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'2001: A Space Odyssey' Is Still the '­ltimate Trip'
From ACM Opinion

'2001: A Space Odyssey' Is Still the '­ltimate Trip'

In the spring of 1964 the filmmaker Stanley Kubrick was very worried. NASA was about to fly the Mariner 4 space probe past Mars.

Richard Feynman at 100
From ACM Opinion

Richard Feynman at 100

A pre-eminent twentieth-century physicist and a Nobel laureate: Richard Feynman was certainly those. He was also much more.

Google's Duplex Could Make Assistant the Most Lifelike AI Yet
From ACM Opinion

Google's Duplex Could Make Assistant the Most Lifelike AI Yet

The conversation seems mundane. At least, at first.

How Frightened Should We Be of A.I.?
From ACM Opinion

How Frightened Should We Be of A.I.?

Precisely how and when will our curiosity kill us?

One Space Between Each Sentence, They Said. Science Just Proved Them Wrong.
From ACM Opinion

One Space Between Each Sentence, They Said. Science Just Proved Them Wrong.

In the beginning, the rules of the space bar were simple.  Two spaces after each period.  Every time.  Easy.

Chinese-American Elites Lament a Brewing Trade War
From ACM Opinion

Chinese-American Elites Lament a Brewing Trade War

It's not easy to promote closer US-China ties these days.

Why Silicon Valley Must Go to War
From ACM Opinion

Why Silicon Valley Must Go to War

Should technologists prevent their tools from being used to wage war? This question was answered with a furious yes at Google recently, when more than 3,000 employees ...

AI Can Help Cybersecurity, If It Can Fight Through the Hype
From ACM Opinion

AI Can Help Cybersecurity, If It Can Fight Through the Hype

Walking the enormous exhibition halls at the recent RSA security conference in San Francisco, you could have easily gotten the impression that digital defense was...

Nazis Pressed Ham Radio Hobbyists to Serve the Third Reich, but Surviving Came at a Price
From ACM Opinion

Nazis Pressed Ham Radio Hobbyists to Serve the Third Reich, but Surviving Came at a Price

When people have free and unfettered choices of activities, they both entertain and express themselves through their pastimes—whether stamp or coin collecting,...

Forging Voices and Faces: The Dangers of Audio and Video Fabrication
From ACM Opinion

Forging Voices and Faces: The Dangers of Audio and Video Fabrication

In 1963, before he could give the speech he'd prepared for his trip to Dallas, U.S. president John F. Kennedy was assassinated. In March 2018, a company re-created...

The Facebook Controversy: Privacy Is Not the Issue
From ACM Opinion

The Facebook Controversy: Privacy Is Not the Issue

Cambridge Analytica's wholesale scraping of Facebook user data is familiar news by now, and we are all "shocked" that personal data are being shared and traded...

Autonomous Weapons Would Take Warfare to a New Domain, Without Humans
From ACM Opinion

Autonomous Weapons Would Take Warfare to a New Domain, Without Humans

Killer robots have been a staple of TV and movies for decades, from Westworld to The Terminator series. But in the real world, killer robots are officially known...

When John Doerr Brought a 'Gift' to Google's Founders
From ACM Opinion

When John Doerr Brought a 'Gift' to Google's Founders

On a fall day in 1999, in the heart of Silicon Valley, I arrived at a two-story, L-shaped structure off the 101 freeway. It was young Google's headquarters, and...

Is the Law Ready for Driverless Cars?
From Communications of the ACM

Is the Law Ready for Driverless Cars?

Yes, with one big exception.

Putting Trust in Security Engineering
From Communications of the ACM

Putting Trust in Security Engineering

Proposing a stronger foundation for an engineering discipline to support the design of secure systems.

Scale or Fail
From Communications of the ACM

Scale or Fail

Moving beyond self-selected computer science education in Switzerland.

The March Into the Black Hole of Complexity
From Communications of the ACM

The March Into the Black Hole of Complexity

Addressing the root causes of rapidly increasing software complexity.

Science, Policy, and Service
From Communications of the ACM

Science, Policy, and Service

Some thoughts on the way forward.

 The Illusion of Time
From ACM Opinion

The Illusion of Time

According to theoretical physicist Carlo Rovelli, time is an illusion: our naive perception of its flow doesn't correspond to physical reality.

Who Has More of Your Personal Data Than Facebook? Try Google
From ACM Opinion

Who Has More of Your Personal Data Than Facebook? Try Google

Recent controversy over Facebook Inc.'s hunger for personal data has surfaced the notion that the online advertising industry could be hazardous to our privacy...
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