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What Everyone Gets Wrong in the Debate Over Net Neutrality
From ACM Opinion

What Everyone Gets Wrong in the Debate Over Net Neutrality

Even Sunday night HBO watchers are worried the Federal Communications Commission will soon put an end to net neutrality.

Why I'm Not in a Hurry For a 'smart Home'
From ACM Opinion

Why I'm Not in a Hurry For a 'smart Home'

Here's what it's like to wake up in America's smartest home.

Coder's High
From ACM Opinion

Coder's High

These days I write more than I code, but one of the things I miss about programming is the coder's high: those times when, for hours on end, I would lock my vision...

When Is It Ok to Check a Smartphone at the Dinner Table?
From ACM Opinion

When Is It Ok to Check a Smartphone at the Dinner Table?

Not long ago, I went to a nice restaurant with five friends. Good food. Better cocktails.

Google's Eyes in the Sky
From ACM Opinion

Google's Eyes in the Sky

When Sergey Brin and Larry Page built the search engine that would become Google, they started by making maps.

Turn Detroit Into Drone Valley
From ACM Opinion

Turn Detroit Into Drone Valley

The popular recipe for creating the "next" Silicon Valley goes something like this:

China's Anti-Windows 8 Tirade
From ACM Opinion

China's Anti-Windows 8 Tirade

China's ambivalence about American technology has long been clear, but recently the nation kicked off a fresh, trash-talking effort targeting Windows 8, suggesting...

The Turing Test Is Not What You Think It Is
From ACM Opinion

The Turing Test Is Not What You Think It Is

Whether or not you caught wind of the excited announcement that "Eugene Goostman," a computer program ("chatbot") devised by Vladimir Veselov, Eugene Demchenko,...

The Eccentric Genius Whose Time May Have Finally Come (again)
From ACM Opinion

The Eccentric Genius Whose Time May Have Finally Come (again)

I've been preoccupied lately with thoughts of marauding broomsticks, genies in bottles, and monkey's paws.

The Nightmare on Connected Home Street
From ACM Opinion

The Nightmare on Connected Home Street

I wake up at four to some old-timey dubstep spewing from my pillows.

Why Online Tracking Is Getting Creepier
From ACM Opinion

Why Online Tracking Is Getting Creepier

The marketers that follow you around the web are getting nosier.

Vermeer's Paintings Might Be 350-Year-Old Color Photographs
From ACM Opinion

Vermeer's Paintings Might Be 350-Year-Old Color Photographs

I was sitting in the bathtub in 2008 when I thought of a simple way Johannes Vermeer (Girl with a Pearl Earring) might have painted his photorealistic pictures...

Time Travel: Installing an Atomic Clock at 15,000 Feet
From ACM Opinion

Time Travel: Installing an Atomic Clock at 15,000 Feet

A few months ago I went to Cambridge, Mass. to check in with the Event Horizon Telescope crew and found Shep Doeleman, the project leader, fresh off the completion...

How to ­se Tech Like a Teenager
From ACM Opinion

How to ­se Tech Like a Teenager

Enough with complaining that young people these days are addicted to their phones. The question you should be asking is: What do they know that you don't?

Big Tech Walking Fine Line on Data
From ACM Opinion

Big Tech Walking Fine Line on Data

A year after Edward Snowden shocked citizens with details of how much of their lives are being snapped up by the National Security Agency, tech giants have sounded...

So Far, Big Data Is Small Potatoes
From ACM Opinion

So Far, Big Data Is Small Potatoes

Is Big Data going to revolutionize science and help us make a better world? Not based on what it's done so far.

Why Haven't We Encountered Aliens Yet? The Answer Could Be Climate Change
From ACM Opinion

Why Haven't We Encountered Aliens Yet? The Answer Could Be Climate Change

Enrico Fermi, when asked about intelligent life on other planets, famously replied, "Where are they?"

What Comes After the Turing Test?
From ACM Opinion

What Comes After the Turing Test?

Over the weekend, the news broke that a "supercomputer" program called "Eugene Goostman"—an impersonation of a wisecracking, thirteen-year-old Ukranian boy—had...

That Computer Actually Got an F on the Turing Test
From ACM Opinion

That Computer Actually Got an F on the Turing Test

Over the weekend, a group of programmers claimed they built a program that passed the famous Turing Test, in which a computer tries to trick judges into believing...

Do We Really Need to Learn to Code?
From ACM Opinion

Do We Really Need to Learn to Code?

"Learn to Code!" This imperative to program seems to be everywhere these days. Bill Gates and Mark Zuckerberg recently donated ten million dollars to Code.org,...
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