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4 Amazing Things Nasa Invented, and 4 You Think It Did
From ACM Opinion

4 Amazing Things Nasa Invented, and 4 You Think It Did

NASA is everywhere.

The Lewis Effect
From ACM Opinion

The Lewis Effect

Michael Lewis couldn't have timed it better if he'd tried.

The Story of Cortana, Microsoft's Siri Killer
From ACM Opinion

The Story of Cortana, Microsoft's Siri Killer

Technically, Cortana isn't supposed to exist for at least another 500 years, but that's not stopping Microsoft from bringing her to life this week.

Why the Black Box on Airplanes Needs to Go Away
From ACM Opinion

Why the Black Box on Airplanes Needs to Go Away

In another 10 years, the very idea of a "black box" flight data recorder on an airliner will seem as naive and outdated as a smoking section.

Bots on the Beat
From ACM Opinion

Bots on the Beat

On March 24 at 2:36 p.m., the New York Post reported that the body of former Nets basketball player Quinton Ross had been found in a shallow grave on Long Island...

Hey, Robot: Which Cat Is Cuter?
From ACM Opinion

Hey, Robot: Which Cat Is Cuter?

One recent morning, while contemplating writing this column, I scrolled through thousands and thousands of listings for mundane microgigs on Mechanical Turk, or...

10 Years On, Gmail Has Transformed the Web as We Know It
From ACM Opinion

10 Years On, Gmail Has Transformed the Web as We Know It

Google loves to unveil a good gag product on April Fool's Day.

Five Ways to Make Sure We Never Lose a Plane Again
From ACM Opinion

Five Ways to Make Sure We Never Lose a Plane Again

For the past few weeks the world's attention has been focussed on the lost Malaysia Airlines plane and its 239 passengers and crew that has apparently crashed in...

What Oculus's $2 Billion Payday Teaches ­S About Innovation
From ACM Opinion

What Oculus's $2 Billion Payday Teaches ­S About Innovation

Tuesday's announcement that Facebook is buying the virtual-reality start-up Oculus for $2 billion no doubt left many people scratching their heads.

MOOCs Revisited, With Some Policy Suggestions
From Communications of the ACM

MOOCs Revisited, With Some Policy Suggestions

Assessing the rapidly evolving realm of massive open online courses.

Thinking Outside the Continent
From Communications of the ACM

Thinking Outside the Continent

Encouraging the opportunities for digital innovation and invention to flourish in a variety of social environments.

This Is the Foo Field
From Communications of the ACM

This Is the Foo Field

The meaning of bits and avoiding upgrade bogdowns.

Small Data, Where N = Me
From Communications of the ACM

Small Data, Where N = Me

Seeking personalized data-derived insights from analysis of our digital traces.

Is Multicore Hardware For General-Purpose Parallel Processing Broken?
From Communications of the ACM

Is Multicore Hardware For General-Purpose Parallel Processing Broken?

The current generation of general-purpose multicore hardware must be fixed to support more application domains and to allow cost-effective parallel programming.

When Big Data Marketing Becomes Stalking
From ACM Opinion

When Big Data Marketing Becomes Stalking

Many of us now expect our online activities to be recorded and analyzed, but we assume that the physical spaces we inhabit are different.

From ACM Opinion

Why Google Doesn't Have a Research Lab

Research vice presidents at some computing giants, such as Microsoft and IBM, rule over divisions housed in dedicated facilities carefully insulated from the rat...

Why You Should Embrace Surveillance, Not Fight It
From ACM Opinion

Why You Should Embrace Surveillance, Not Fight It

I once worked with Steven Spielberg on the development of Minority Report, derived from the short story by Philip K. Dick featuring a future society that uses surveillance...

One-Hit Wonders
From ACM Opinion

One-Hit Wonders

For more than a year now, tens of millions of Americans have found time each day to devote themselves to an essential task: swiping at their phones and tablets...

Language Barriers
From ACM Opinion

Language Barriers

The British scientist and polymath Stephen Wolfram has always had big ambitions.

Encryption Would Have Stopped Snowden From ­sing Secrets
From ACM Opinion

Encryption Would Have Stopped Snowden From ­sing Secrets

Edward Snowden could have been thwarted from leaking classified U.S. documents if the National Security Agency encrypted the information to make it unreadable,...
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