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Personal Information Is the Currency of the 21st Century
From ACM Opinion

Personal Information Is the Currency of the 21st Century

The currency of the 21st century digital economy is your personal information. It has no transaction costs and does not decrease in value when the supply increases...

Why Fbi and CIA Didn't Connect the Dots
From ACM Opinion

Why Fbi and CIA Didn't Connect the Dots

The FBI and the CIA are being criticized for not keeping better track of Tamerlan Tsarnaev in the months before the Boston Marathon bombings.

Are All Telephone Calls Recorded and Accessible to the ­.s. Government?
From ACM Opinion

Are All Telephone Calls Recorded and Accessible to the ­.s. Government?

The real capabilities and behavior of the U.S. surveillance state are almost entirely unknown to the American public because, like most things of significance done...

It's Not About New Icons: What Jony Ive Needs to Do For Apple's Ios
From ACM Opinion

It's Not About New Icons: What Jony Ive Needs to Do For Apple's Ios

iOS 7 will be flat, as in flat design.

Digital Tattoos, Mind-Reading Headphones: The Shape of Things to Come?
From ACM Opinion

Digital Tattoos, Mind-Reading Headphones: The Shape of Things to Come?

Forecasting future technology has never been easy. In the 1950s, scientists and technologists envisaged that by now the world would be free from disease, traversed...

Governments Won't Need to Issue Ids: Data Brokers Will Identify You For Them
From ACM Opinion

Governments Won't Need to Issue Ids: Data Brokers Will Identify You For Them

Our government collects a lot of information about us. Tax records, legal records, license records, records of government services received—it's all in databases...

20 Years On, the Open Web Faces Challenges
From ACM Opinion

20 Years On, the Open Web Faces Challenges

For people of a certain age in the technology industry, one of the ways of establishing a connection with someone is by asking some version of the following question...

The Medium of the Moment
From ACM Opinion

The Medium of the Moment

After the Boston Marathon bombings, the process by which breaking news and information are generated and disseminated looked more ragged and exposed than ever: ...

How Boston Police Won the Twitter Wars During the Marathon Bomber Hunt
From ACM Opinion

How Boston Police Won the Twitter Wars During the Marathon Bomber Hunt

The first official announcement that law enforcement agencies had concluded their manhunt for Boston Marathon bombing suspect Dzhokhar Tsarnaev didn't come at a...

Apple's Next Big Thing
From ACM Opinion

Apple's Next Big Thing

The iPad has always labored under the shadow of its little brother the iPhone.

The $12 Gongkai Phone
From ACM Opinion

The $12 Gongkai Phone

How cheap can you make a phone?

We Need More Cameras, and We Need Them Now
From ACM Opinion

We Need More Cameras, and We Need Them Now

On Thursday afternoon, the FBI released photos and video of two persons of interest in the Boston Marathon bombing.

Mars vs. Europa: Are We Looking in the Wrong Place For Alien Life?
From ACM Opinion

Mars vs. Europa: Are We Looking in the Wrong Place For Alien Life?

A British astrobiology conference has revived a years-old debate over the best place to look for life elsewhere in the solar system: Mars, or the moons of Jupiter...

Is High-Tech Security at Public Events Counterproductive?
From ACM Opinion

Is High-Tech Security at Public Events Counterproductive?

Which is more intrusive: security screening and metal detectors every few blocks, or a drone flying high above it taking video of every little thing you do?

The Greatest Trick the Government Ever Pulled Was Convincing the Public the 'hacker Threat' Exists
From ACM Opinion

The Greatest Trick the Government Ever Pulled Was Convincing the Public the 'hacker Threat' Exists

The U.S. government is already fighting wars on several fronts, including the perpetual War on Terror.

How New Military Technologies Can Help Prevent the Next Boston or Newtown
From ACM Opinion

How New Military Technologies Can Help Prevent the Next Boston or Newtown

This week, it's bombs. In December, it was guns.

How Pixar ­sed Moore's Law to Predict the Future
From ACM Opinion

How Pixar ­sed Moore's Law to Predict the Future

Whether you call it a data-driven prediction or think of it as a self-fulfilling prophecy, Moore's Law has been going strong.

Name-Brand Genes: Is Our Genetic Makeup What's Next in Personal Branding?
From ACM Opinion

Name-Brand Genes: Is Our Genetic Makeup What's Next in Personal Branding?

The Supreme Court heard arguments Monday in a case that could decide whether it's possible to patent specific human genes that have been "snipped" out of our DNA...

Proceed with Caution Toward the Self-Driving Car
From ACM Opinion

Proceed with Caution Toward the Self-Driving Car

Driving on Interstate 495 toward Boston in a Ford Fusion one chilly afternoon in March, I did something that would've made even my laid-back long-ago driving instructor...

The End of Stanford?
From ACM Opinion

The End of Stanford?

Is Stanford still a university?
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