Communications of the ACM
Generative AI Degrades Online Communities
How large language models are influencing online communities.
From ACM Opinion
Who Watches the Watchers?
Once again, specialized security technology from a western vendor was found being used by foreign regime on the U.S. trade embargo list.
From ACM Opinion
Who Needs Keys When Siri Has Been Hacked to Start Cars?
Last week we showed you how a developer had hacked Siri to operate his internet-connected thermostat. But that's not cool. Starting your car using Siri, now that's...
From ACM Opinion
Internet Anti-Piracy Bill Would Chill Free Expression
A bill in the House aims to fight online piracy, but its blunderbuss approach would cripple online innovation and chill free expression on the Web.
From ACM Opinion
Voice Recognition: Has It Come of Age?
The man sits down in front of the computer and says, affably: "Computer!"
From ACM Opinion
The Big Data Boom Is the Innovation Story of Our Time
The data revolution has turned customers into unwitting business consultants, as our purchases and searches are tracked to improve everything from Web sites to...
From ACM Opinion
Occupy the Net!
What would George Orwell make of Facebook? Nothing really: His account would probably be deactivated by the company. If he were lucky, he would be told to produce...
From ACM Opinion
The Last Person
There is a concept in telecommunications called "the last mile," that part of any phone system that is the most difficult to connect—the part that goes from the...
From ACM Opinion
Misconceptions in Ai: Or Why Watson Can't Talk to Siri
On Tuesday night, I was schooled by Watson on playing Jeopardy in an exhibition match at the Computer History Museum. I discovered that despite our fear of the...
From ACM Opinion
Could 3D Printing End Our Throwaway Culture?
There's a tiny knob missing from my hands-free car kit, which I keep meaning to replace. The thing is, I don't think I can buy parts for it, so I probably need...
From ACM Opinion
Will Cloud Computing Make Everything (and Everyone) Work Harder?
What do the following have in common: Computers, limousines, empty beds and stay-at-home moms? The cloud keeps them busy. The rest of us are next. Virtualization...
From ACM Opinion
Privacy Loses in Twitter/wikileaks Records Battle
A district court judge in Virginia ruled against online privacy, allowing U.S federal investigators to collect private records of three Twitter users as part of...
From ACM Opinion
Our High-Tech Health-Care Future
Why can't Americans tap into the ingenuity that put men on the moon, created the Internet, and sequenced the human genome to revitalize our economy?
From ACM Opinion
Take That, Adobe! Jobs Gets Last Laugh on Flash
In April, 2010, Steve Jobs devoted about 1,700 words to a public post ripping Adobe's Flash to shreds. His most cutting comments concerned the mobile version of...
From ACM Opinion
Blogging the Stanford Machine Learning Class
After three weeks of frustrating math dealing with dull statistics problems, we’re on to frustrating math dealing with "neural networks"—models of how the cells...
From ACM Opinion
How Can Malware Be Stopped?
The world of cybersecurity is starting to resemble a paranoid thriller.
From ACM Opinion
The Court's Gps Test
There were no GPS tracking devices when the framers wrote the Fourth Amendment’s prohibition against unreasonable searches. But that does not mean this sometimes...
From ACM Opinion
The End of the Credit Card?
A new app called Card Case foretells a world without cash and plastic.
From ACM Opinion
Good Touch, Bad Touch
The iconic iPhone interface tarnishes the legacy of Steve Jobs.
From ACM Opinion
Why Siri Is a Google Killer
It has now been a couple of weeks since Siri debuted as part of Apple’s iPhone 4S. The response from most people has been very positive. However, Siri is tremendously...
From ACM Opinion