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The Fake-News Fallacy
From ACM Opinion

The Fake-News Fallacy

On the evening of October 30, 1938, a seventy-six-year-old millworker in Grover's Mill, New Jersey, named Bill Dock heard something terrifying on the radio.

The Darkening Web: Misinformation Is the Strongest Cyberweapon
From ACM Opinion

The Darkening Web: Misinformation Is the Strongest Cyberweapon

In late June, I was leaving for a flight from Kiev's Boryspil Airport as news broke that Ukraine was the victim of another massive cyberattack.

Stop Cyberattacks. Just Add Robots
From ACM Opinion

Stop Cyberattacks. Just Add Robots

"Are you a hacker?"

Artificial Intelligence: The Future Is Superintelligent
From ACM Opinion

Artificial Intelligence: The Future Is Superintelligent

Max Tegmark is a renowned physicist. He is also the irrepressibly optimistic co-founder of the Future of Life Institute in Cambridge, Massachusetts (motto: "Technology...

How We Won Gold in the Cyborg Olympics' Brain Race
From ACM Opinion

How We Won Gold in the Cyborg Olympics' Brain Race

In October 2016, inside a sold-out arena in Zurich, a man named Numa Poujouly steered his wheelchair up to the central podium.

The Future of Computing Depends on Making It Reversible
From ACM Opinion

The Future of Computing Depends on Making It Reversible

For more than 50 years, computers have made steady and dramatic improvements, all thanks to Moore's Law—the exponential increase over time in the number of transistors...

What I Learned at Gerrymandering Summer Camp
From ACM Opinion

What I Learned at Gerrymandering Summer Camp

At 6'5", Aaron Dennis towers over the whiteboard beside him.

The Myth of the Skills Gap
From ACM Opinion

The Myth of the Skills Gap

The contention that America's workers lack the skills employers demand is an article of faith among analysts, politicians, and pundits of every stripe, from conservative...

How the Voyager Golden Record Was Made
From ACM Opinion

How the Voyager Golden Record Was Made

We inhabit a small planet orbiting a medium-sized star about two-thirds of the way out from the center of the Milky Way galaxy—around where Track 2 on an LP record...

How Quantum Mechanics Can Change computing
From ACM Opinion

How Quantum Mechanics Can Change computing

In early July, Google announced that it will expand its commercially available cloud computing services to include quantum computing.

A Reverie For the Voyager Probes, Humanity's Calling Cards
From ACM Opinion

A Reverie For the Voyager Probes, Humanity's Calling Cards

In the shadow, one might say, of the Great American Eclipse, a major anniversary in the history of space exploration—and indeed cosmic consciousness—is being celebrated...

Why Agile Teams Fail Without UX Research
From Communications of the ACM

Why Agile Teams Fail Without UX Research

Failures to involve end users or to collect comprehensive data representing user needs are described and solutions to avoid such failures are proposed.

A Hunt For Ways to Combat Online Radicalization
From ACM Opinion

A Hunt For Ways to Combat Online Radicalization

Law enforcement officials, technology companies and lawmakers have long tried to limit what they call the "radicalization" of young people over the internet.

Sorry, Banning 'killer Robots' Just Isn't Practical
From ACM Opinion

Sorry, Banning 'killer Robots' Just Isn't Practical

Late Sunday, 116 entrepreneurs, including Elon Musk, released a letter to the United Nations warning of the dangerous "Pandora's Box" presented by weapons that...

The Enduring Legacy of Zork
From ACM Opinion

The Enduring Legacy of Zork

In 1977, four recent MIT graduates who'd met at MIT's Laboratory for Computer Science used the lab's PDP-10 mainframe to develop a computer game that captivated...

Tracing the Sources of Today's Russian cyberthreat
From ACM Opinion

Tracing the Sources of Today's Russian cyberthreat

Beyond carrying all of our phone, text and internet communications, cyberspace is an active battleground, with cybercriminals, government agents and even military...

What the Announced nsa / Cyber Command Split means
From ACM Opinion

What the Announced nsa / Cyber Command Split means

The move to elevate Cyber Command to a full Unified Combatant Command and split it off from the National Security Agency or NSA shows that cyber intelligence collection...

Fighting Neo-Nazis and the Future of Free Expression
From ACM Opinion

Fighting Neo-Nazis and the Future of Free Expression

In the wake of Charlottesville, both GoDaddy and Google have refused to manage the domain registration for the Daily Stormer, a neo-Nazi website that, in the...

Russia's Election Meddling Backfired—big-Time
From ACM Opinion

Russia's Election Meddling Backfired—big-Time

Intelligence officers sometimes talk about "blowback," when covert actions go bad and end up damaging the country that initiated them.

Everyone Thinks That Automation Will Take Our Jobs. The Evidence Disagrees
From ACM Opinion

Everyone Thinks That Automation Will Take Our Jobs. The Evidence Disagrees

Last year, the Japanese company SoftBank opened a cell phone store in Tokyo and staffed it entirely with sales associates named Pepper. This wasn't as hard as it...
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