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Is 'making a Game Out of Learning' Bad For Learning?
From ACM Opinion

Is 'making a Game Out of Learning' Bad For Learning?

In MIT's Education Arcade, classic game consoles line the office corridor, rafters are strung with holiday lights, and inflatable, stuffed and papier-maché creatures...

Toolkits For the Mind
From ACM Opinion

Toolkits For the Mind

When the Japanese computer scientist Yukihiro Matsumoto decided to create Ruby, a programming language that has helped build Twitter, Hulu, and much of the modern...

A New Way to Navigate the Streets of Google Maps
From ACM Opinion

A New Way to Navigate the Streets of Google Maps

Today we're introducing our most ambitious update yet: PAC-Maps.

Germanwings Flight 9525, Technology, and the Question of Trust
From ACM Opinion

Germanwings Flight 9525, Technology, and the Question of Trust

Shortly before the dreadful crash of Germanwings Flight 9525, I happened to be reading part of "The Second Machine Age," a book by two academics at M.I.T., Erik...

David and Goliath: What Do We Do About Surveillance?
From ACM Opinion

David and Goliath: What Do We Do About Surveillance?

"Dear subscriber, you have been registered as a participant in a mass disturbance."

Learning to See Data
From ACM Opinion

Learning to See Data

For the past year or so genetic scientists at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine in New York have been collaborating with a specialist from another universe...

How Technology Is Making ­S Tip More Than Ever
From ACM Opinion

How Technology Is Making ­S Tip More Than Ever

By now, you've probably experienced it: After grabbing a cup of espresso, buying some ice cream or taking a cab, you swipe your credit card and prepare to sign—but...

What If Web Search Results Were Based on Accuracy?
From ACM Opinion

What If Web Search Results Were Based on Accuracy?

Imagine, for a moment, that every Web search gave only accurate, verified information.

Mathematicians of the Future?
From ACM Opinion

Mathematicians of the Future?

Herbert Simon, the Nobel-prize winning economist, was a techno-enthusiast. In 1956 he predicted that, "within 10 years, computers would beat the world chess champion...

Who Builds a House Without Drawing Blueprints?
From Communications of the ACM

Who Builds a House Without Drawing Blueprints?

Finding a better solution by thinking about the problem and its solution, rather than just thinking about the code.

An Interview with Juris Hartmanis
From Communications of the ACM

An Interview with Juris Hartmanis

A pioneer in the field of computational complexity theory reflects on his career.

Raw Networking
From Communications of the ACM

Raw Networking

Relevance and repeatability.

The Math of March Madness
From ACM Opinion

The Math of March Madness

The N.C.A.A. men's basketball tournament started Thursday, but for most Americans the real action began days before, as they pored over brackets, competing to make...

Reality Check: Comparing Hololens and Magic Leap
From ACM Opinion

Reality Check: Comparing Hololens and Magic Leap

I've seen two competing visions for a future in which virtual objects are merged seamlessly with the real world.

Why Some of Google's Coolest Projects Flop Badly
From ACM Opinion

Why Some of Google's Coolest Projects Flop Badly

In public, companies try to trot out any hint of a success story—real or imagined. At SXSW this week, Google took a different tack: It talked all about its failures...

Love in the Time of Bots
From ACM Opinion

Love in the Time of Bots

Convincing people to have a romantic relationship with a computer might be easier than it sounds.

How Isis Succeeds on Social Media Where #stopkony Fails
From ACM Opinion

How Isis Succeeds on Social Media Where #stopkony Fails

Social networks offer an incredible tool for tapping into the collective unconscious, a virtual Jungian arena in which competition might be expected to amplify...

Don't Want Nsa to Spy on Your Email? 5 Things You Can Do
From ACM Opinion

Don't Want Nsa to Spy on Your Email? 5 Things You Can Do

More than half of Americans are worried about the U.S. government's digital spies prying into their emails, texts, search requests and other online information,...

So Sayeth Google
From ACM Opinion

So Sayeth Google

Search for "vaccines." At least within our filter bubble, the top item in Google's "In the news" section earlier this week was an anti-vax column about the "feds'...

To Pi and Beyond
From ACM Opinion

To Pi and Beyond

Possibly not everyone knows that March 14th is Pi Day, in honor of the symbol used to denote the ratio of the circumference of a circle to its diameter.
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