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From ACM Opinion

President Reif Writes to Mit Community Regarding Aaron Swartz

Yesterday we received the shocking and terrible news that on Friday in New York, Aaron Swartz, a gifted young man well known and admired by many in the MIT community...

Meeting with Biden Is a Mistake for the Game Industry
From ACM Opinion

Meeting with Biden Is a Mistake for the Game Industry

A couple weeks ago, an industry friend of mine told me that the office for Vice President Joe Biden was reaching out to so-called "game industry leaders."

Is It Time For the Internet to Get the Plumber In?
From ACM Opinion

Is It Time For the Internet to Get the Plumber In?

The strange thing about the Internet is that it went from being something exotic to something mundane almost without us noticing it.

 Aaron Swartz and Me, Over a Loosely Intertwined Decade
From ACM Opinion

Aaron Swartz and Me, Over a Loosely Intertwined Decade

I don't remember the first time I heard about Aaron Swartz. It probably was from reading Dave Winer's blog more than 10 years ago when I was an undergraduate at...

Why We Should Remember Aaron Swartz
From ACM Opinion

Why We Should Remember Aaron Swartz

The Internet is not so old. Its graybeards live still. Vint Cerf, author of the Internet Protocol, has been installed as Google's "chief Internet evangelist," a...

The Small Business of 2063
From ACM Opinion

The Small Business of 2063

Our world is changing faster than ever and, in recent years, a number of transformative technologies have moved from science fiction and the research and development...

Make Guns Smart
From ACM Opinion

Make Guns Smart

Voices across the political spectrum are debating how to prevent mass shootings such as the one in Newtown, Connecticut.

Don't Let Math Pull the Wool Over Your Eyes
From ACM Opinion

Don't Let Math Pull the Wool Over Your Eyes

This column will make the case that many people, including holders of graduate degrees, professional researchers, and even editors of scientific journals, can be...

It's All About the Genes and the Brain Machines
From ACM News

It's All About the Genes and the Brain Machines

The amount of time and money needed to sequence genomes continued to fall in 2012, perhaps to no one’s surprise.

How to Design a Better World
From ACM Opinion

How to Design a Better World

When I was young, my teachers praised me for being good at math and art, but my father would always tell people, "You know, John is good at math."

Better Than Human: Why Robots Will—and Must—take Our Jobs
From ACM Opinion

Better Than Human: Why Robots Will—and Must—take Our Jobs

It's hard to believe you'd have an economy at all if you gave pink slips to more than half the labor force.

'hashtag' Is the 2012 Word of the Year
From ACM News

'hashtag' Is the 2012 Word of the Year

In its 23rd annual words of the year vote, the American Dialect Society voted "hashtag" as the word of the year for 2012. Hashtag refers to the practice used on...

The Future of Medicine Is Now
From ACM Opinion

The Future of Medicine Is Now

In our era of instant gratification, the world of medicine seems like an outlier.

5 Nerds to Watch in 2013
From ACM Careers

5 Nerds to Watch in 2013

When Steve Jobs died, there was a lot of talk about who would be the next Steve Jobs. But the truth is, rarely can one person reshape the future. And breakthroughs...

From ACM Opinion

2012: What We Learned

There's a natural inclination for people at the end of each year to look back, take stock and try to draw some grand meaning or life lessons out of the events of...

Marking the Birth of the Modern-Day Internet
From ACM Opinion

Marking the Birth of the Modern-Day Internet

A long time ago, my colleagues and I became part of a great adventure, teamed with a small band of scientists and technologists in the U.S. and elsewhere.

How Big Data Can Solve America's Gun Problem
From ACM Opinion

How Big Data Can Solve America's Gun Problem

Big data might have stopped the massacres in Newtown, Aurora, and Oak Creek.

Looking Back: The Five Most Important Security Stories of 2012
From ACM Opinion

Looking Back: The Five Most Important Security Stories of 2012

The dance among blackhat, whitehat, and grayhat hackers grew ever more intricate in 2012, thanks to a steady stream of exploits, vulnerability discoveries, and...

Social Media: Five Predictions For 2013
From ACM Opinion

Social Media: Five Predictions For 2013

When you think of social media these days, you probably think primarily of Facebook and Twitter, and perhaps Instagram. But while those services have massive—and...

Computer Code Frees ­S to Think in New Ways
From ACM Opinion

Computer Code Frees ­S to Think in New Ways

At the start of 2012, Michael Bloomberg, the mayor of New York tweeted: "My New Year's resolution is to learn to code with Codecademy."
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