Communications of the ACM
Generative AI Degrades Online Communities
How large language models are influencing online communities.
From ACM Opinion
The Legacy of Next Lives On in Os X
In the 1990s, Apple struggled to bring the original Mac OS—originally written in 1984 for the resource-constrained Macintosh 128K machine—up to modern operating...
From ACM Opinion
2012: What We Learned
There's a natural inclination for people at the end of each year to look back, take stock and try to draw some grand meaning or life lessons out of the events of...
From ACM Opinion
10 Raspberry Pi Creations That Show How Amazing the Tiny Pc Can Be
The Raspberry Pi, the $35 credit card-size computer, has lived an interesting life despite being less than a year old.
From ACM Opinion
Marking the Birth of the Modern-Day Internet
A long time ago, my colleagues and I became part of a great adventure, teamed with a small band of scientists and technologists in the U.S. and elsewhere.
From ACM Opinion
How To Charge Your Laptop
Whether they're in our computers, cell phones, or cars, the only time we think about batteries is when they're almost dead and we need to find some place to charge...
From ACM Opinion
Looking Back: The Five Most Important Security Stories of 2012
The dance among blackhat, whitehat, and grayhat hackers grew ever more intricate in 2012, thanks to a steady stream of exploits, vulnerability discoveries, and...
From ACM Opinion
Ford Engineers Have 3D Printers on Their Desks. When Will You Get One?
Ford has caught the DIY revolution and now puts 3D printers at workstations for its engineers.
From ACM Opinion
Social Media: Five Predictions For 2013
When you think of social media these days, you probably think primarily of Facebook and Twitter, and perhaps Instagram. But while those services have massive—and...
From ACM Opinion
Computer Code Frees S to Think in New Ways
At the start of 2012, Michael Bloomberg, the mayor of New York tweeted: "My New Year's resolution is to learn to code with Codecademy."
From ACM Opinion
Sneaky Apps That Track Cellphones
A perversion of smartphone technology called "stalking apps"—precise, secretive trackings of the movements of cellphone users—is increasingly a matter of national...
From ACM Opinion
Forget Yolo: Why 'big Data' Should Be the Word of the Year
"Big Data" hasn't made any of the words-of-the-year lists I've seen so far. That's probably because it didn't get the wide public exposure given to items like "...
From ACM Opinion
Who Owns the Content You pload Online?
The outrage over Instagram's announcement that it is changing its terms and conditions has turned the spotlight on the relationship between websites and users who...
From Communications of the ACM
Conference-Journal Hybrids
Considering how to combine the best elements of conferences and journals.
From Communications of the ACM
Five Lessons from Really Good History
Lessons learned from four award-winning books on the history of information technology.
From Communications of the ACM
Beyond Location: Data Security in the 21st Century
Viewing evolving data security issues as engineering problems to be solved.
From Communications of the ACM
How We Build Things: . . . and Why Things Are 90% Complete
It seems to be a law of software development that things always take longer than we expect. When a project manager talks to a designer, programmer, or tester...
From Communications of the ACM