Communications of the ACM
Generative AI Degrades Online Communities
How large language models are influencing online communities.
From ACM Opinion
Apple's Rise to Top Means Less Than You Think
With Apple officially becoming the world's most valuable company—at least for a day—it's tempting to engage in lofty talk about what this says about the rise...
From ACM News
Google's Self-Driving Wreck: Really Human Error?
When a self-driving car crashes, one just has to wonder about those robots. Are they really all they're cracked up to be? Or might they be just as cracked as...
From ACM Opinion
The Internet of Things (infographic)
When we think of being connected to the Internet, our minds immediately shift to our computers, phones, and most recently tablets. This week at Cisco live, I...
From ACM Opinion
The Campaign to Terrify You About Emp
From Newt Gingrich to a Congressional "EMP Caucus," some conservatives warn the electronics-frying blast could pose gravely underestimated dangers to the U.S.
From ACM News
Should the Government Need a Search Warrant to Track Your Car with Gps?
The Supreme Court ended its term with a high-profile ruling that violent video games are protected by the First Amendment, but a bigger technology decision could...
From ACM Opinion
The Tragic Decline of Blackberry
Research In Motion (RIM), makers of the venerable BlackBerry devices, will always be remembered as the company that liberated corporate email from the PC. In...
From ACM Opinion
Was the Space Shuttle a Mistake?
Forty years ago, I wrote an article for Technology Review titled "Shall We Build the Space Shuttle?" Now, with the 135th and final flight of the shuttle at hand...
From ACM News
Real .s. Stealth-Tech Advantage: Its Assembly Lines
For more than 20 years, the U.S. Air Force had a world monopoly on radar-evading technology—and with it, a huge advantage over any rival. Several generations...
From ACM Opinion
Why Gadgets Flop
According to the old saying, you learn more from a failure than a success. Well, if that's the case, the consumer electronics industry ought to have a master's...
From ACM Opinion
Apple Multitouch Patent Is All About x Lock-In
Apple notched a significant win last week when it was awarded a key patent related to basic multitouch functionality. The patent was first called "hugely problematic"...
From ACM News
Big Win For the Losers at D-Wave
Does D-Wave's first big sale disprove the quantum computing naysayers?
From ACM Opinion
How I Failed, Failed, and Finally Succeeded at Learning How to Code
When Colin Hughes was about 11 years old his parents brought home a rather strange toy. It wasn't colorful or cartoonish; it didn't seem to have any lasers or...
From ACM News
Parting Shots from a Mars Rover
NASA is no longer sending commands to the Spirit rover on Mars, but the long-silent robot still has a few more chances to phone home. Not that anyone is expecting...
From ACM Opinion
One on One: Jaron Lanier
Jaron Lanier, a partner architect at Microsoft Research, has had a long and varied career in technology. Mr. Lanier popularized the term "virtual reality" in...
From ACM News
How Computers Got US Into Space
When you look back at the past 50 years of human spaceflight, don't forget the computer scientists who helped make it possible.
From ACM Opinion
There's No Data Sheriff on the Wild Web
A company suffers a catastrophic attack on its servers. Gone are names, email addresses, home phone numbers, passwords, credit card numbers. Everything ends up...
From ACM Opinion
Five Gadgets that Will Be Dead in Five Years
If there's one thing that's predictable in the technology world, it's that things change. Products that were commonplace 10 years ago (PDAs, CRT televisions,...
From ACM Opinion
Will Amazon's Recent Server Failures Slow the Rise of Cloud Computing?
Last Thursday morning around 5 a.m. eastern time, Amazon suffered a major data center outage. These sorts of outages happen now and then, but they seldom makewhy...
From ACM Opinion