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From ACM Opinion

Google Schools Its Algorithm

To humans, computer intelligence is a puzzle, as if the machines have split personalities. They can be so remarkably smart at times, yet so bafflingly dumb at...

From ACM News

Is the Navy Trying to Start the Robot Apocalypse?

Whenever the military rolls out a new robot program, folks like to joke about SkyNet or the Rise of the Machines. But this time, the military really is starting...

How We Know
From ACM News

How We Know

James Gleick's first chapter has the title "Drums That Talk." It explains the concept of information by looking at a simple example.

Cubelets: Modular, Affordable Robotics For Kids and Students
From ACM Opinion

Cubelets: Modular, Affordable Robotics For Kids and Students

Robotics can be a tricky subject to teach children, and it's hard to know where to start. Cubelets is a system of modular cubes that each have one use, interaction...

My Puny Human Brain
From ACM Opinion

My Puny Human Brain

Jeopardy! genius Ken Jennings on what it's like to play against a supercomputer.

A Worthwhile Contest For Artificial Intelligence
From ACM Opinion

A Worthwhile Contest For Artificial Intelligence

If IBM's Watson machine defeats people on TV's Jeopardy this week, does that mean that computers are smarter than humans? Maybe not. But the performance could...

Mind vs. Machine
From ACM News

Mind vs. Machine

In the race to build computers that can think like humans, the proving ground is the Turing Test—an annual battle between the world’s most advanced artificial...

From ACM Opinion

What Is Artificial Intelligence?

In the category "What Do You Know?," for $1 million: This four-year-old upstart the size of a small R.V. has digested 200 million pages of data about everything...

From ACM Opinion

Space Stasis

What the strange persistence of rockets can teach us about innovation.

From ACM Opinion

Beware the Cyber War Boomerang?

Stuxnet, most sophisticated cyber weapon ever developed, could turn on vulnerable U.S. infrastructure.

The Purpose of Science Fiction
From ACM Opinion

The Purpose of Science Fiction

How it teaches governments—and citizens—how to understand the future of technology.

25 Years of Digital Vandalism
From ACM Opinion

25 Years of Digital Vandalism

In January 1986, Basit and Amjad Alvi, sibling programmers living near the main train station in Lahore, Pakistan, wrote a piece of code to safeguard the latest...

Forest For the Trees
From Communications of the ACM

Forest For the Trees

With the amount of disk space available to the modern programmer, and the lack of parental supervision in most...

From ACM Opinion

Apple: Disrupt or Perish

While the secret for Apple's success seems patently obvious to most&meash;as obvious as the form and function of the iPhone 4—a more subtle reason is the company's...

From ACM Opinion

2011 Preview: Million-Dollar Mathematics Problem

A draft solution to the so-called "P versus NP" problem generated excitement in 2010; will 2011 bring a correct proof?

Reflections on the Toyota Debacle
From Communications of the ACM

Reflections on the Toyota Debacle

A look in the rearview mirror reveals system and process blind spots.

Don't Bring Me a Good Idea
From Communications of the ACM

Don't Bring Me a Good Idea

You want to know how to get my attention?" Jason Kalich asked the audience rhetorically. "First off, don't bring me a good...

From ACM Opinion

Stuxnet's Finnish-Chinese Connection

I recently wrote a white paper entitled “Dragons, Tigers, Pearls, and Yellowcake” in which I proposed four alternative scenarios for the Stuxnet worm other than...

­biquity Symposium: 'what Is Computation?'
From ACM Opinion

­biquity Symposium: 'what Is Computation?'

A new series on ACM's Ubiquity seeks to answer the question: 'What is computation?' In this opening article, Ubiquity's editor-in-chief Peter J. Denning and co-author...

From ACM Opinion

"this Paper Should Not Have Been Published"

Scientists see fatal flaws in the NASA study of arsenic-based life.
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