Communications of the ACM
Generative AI Degrades Online Communities
How large language models are influencing online communities.
From Communications of the ACM
EMV: Why Payment Systems Fail
What lessons might we learn from the chip cards used for payments in Europe, now that the U.S. is adopting them too?
From ACM Opinion
Secrets, Lies and Snowden's Email: Why I Was Forced to Shut Down Lavabit
My legal saga started last summer with a knock at the door, behind which stood two federal agents ready to to serve me with a court order requiring the installation...
From ACM Opinion
Forget 'the Cloud'; 'the Fog' Is Tech's Future
I'm as big a believer in the transformational power of cloud computing as anyone you'll meet.
From ACM News
Do We Need Asimov's Laws?
In 1942, the science fiction author Isaac Asimov published a short story called Runaround in which he introduced three laws that governed the behaviour of robots...
From ACM Opinion
Our Smartphones Are Making Live Tv Better Than Ever
The history of the Internet is one of lonely people trying to find one another.
From ACM Opinion
Glenn Greenwald's Pulse-Pounding Tale of Breaking the Snowden Leaks
In June 2013, Edward Snowden was sitting in his room at the Mira hotel in Hong Kong, watching the world react to the first of his explosive leaks about the NSA's...
From ACM Opinion
The Peril of Knowledge Everywhere
Thanks to advances in technology, we may soon revisit a question raised four centuries ago: Are there things we should try not to know?
From ACM Opinion
Cassini Revisited
When its handlers finally steer it into a collision course with Saturn in 2017, the spacecraft Cassini will have been in space for two decades, 13 of those years...
From ACM Opinion
Here's How to Learn How Much Your Data Is Worth to Facebook and Google
The anti-virus software company AVG has created PrivacyFix, an app to help you get a handle on just how much you're worth to big-time data players Facebook and...
From ACM Opinion
The Move Toward Computing That Reads Your Mind
Like many people in this modern world, I struggle with the tension between the conveniences offered by the latest technology and the loss of privacy that comes...
From ACM Opinion
Computer Mice: Still a Thing
For decades, the mouse was a key component of how one interacted with a computer.
From ACM Opinion
Can an Algorithm Solve Twitter's Credibility Problem?
On October 29, 2012, when Hurricane Sandy made landfall, I was in my Brooklyn apartment, refreshing Twitter.
From ACM News
Cyborg Angst: 5 Ways Computers Will Perplex S in 2039
Brain chips mean we are struggling to distinguish our own thoughts from ideas implanted by advertisers.
From ACM Opinion
How to Build a Gesture-Controlled Web Game with Leap Motion
Modern smartphones have helped shed a light on the power of user interfaces that are driven by gesture and touch. It’s increasingly clear that touch will play a...
From ACM Opinion
Farewell Nokia: The Rise and Fall of a Mobile Pioneer
You never forget your first cellphone.
From ACM Opinion
Goodbye, Net Neutrality; Hello, Net Discrimination
In 2007, at a public forum at Coe College, in Iowa, Presidential candidate Barack Obama was asked about net neutrality.
From Communications of the ACM
Building a Virtual Community of Practice For K-12 CS Teachers
Bringing educators together and focusing their interests toward improving computer science education in high schools.
From Communications of the ACM
Tom Kilburn: A Tale of Five Computers
Reflections on a British computer engineer who influenced several important machines, including the first stored-program computer.
From Communications of the ACM