Communications of the ACM
Generative AI Degrades Online Communities
How large language models are influencing online communities.
From ACM News
Difference Engine: The Pc All Over Again?
What could well be the next great technological disruption is fermenting away, out of sight, in small workshops, college labs, garages, and basements. Tinkerers...
From ACM Opinion
Big Data and Dna: What Business Can Learn from Junk Genes
The science world was rocked Wednesday by the discovery that the 80 percent of the human genethat scientists throught was "junk" actually contains genetic regulators...
From ACM Opinion
Architecture and the Lost Art of Drawing
It has become fashionable in many architectural circles to declare the death of drawing. What has happened to our profession, and our art, to cause the supposed...
From ACM Opinion
The ncanny Valley of Internet Advertising
If you ask an Internet ad guy to defend himself—to explain why you, dear Web surfer, should feel comfortable letting him serve you ads based on everything you do...
From ACM Opinion
Giving In to the Surveillance State
In March 2002, John M. Poindexter, a former national security adviser to President Ronald Reagan, sat down with Gen. Michael V. Hayden, the director of the National...
From ACM Opinion
Our Favorite 'forgotten Tech'—from Beos to Zip Drives
We all know about the gadgets that get showered with constant praise—the icons, the segment leaders, and the game changers. Tech history will never forget the Altair...
From Communications of the ACM
Seven Lessons From Bad History
Journalists, historians, and the invention of email.
From ACM Opinion
How Will Apple Restore Icloud Trust?
After being on the receiving end of a truly awful hacking attack, Wired writer Mat Honan explained how it happened in detail. And he was very clear about two of...
From ACM Opinion
How the Icloud Hack Happened and How to Avoid Being Next
Mat Honan, the technology reporter who was digitally disemboweled this past weekend, has revealed exactly how he was so spectacularly owned. His case, a cascade...
From ACM TechNews
Tired of Security Problems? Change Rules of Writing Code
Security researcher Dan Kaminsky believes rethinking the basic rules of computer science can dramatically improve computer security, and argues that "there's not...
From ACM News
How Fbi Technology Woes Let Fort Hood Shooter Slip By
On November 5, 2009, an Army psychiatrist stationed at Fort Hood, Texas shot and killed 12 fellow soldiers and a civilian Defense Department employee while wounding...
From Communications of the ACM
Will Massive Open Online Courses Change How We Teach?
Sharing recent experiences with the massive open artificial intelligence course developed and conducted by Stanford faculty Sebastian Thrun and Peter Norvig.
From ACM Opinion
Can Data Mining Stop the Killing?
Would Total Information Awareness have stopped James Eagan Holmes?
From ACM Opinion
Technology Can Be Harnessed to Fight Drug Cartels in Mexico
A couple of months ago we visited Juarez, Mexico, a city right across our border—yet so far away.
From ACM Opinion
How Google Is Becoming an Extension of Your Mind
It's time to think of Google as much more than just a search engine, and that should both excite and spook you.
From ACM Opinion
The Sun Shines on 'the Cloud'
What's the real lesson to be learned from Amazon's cloud computing failure two weeks ago, the one that knocked Netflix and other Websites offline?
From ACM Opinion
Why the Days Are Numbered For Hadoop As We Know It
Hadoop is everywhere. For better or worse, it has become synonymous with big data. In just a few years it has gone from a fringe technology to the de facto standard...
From ACM Opinion
Future Planetary Rovers May Make Their Own Decisions
It's a hot summer day, and your eyes spot an ice cream cart up ahead. Without even really thinking, you start walking that direction. Planetary scientists would...
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 Communications of the ACM