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Comet Breakthrough of the Year + People's Choice
From ACM Opinion

Comet Breakthrough of the Year + People's Choice

This year's breakthrough captured the public's imagination with a series of hard-won pictures, beamed to Earth from a place beyond Mars.

Sony Made It Easy, but Any of ­S Could Get Hacked
From ACM Opinion

Sony Made It Easy, but Any of ­S Could Get Hacked

Earlier this month, a mysterious group that calls itself Guardians of Peace hacked into Sony Pictures Entertainment’s computer systems and began revealing many...

The Lesson of the Sony Hack: We Should All Jump to the 'erasable Internet'
From ACM Opinion

The Lesson of the Sony Hack: We Should All Jump to the 'erasable Internet'

This month's news provides yet another occasion for a friendly public-service reminder to anyone who uses a digital device to say anything to anyone, ever.

The Sony Hackers Are Terrorists
From ACM Opinion

The Sony Hackers Are Terrorists

The Sony Pictures hack is important, and the Sony Pictures hack is terrifying.

How to Conquer the Galaxy on a Computer
From ACM Opinion

How to Conquer the Galaxy on a Computer

Space is big. Really big. And not just in terms of the mind-boggingly vast distances between the stars and planets out there in the Universe at large.

From Pc to Navy, Ars Pits Casual Flight Sim Skills Against a Real Cockpit Trainer
From ACM Opinion

From Pc to Navy, Ars Pits Casual Flight Sim Skills Against a Real Cockpit Trainer

A little over a year ago, I was lucky enough to take a short ride in a Folland Gnat trainer—a nimble little two-seat jet maintained by Rick Sharpe of Houston's ...

Dumbing It Down in the Cockpit
From ACM Opinion

Dumbing It Down in the Cockpit

Long gone are the leather jackets, goggles, and silk scarves flung over the shoulders of aviators who wrestled with flight controls, furiously scanned instruments...

What Are Moocs Good For?
From ACM Opinion

What Are Moocs Good For?

A few years ago, the most enthusiastic advocates of MOOCs believed that these "massive open online courses" stood poised to overturn the century-old model of higher...

Artificial Intelligence Isn't a Threat—Yet
From ACM Opinion

Artificial Intelligence Isn't a Threat—Yet

Does artificial intelligence threaten our species, as the cosmologist Stephen Hawking recently suggested?

We Might Be Able to 3-D-Print an Artificial Mind One Day
From ACM Opinion

We Might Be Able to 3-D-Print an Artificial Mind One Day

I'm an artificial-intelligence skeptic.

Get Your Head Around the 13 Boldest Ideas in Science
From ACM Opinion

Get Your Head Around the 13 Boldest Ideas in Science

Science is full of mind-blowing and counterintuitive concepts.

Ransomware Is the Future of Consumer Cybercrime
From ACM Opinion

Ransomware Is the Future of Consumer Cybercrime

It's 2020, bitter cold outside, you’re running late for work, and the Linux box that controls your car isn't going to start unless you wire $20 worth of Bitcoin...

Looking to Mars to Help Understand Changing Climates
From ACM Opinion

Looking to Mars to Help Understand Changing Climates

Where now it stands the Plain of Gold did once my river flow.

Baer's Odyssey: Meet the Serial Inventor Who Built the World's First Game Console
From ACM Opinion

Baer's Odyssey: Meet the Serial Inventor Who Built the World's First Game Console

Even if you're a devoted fan of video games, there's a decent chance you're not familiar with the name Ralph H. Baer.

Trends to Watch in 2015: From Algorithmic Accountability to the ­ber of X
From ACM News

Trends to Watch in 2015: From Algorithmic Accountability to the ­ber of X

Year-end technology prediction lists can be dull fodder devoted to pie-in-the-sky concepts, outlandish marketing claims or rehashes of familiar trends.

Search Gives ­s Superpowers
From ACM News

Search Gives ­s Superpowers

Machine learning—an area of AI focusing on systems that "learn" from data in order to navigate future similar scenarios—is one of the ways we’ve managed to give...

The World Cracks Down on the Internet
From ACM Opinion

The World Cracks Down on the Internet

In September of last year, Chinese authorities announced an unorthodox standard to help them decide whether to punish people for posting online comments that are...

Sure, Artificial Intelligence May End Our World, But That Is Not the Main Problem
From ACM Opinion

Sure, Artificial Intelligence May End Our World, But That Is Not the Main Problem

The robots will rise, we're told.

How Smart, Connected Products Are Transforming Competition
From ACM Opinion

How Smart, Connected Products Are Transforming Competition

Information technology is revolutionizing products. Once composed solely of mechanical and electrical parts, products have become complex systems that combine hardware...

Next Battle in the War on Science
From ACM Opinion

Next Battle in the War on Science

The war over science is heating up on Capitol Hill.
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