor of California, Arnold Schwarzenegger has returned to his true calling as a cyborg assassin.

An AI Pal That Is Better Than 'her'
From ACM Opinion

An AI Pal That Is Better Than 'her'

In the movie Her, which was nominated for the Oscar for Best Picture this year, a middle-aged writer named Theodore Twombly installs and rapidly falls in love with...

What If Your Autonomous Car Keeps Routing You Past Krispy Kreme?
From ACM Opinion

What If Your Autonomous Car Keeps Routing You Past Krispy Kreme?

On a future road trip, your robot car decides to take a new route, driving you past a Krispy Kreme Doughnut shop.

How Isaac Asimov Got 2014 Both So Right and So Wrong
From ACM Opinion

How Isaac Asimov Got 2014 Both So Right and So Wrong

In 1964, legendary writer of science fiction and science fact Isaac Asimov visited the World's Fair, where a General Electric pavilion chronicling advances in electric...
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