Communications of the ACM
Generative AI Degrades Online Communities
How large language models are influencing online communities.
From ACM Opinion
Lego Mindstorms Ev3 Means Giant Robots, Powerful Computers
Gummi Bears. That's what playing with Lego bricks reminds me of—sitting cross-legged on the floor in the back room of my parents' house on Saturday mornings, ahere...
From ACM Opinion
How Wearable Technology Could Transform Business
Once upon a time seeing your life flash before your eyes was something people did their best to avoid. The arrival of Google Glass seems to have changed that.
From ACM Opinion
We Need a Moratorium on 'Brain-Like' Tech Stories
My "aha" moment arrived two decades ago while I was an undergrad student (and dilettante "futurist," though I didn’t know the word then), sitting in the Great Hall...
From ACM Opinion
Counterfeits Can Kill .s. Troops. So Why Isn't Congress and Dod Doing More to Stop It?
Sometime in the not-to-distant future, a submarine will sink. An air defense missile will detonate far from its intended target. These chilling scenarios will...
From ACM Opinion
WikiLeaks' Teenage Benedict Arnold
When he met Julian Assange for the first time, Sigurdur Thordarson admired the WikiLeaks founder's attitude and quickly signed up to the cause.
From ACM Opinion
What Motivates Free Software Licencing Decisions?
Free software licenses can be divided into two broad categories: copyleft licenses and permissive licenses. The licenses reflect a particular view about fairness...
From ACM Opinion
How Steve Jobs Turned Technology — And Apple — Into Religion
The technological values promoted by Apple are part of the Faustian bargain of technology, which both giveth and taketh away.
From ACM Opinion
If We Landed on Europa, What Would We Want to Know?
Most of what scientists know of Jupiter's moon Europa they have gleaned from a dozen or so close flybys from NASA's Voyager 2 spacecraft in 1979 and NASA's Galileo...
From ACM Opinion
The End of Integrated Systems
I always travel with a pair of binoculars and, to the puzzlement of my fellow airline passengers, spend part of every flight gazing through them at whatever happens...
From ACM Opinion
Snowden—Facts, Fictions, and Fears
"Any analyst at any time can target anyone. Any selector, anywhere ... I, sitting at my desk, certainly had the authorities to wiretap anyone, from you or your...
From ACM Opinion
Online Courses Can Improve Life on Campus
The future of on-campus learning lies in the right combination of digital and traditional tools.
From ACM Opinion
Google's Science Fellows Challenge the Company's Fund-Raising For Senator Inhofe
Ten years ago this week, Senator James M. Inhofe, the Republican from Oklahoma, used a two-hour floor speech to launch his campaign on the credibility of climate...
From ACM Opinion
The Public-Private Surveillance Partnership
Imagine the government passed a law requiring all citizens to carry a tracking device. Such a law would immediately be found unconstitutional. Yet we all carry...
From ACM Opinion
How Moocs Can Help India
Online courses have the potential to dramatically transform Indian higher education by alleviating faculty shortages and delivering education on a scale and at...
From ACM Opinion
The Machine Zone: This Is Where You Go When You Just Can't Stop Looking at Pictures on Facebook
"People love Facebook. They really love it," Biz Stone wrote earlier this month. "My mother-in-law looks hypnotized when she decides to put in some Facebook time...
From ACM Opinion
They Know Much More Than You Think
In mid-May, Edward Snowden, an American in his late twenties, walked through the onyx entrance of the Mira Hotel on Nathan Road in Hong Kong and checked in.
From ACM Opinion
A Day in the Life of My Iphone
Each morning at 7 a.m., I am awakened by the sound of a spaceship next to my bed.
From ACM Opinion
Mail from the (velvet) Cybercrime nderground
Over the past six months, "fans" of this Web site and its author have shown their affection in some curious ways.
From ACM Opinion
Software-Defined Data Centers Could Change the It Landscape
IT vendors like VMware, Red Hat and Citrix are close to realizing a decades-old vision of virtualized data centers, which could usher in an era of commoditized...
From ACM Opinion