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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...

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...

Justice For Alan Turing?
From ACM Opinion

Justice For Alan Turing?

What do we do with the knowledge that people not all that different from ourselves have behaved with astounding stupidity and cruelty, over and over again, in the...

Quantum Computers Will Give Artificial Intelligence Big Boost, Studies Suggest
From ACM Opinion

Quantum Computers Will Give Artificial Intelligence Big Boost, Studies Suggest

Quantum computers of the future will have the potential to give artificial intelligence a major boost, a series of studies suggests.

Sebastian Thrun on the Future of Learning
From ACM Opinion

Sebastian Thrun on the Future of Learning

Sebastian Thrun has worn many hats in the tech world: Stanford research professor, founder of Google's X Labs, where he oversaw the development of self-drivingUdacity...

Software Recognition Technology Is Amazing, but Not Amazing Enough
From ACM Opinion

Software Recognition Technology Is Amazing, but Not Amazing Enough

The gadget blogs may work themselves into a frenzy over megapixels and processor speed. But if you want to know what really dazzles the masses, consider a feature...

What the Digital Brains of the Future Might Be Like
From ACM Opinion

What the Digital Brains of the Future Might Be Like

It is the rare entrepreneur who hits it truly big twice. Those who do—such as Ev Williams, Ted Turner, and Elon Musk—tend to stay within the original industry that...

Would You Go Full Cyborg?
From ACM Opinion

Would You Go Full Cyborg?

It's only a matter of time, really. Google Glass, Epson's Movierio, the Oculus Rift, and similar technologies are at the cutting edge of wearable technologies....

Mit's Magic Bag Of Sand
From ACM Opinion

Mit's Magic Bag Of Sand

The camera pushes in. And there, near the meridian line, you see a faint scattering of red lights. Something is in the tar. And it's glowing.

The Trouble With Neuroscience
From ACM Opinion

The Trouble With Neuroscience

No crevice of the human experience is safe.

Why Teaching a Robot to Fetch a Cup of Coffee Matters
From ACM Opinion

Why Teaching a Robot to Fetch a Cup of Coffee Matters

In robotics, as in life, it often takes small steps to reach a big goal.

Jaron Lanier on the Cheap Treats and Religious Emotion of Moore's Law
From ACM Opinion

Jaron Lanier on the Cheap Treats and Religious Emotion of Moore's Law

Moore's Law is Silicon Valley’s guiding principle, like all 10 commandments wrapped into one.

Intelligent Robots Will Overtake Humans By 2100, Experts Say
From ACM Opinion

Intelligent Robots Will Overtake Humans By 2100, Experts Say

Are you prepared to meet your robot overlords?

Why We Often View Digital Culture Through Insect Metaphors
From ACM Opinion

Why We Often View Digital Culture Through Insect Metaphors

Swarms. Hive minds. The Web.

Digital Tattoos, Mind-Reading Headphones: The Shape of Things to Come?
From ACM Opinion

Digital Tattoos, Mind-Reading Headphones: The Shape of Things to Come?

Forecasting future technology has never been easy. In the 1950s, scientists and technologists envisaged that by now the world would be free from disease, traversed...

We Need More Cameras, and We Need Them Now
From ACM Opinion

We Need More Cameras, and We Need Them Now

On Thursday afternoon, the FBI released photos and video of two persons of interest in the Boston Marathon bombing.

Time and Navigation: How We Found Our Way in the World
From ACM Opinion

Time and Navigation: How We Found Our Way in the World

Type an address into your phone, and up will pop a step-by-step route from where you are to where you want to be. This is, in its way, magic—magic that has, at...

From ACM Opinion

Why Obama's Brain-Mapping Project Matters

Last week, President Obama officially announced $100 million in funding for arguably the most ambitious neuroscience initiative ever proposed.

Apple and the Mysterious Case of the Missing Moonshot
From ACM Opinion

Apple and the Mysterious Case of the Missing Moonshot

When John Morrell left his post at Yale University last year and decamped to Apple, some members of the robotics community were perplexed.

Google's Self-Driving Robot Cars Are Ruining My Commute
From ACM Opinion

Google's Self-Driving Robot Cars Are Ruining My Commute

My hometown, Mountain View, Calif., has become the unofficial capital of the robotic car revolution.
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