Communications of the ACM
Generative AI Degrades Online Communities
How large language models are influencing online communities.
From ACM Opinion
Microsoft Is the Most Exciting Company in Tech, Hands Down
I never thought I'd ever hear myself utter such words post-1995. But after the reveal of the Surface tablet—complete with an ultra-thin, pressure-sensitive keyboard...
From ACM Opinion
The First Five Years of the Iphone Obsession
The big question: Is the iPhone a "bicycle for the mind," as the late Steve Jobs said about the first Mac, or a crutch that does too much of our thinking for us...
From ACM Opinion
How Garmin Failed to See the Iphone Threat
About nine years ago, I had a question for Min Kao, the CEO of the GPS concern Garmin. His answer was determined, and I thought of it as I watched the news from...
From ACM Opinion
Alan Turing: Is He Really the Father of Computing?
When Alan Turing arrived to start work at the National Physical Laboratory at Teddington, south-west London, he was 33 years old. It was October 1945 and he was...
From Communications of the ACM
Google's Hybrid Approach to Research
By closely connecting research and development Google is able to conduct experiments on an unprecedented scale, often resulting in new capabilities for the company...
From Communications of the ACM
Alan Turing's Other Universal Machine
All computer scientists know about the Universal Turing Machine, one of the foundation stones of theoretical computer science. Much less well known is the practical...
From ACM Opinion
Why Microsoft's Surface Tablet Shames the Pc Industry
On June 18, Microsoft beckoned 200 or so members of the media to a grimy, industrial part of Hollywood for what it described as a can’t-miss affair.
From ACM News
The Highly Productive Habits of Alan Turing
June 23 marks the 100th birthday of Alan Turing. If I had to name five people whose personal efforts led to the defeat of Nazi Germany, the English mathematician...
From ACM News
Google's New Brain Could Have a Big Impact
A store of information dubbed the "Knowledge Graph" now adds useful context and detail to the list of links that Google serves up.
From ACM Opinion
Desktop Computers Look More and More Like Smartphones
If you're an experienced computer user, you probably remember explaining to newbies how a desktop computer worked: Your photos should go in this folder; your documents...
From ACM Opinion
Apple's Strategy of Built-In Obsolescence
Ross Miller made a good point about Apple's new flagship laptop, in his review for the Verge. Once you take into account that it has a solid-state drive, it's actually...
From ACM News
Apple's Stash of Credit Card Numbers Is Its Secret Weapon
That little iPhone in your pocket is perfectly positioned to become a clone of the credit cards in your wallet or purse.
From ACM Opinion
Is Flame Virus Fallout a Chinese, Russian Plot to Control the Internet?
Has the U.S. government been caught with its virtual hands in the world's cookie jar? And might it lose control of the Internet as a consequence?
From ACM Opinion
How Google and Microsoft Taught Search to 'understand' the Web
Despite the massive amounts of computing power dedicated by search engine companies to crawling and indexing trillions of documents on the Internet, search engines...
From ACM News
Bionic Brains and Beyond
The National Spelling Bee of 2023 started out like any other, but controversy enveloped the contest when Suzy Hamilton, an 8-year-old from Tulsa, emerged as the...
From ACM Opinion
Why Attack When We Can't Defend?
In December 2010, after we had reverse engineered the Stuxnet virus, I argued that the attackers must have known they would open Pandora's box. Others suggested...
From ACM Opinion
Where Speech Recognition Is Going
Until recently, the idea of holding a conversation with a computer seemed pure science fiction. If you asked a computer to "open the pod bay doors"—well, that was...
From ACM Opinion
Why Antivirus Companies Like Mine Failed to Catch Flame and Stuxnet
A couple of days ago, I received an e-mail from Iran. It was sent by an analyst from the Iranian Computer Emergency Response Team, and it was informing me about...
From ACM Opinion
Apple's Crystal Prison and the Future of Open Platforms
Two weeks ago, Steve Wozniak made a public call for Apple to open its platforms for those who wish to tinker, tweak and innovate with their internals. EFF supports...
From ACM Opinion