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How America Could Lose the Quantum-Computing Race
From ACM Opinion

How America Could Lose the Quantum-Computing Race

There's an arms race underway to develop the next generation of computers—known as "quantum" computers—and there's no guarantee that the United States is going...

In 1968, Computers Got Personal: How the 'Mother of All Demos' Changed the World
From ACM Opinion

In 1968, Computers Got Personal: How the 'Mother of All Demos' Changed the World

On a crisp California afternoon in early December 1968, a square-jawed, mild-mannered Stanford researcher named Douglas Engelbart took the stage at San Francisco's...

How Bots Ruined Clicktivism
From ACM Opinion

How Bots Ruined Clicktivism

I recently came across two tweets—or rather, thousands of tweets sharing the same two ideas over and over again.

What Worries People about Future Science and Tech Innovations?
From ACM Opinion

What Worries People about Future Science and Tech Innovations?

Many Americans see the future crowding into the present and some of the innovations ahead unnerve them, especially as they reshape ideas about human dominion.

Why the Russians Might Hack the Boy Scouts Next
From ACM Opinion

Why the Russians Might Hack the Boy Scouts Next

In the two years since Russia made headlines for targeting an American political organization–the Democratic National Committee–and undermining Hillary Clinton's...

The Problem With Terraforming Mars
From ACM Opinion

The Problem With Terraforming Mars

Mars has loomed large throughout human history, our imaginations filling its red vistas with fantastic detail long before our space missions returned even rudimentary...

China Is Overtaking the ­.S. in Scientific Research
From ACM Opinion

China Is Overtaking the ­.S. in Scientific Research

Thirty years ago in December, the modern exchange of scholars between the U.S. and China began.

Safe Artificial Intelligence Requires Cultural Intelligence
From ACM Opinion

Safe Artificial Intelligence Requires Cultural Intelligence

Knowledge, to paraphrase British journalist Miles Kington, is knowing a tomato is a fruit; wisdom is knowing there's a norm against putting it in a fruit salad....

Ten Years of Large Hadron Collider Discoveries Are Just the Start of Decoding the ­niverse
From ACM Opinion

Ten Years of Large Hadron Collider Discoveries Are Just the Start of Decoding the ­niverse

Ten years! Ten years since the start of operations for the Large Hadron Collider (LHC), one of the most complex machines ever created.

What is Cyberwar?
From ACM Opinion

What is Cyberwar?

At its core, cyberwarfare refers the use of digital attacks by one country or nation to disrupt the computer systems of another with the aim of create significant...

How Will Google's Innovation Continue Beyond Its 20th Year?
From ACM Opinion

How Will Google's Innovation Continue Beyond Its 20th Year?

As millions of people came online in the late 1990s they needed help figuring out what each webpage was about, and how to find what they were looking for.

Google Chrome's Biggest Challenge at Age 10 Might Just Be Its Own Success
From ACM Opinion

Google Chrome's Biggest Challenge at Age 10 Might Just Be Its Own Success

Exactly 10 years ago Tuesday, a newly promoted vice president named Sundar Pichai stood before a group of tech reporters in a conference room at Google's Mountain...

Fake America Great Again
From ACM Opinion

Fake America Great Again

Guess what? I just got hold of some embarrassing video footage of Texas senator Ted Cruz singing and gyrating to Tina Turner. His political enemies will have great...

Forgotten Heroes of the Enigma Story
From ACM Opinion

Forgotten Heroes of the Enigma Story

Alan Turing's crucial unscrambling of German messages in the Second World War was a tour de force of codebreaking.

Are We Ready for the Future of Warfare?
From ACM Opinion

Are We Ready for the Future of Warfare?

Warfare has always been about exerting political will.

3-D Printed Gun Blueprints Are Back, and Only New Laws Can Stop Them
From ACM Opinion

3-D Printed Gun Blueprints Are Back, and Only New Laws Can Stop Them

Attorneys general from 20 states celebrated on Monday when a district court judge in Seattle extended an injunction against the sharing of 3-D printed gun blueprints...

Math Shows How DNA Twists, Turns and ­nzips
From ACM Opinion

Math Shows How DNA Twists, Turns and ­nzips

If you've ever seen a picture of a DNA molecule, you probably saw it in its famous B-form: two strands coiling around each other in a right-handed fashion to form...

Here's What We Know about Google's Mysterious Search Engine
From ACM News

Here's What We Know about Google's Mysterious Search Engine

President Trump thinks Google's search engine is "rigged." By featuring more mainstream news outlets and relatively fewer conservative sites in the results he sees...

Detecting 'DeepFake' Videos in the Blink of an Eye
From ACM Opinion

Detecting 'DeepFake' Videos in the Blink of an Eye

A new form of misinformation is poised to spread through online communities as the 2018 midterm election campaigns heat up. Called "deepfakes" after the pseudonymous...

The Four Ways that Ex-Internet Idealists Explain Where It All Went Wrong
From ACM Opinion

The Four Ways that Ex-Internet Idealists Explain Where It All Went Wrong

A long time ago, in the bad old days of the 2000s, debates about the Internet were dominated by two great tribes: the Optimists and the Pessimists.
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