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The Secret Messages Inside Chinese ­rls
From ACM Opinion

The Secret Messages Inside Chinese ­rls

An American friend living in Beijing once said she refused to communicate with anyone whose email address consisted of a string of numbers, such as 62718298454@163...

'transcendence Looks at the Implications of Artificial Intelligence, but Are We Taking AI Seriously Enough?'
From ACM Opinion

'transcendence Looks at the Implications of Artificial Intelligence, but Are We Taking AI Seriously Enough?'

With the Hollywood blockbuster Transcendence playing in cinemas, with Johnny Depp and Morgan Freeman showcasing clashing visions for the future of humanity, it's...

How Cloud Storage Complicates the Supreme Court Debate Over Cell Phone Privacy
From ACM News

How Cloud Storage Complicates the Supreme Court Debate Over Cell Phone Privacy

Should police be able to search the contents of your smartphone without a warrant?

Cyborg Angst: 5 Ways Computers Will Perplex ­S in 2039
From ACM News

Cyborg Angst: 5 Ways Computers Will Perplex ­S in 2039

Brain chips mean we are struggling to distinguish our own thoughts from ideas implanted by advertisers.

How to Build a Gesture-Controlled Web Game with Leap Motion
From ACM Opinion

How to Build a Gesture-Controlled Web Game with Leap Motion

Modern smartphones have helped shed a light on the power of user interfaces that are driven by gesture and touch. It’s increasingly clear that touch will play a...

Maths Spying: The Quandary of Working For the Spooks
From ACM Opinion

Maths Spying: The Quandary of Working For the Spooks

For the past 10 months, a major international scandal has engulfed some of the world's largest employers of mathematicians.

Farewell Nokia: The Rise and Fall of a Mobile Pioneer
From ACM Opinion

Farewell Nokia: The Rise and Fall of a Mobile Pioneer

You never forget your first cellphone.

Putin's Fear of the Internet
From ACM Opinion

Putin's Fear of the Internet

In the mid-nineteen-sixties, Brezhnev's Soviet Union introduced a law aimed at stifling ideological dissent.

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!

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.

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...

It's Time to Encrypt the Entire Internet
From ACM Opinion

It's Time to Encrypt the Entire Internet

The Heartbleed bug crushed our faith in the secure Web, but a world without the encryption software that Heartbleed exploited would be even worse.

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...
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