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The Justice of Coders
From ACM Opinion

The Justice of Coders

Among the most important changes in the structure of this society is the rise of engineers and the ethics they make manifest.

I Didn't Type This Article
From ACM Opinion

I Didn't Type This Article

I'm dictating it to my iPhone as I walk down the busy city street on the way to my office in the West Village.

The Cloud Industry Needs Aereo to Win. But Consumers Need Something Better.
From ACM Opinion

The Cloud Industry Needs Aereo to Win. But Consumers Need Something Better.

The best way to think about Aereo, the company at the center of this week's Supreme Court battle over the future of computing, is as an example of legal performance...

The Limits of Social Engineering
From ACM Opinion

The Limits of Social Engineering

In 1969, Playboy published a long, freewheeling interview with Marshall McLuhan in which the media theorist and sixties icon sketched a portrait of the future that...

Death Googles Himself
From ACM Opinion

Death Googles Himself

Hey!

At Aereo Arguments, Can Old-School Analogies Explain New Technology?
From ACM Opinion

At Aereo Arguments, Can Old-School Analogies Explain New Technology?

Technology is hard. Valet parking and coat check rooms are not, at least for U.S. Supreme Court justices.

How America's Leading Science Fiction Authors Are Shaping Your Future
From ACM Opinion

How America's Leading Science Fiction Authors Are Shaping Your Future

Stories set in the future are often judged, as time passes, on whether they come true or not.

Driverless Cars Can't Come Soon Enough
From ACM Opinion

Driverless Cars Can't Come Soon Enough

We all know the tragedy of car accidents.

Is There Anything Beyond Quantum Computing?
From ACM News

Is There Anything Beyond Quantum Computing?

A quantum computer is a device that could exploit the weirdness of the quantum world to solve certain specific problems much faster than we know how to solve them...

What Makes an Alien Intelligent?
From ACM News

What Makes an Alien Intelligent?

On Thursday, astronomers announced that they'd reached a new milestone in the search for Earth's "twin," or a planet much like ours that orbits in what's known...

The Fuzzy Math Behind the Search For Mh370
From ACM Opinion

The Fuzzy Math Behind the Search For Mh370

Five weeks into the search for missing Malaysia Airlines Flight 370, more than $30 million has been spent scouring great swatches of the southern Indian Ocean.

The Most Expensive Lottery Ticket in the World
From ACM Opinion

The Most Expensive Lottery Ticket in the World

No Exit, the new book from Gideon Lewis-Kraus, should be required reading for anybody who thinks it might be a good idea to found a startup in Silicon Valley.

If the Robots Kill ­s, It's Because It's Their Job
From ACM Opinion

If the Robots Kill ­s, It's Because It's Their Job

In the movie Transcendence, which opens in theaters on Friday, a sentient computer program embarks on a relentless quest for power, nearly destroying humanity in...

Captchas Are Becoming Security Theater
From ACM Opinion

Captchas Are Becoming Security Theater

CAPTCHAs are a time-worn way for humans to tell computers that we are human.

Why the Web Needs Perfect Forward Secrecy More Than Ever
From ACM Opinion

Why the Web Needs Perfect Forward Secrecy More Than Ever

EFF has long advocated for websites to support HTTPS instead of plain HTTP to encrypt and authenticate data transmitted on the Internet.

Google Wants to Make 'science Fiction' a Reality—and That's Limiting Their Imagination
From ACM Opinion

Google Wants to Make 'science Fiction' a Reality—and That's Limiting Their Imagination

Self-driving cars, extreme life extension, and global wifi provided by weather balloons: Google makes projects that sound like science fiction into reality at its...

Can We Really ­pload Johnny Depp's Brain?
From ACM Opinion

Can We Really ­pload Johnny Depp's Brain?

When Wally Pfister's Transcendence is released on April 17, millions of moviegoers will be asking themselves, "Could we really upload Johnny Depp into a computer...

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.

900 Years of Tree Diagrams, the Most Important Data Viz Tool in History
From ACM Opinion

900 Years of Tree Diagrams, the Most Important Data Viz Tool in History

You'd be excused for thinking infographics are a modern invention.

Bruce Schneier: Technology Magnifies Power in Survellance Era
From ACM Opinion

Bruce Schneier: Technology Magnifies Power in Survellance Era

History is not entirely kind to those responsible for the Industrial Age in the 19th century.
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