acm-header
Sign In

Communications of the ACM

Recent Articles


bg-corner

What If Web Search Results Were Based on Accuracy?
From ACM Opinion

What If Web Search Results Were Based on Accuracy?

Imagine, for a moment, that every Web search gave only accurate, verified information.

Best Medical Science Images of 2015
From ACM Opinion

Best Medical Science Images of 2015

The Wellcome Trust has announced the 20 winners of its 2015 Image Awards for medical science images. Here are our favourites.

Mathematicians of the Future?
From ACM Opinion

Mathematicians of the Future?

Herbert Simon, the Nobel-prize winning economist, was a techno-enthusiast. In 1956 he predicted that, "within 10 years, computers would beat the world chess champion...

The War Over Who Steve Jobs Was
From ACM Opinion

The War Over Who Steve Jobs Was

On October 16, 2011, the early evening weather on the Stanford University campus in Palo Alto, California, was almost unspeakably gorgeous—mild as a warm bath,...

The Math of March Madness
From ACM Opinion

The Math of March Madness

The N.C.A.A. men's basketball tournament started Thursday, but for most Americans the real action began days before, as they pored over brackets, competing to make...

Reality Check: Comparing Hololens and Magic Leap
From ACM Opinion

Reality Check: Comparing Hololens and Magic Leap

I've seen two competing visions for a future in which virtual objects are merged seamlessly with the real world.

Why Some of Google's Coolest Projects Flop Badly
From ACM Opinion

Why Some of Google's Coolest Projects Flop Badly

In public, companies try to trot out any hint of a success story—real or imagined. At SXSW this week, Google took a different tack: It talked all about its failures...

Love in the Time of Bots
From ACM Opinion

Love in the Time of Bots

Convincing people to have a romantic relationship with a computer might be easier than it sounds.

How Isis Succeeds on Social Media Where #stopkony Fails
From ACM Opinion

How Isis Succeeds on Social Media Where #stopkony Fails

Social networks offer an incredible tool for tapping into the collective unconscious, a virtual Jungian arena in which competition might be expected to amplify...

Don't Want Nsa to Spy on Your Email? 5 Things You Can Do
From ACM Opinion

Don't Want Nsa to Spy on Your Email? 5 Things You Can Do

More than half of Americans are worried about the U.S. government's digital spies prying into their emails, texts, search requests and other online information,...

So Sayeth Google
From ACM Opinion

So Sayeth Google

Search for "vaccines." At least within our filter bubble, the top item in Google's "In the news" section earlier this week was an anti-vax column about the "feds'...

'brutal Doom' Makes One of the Best Games Ever Made Even Better
From ACM Opinion

'brutal Doom' Makes One of the Best Games Ever Made Even Better

I still measure every first-person shooter that's released today against the two decades-old Doom, or, more accurately, my memory of playing it as a tween.

Teaching Robots to Be Moral
From ACM Opinion

Teaching Robots to Be Moral

"Chappie," the highest-grossing movie in America last weekend, is, to put it mildly, not a great film; the critics have given it a twenty-nine on Rotten Tomatoes...

Don't Edit the Human Germ Line
From ACM Opinion

Don't Edit the Human Germ Line

It is thought that studies involving the use of genome-editing tools to modify the DNA of human embryos will be published shortly.

The Disastrous Events That Would Break the Internet
From ACM Opinion

The Disastrous Events That Would Break the Internet

The Internet is unbreakable. At least, we think it is.

Finding Out What the Past Smelled Like
From ACM Opinion

Finding Out What the Past Smelled Like

It was the smell that hit me first, a heady mixture of roasting meat, woodsmoke, and farmyard manure.

How Apple's Embrace of the New ­sb Points to World Without Wires
From ACM Opinion

How Apple's Embrace of the New ­sb Points to World Without Wires

Ready or not, Apple's new MacBook is cutting the computing industry's cables.

The 12 Tech Nuisances That Annoy ­s Most
From ACM Opinion

The 12 Tech Nuisances That Annoy ­s Most

You know those days when your phone battery doesn't even make it to dinner?

If an Algorithm Wrote This, How Would You Even Know?
From ACM Opinion

If an Algorithm Wrote This, How Would You Even Know?

Let me hazard a guess that you think a real person has written what you're reading. Maybe you're right. Maybe not.

Here's What Will Truly Change Higher Education: Online Degrees That Are Seen as Official
From ACM Opinion

Here's What Will Truly Change Higher Education: Online Degrees That Are Seen as Official

Three years ago, technology was going to transform higher education. What happened?
Sign In for Full Access
» Forgot Password? » Create an ACM Web Account