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Are All Telephone Calls Recorded and Accessible to the ­.s. Government?
From ACM Opinion

Are All Telephone Calls Recorded and Accessible to the ­.s. Government?

The real capabilities and behavior of the U.S. surveillance state are almost entirely unknown to the American public because, like most things of significance done...

It's Not About New Icons: What Jony Ive Needs to Do For Apple's Ios
From ACM Opinion

It's Not About New Icons: What Jony Ive Needs to Do For Apple's Ios

iOS 7 will be flat, as in flat design.

Digital Tattoos, Mind-Reading Headphones: The Shape of Things to Come?
From ACM Opinion

Digital Tattoos, Mind-Reading Headphones: The Shape of Things to Come?

Forecasting future technology has never been easy. In the 1950s, scientists and technologists envisaged that by now the world would be free from disease, traversed...

Why I Love the National Internet Sales Tax Plan
From ACM Opinion

Why I Love the National Internet Sales Tax Plan

The Internet, in the popular imagination, is supposed to be free—"the last bastion of our economy untouched by the government," as they say on Fox News.

Governments Won't Need to Issue Ids: Data Brokers Will Identify You For Them
From ACM Opinion

Governments Won't Need to Issue Ids: Data Brokers Will Identify You For Them

Our government collects a lot of information about us. Tax records, legal records, license records, records of government services received—it's all in databases...

20 Years On, the Open Web Faces Challenges
From ACM Opinion

20 Years On, the Open Web Faces Challenges

For people of a certain age in the technology industry, one of the ways of establishing a connection with someone is by asking some version of the following question...

Here's Why Bitcoin Is the Future of Money
From ACM Opinion

Here's Why Bitcoin Is the Future of Money

The interesting thing about Bitcoin isn't what it is today. What's interesting is that this experiment is turning into a serious proving ground for the idea of...

The Medium of the Moment
From ACM Opinion

The Medium of the Moment

After the Boston Marathon bombings, the process by which breaking news and information are generated and disseminated looked more ragged and exposed than ever: ...

How Boston Police Won the Twitter Wars During the Marathon Bomber Hunt
From ACM Opinion

How Boston Police Won the Twitter Wars During the Marathon Bomber Hunt

The first official announcement that law enforcement agencies had concluded their manhunt for Boston Marathon bombing suspect Dzhokhar Tsarnaev didn't come at a...

Apple's Next Big Thing
From ACM Opinion

Apple's Next Big Thing

The iPad has always labored under the shadow of its little brother the iPhone.

­nraveling Boston Suspects' Online Lives, Link By Link
From ACM Opinion

­nraveling Boston Suspects' Online Lives, Link By Link

It is America's first fully interactive national tragedy of the social media age.

Moving from Petaflops to Petadata
From Communications of the ACM

Moving from Petaflops to Petadata

The race to build ever-faster supercomputers is on, with more contenders than ever before. However, the current goals set for this race may not lead to the fastest...

Max Newman
From Communications of the ACM

Max Newman: Forgotten Man of Early British Computing

Reflections on a significant, yet often overlooked, computing pioneer.

The Dark Side of the Digital Revolution
From ACM Opinion

The Dark Side of the Digital Revolution

How do you explain to people that they are a YouTube sensation, when they have never heard of YouTube or the Internet?

The Flattening of Design
From ACM Opinion

The Flattening of Design

It might sound audacious to think that Microsoft, the arbiter of uncool, was at the forefront of design a few years ago. But it was.

'total Noise,' Only Louder
From ACM Opinion

'total Noise,' Only Louder

Kids used to ask each other: If a tree falls in a forest and no one hears, does it make a sound? Now there's a microphone in every tree and a loudspeaker on every...

The $12 Gongkai Phone
From ACM Opinion

The $12 Gongkai Phone

How cheap can you make a phone?

We Need More Cameras, and We Need Them Now
From ACM Opinion

We Need More Cameras, and We Need Them Now

On Thursday afternoon, the FBI released photos and video of two persons of interest in the Boston Marathon bombing.

Mars vs. Europa: Are We Looking in the Wrong Place For Alien Life?
From ACM Opinion

Mars vs. Europa: Are We Looking in the Wrong Place For Alien Life?

A British astrobiology conference has revived a years-old debate over the best place to look for life elsewhere in the solar system: Mars, or the moons of Jupiter...

Is High-Tech Security at Public Events Counterproductive?
From ACM Opinion

Is High-Tech Security at Public Events Counterproductive?

Which is more intrusive: security screening and metal detectors every few blocks, or a drone flying high above it taking video of every little thing you do?
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