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The White House Big Data Report: The Good, The Bad, and The Missing
From ACM Opinion

The White House Big Data Report: The Good, The Bad, and The Missing

Last week, the White House released its report on big data and its privacy implications, the result of a 90-day study commissioned by President Obama during his...

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.

One ­niverse, One Life: A Conjecture
From ACM Opinion

One ­niverse, One Life: A Conjecture

Opening Disclaimer 1: Although there may be more than one universe, as per the hypothetical multiverse, we will humbly submit to our own bubble of information,...

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.

Warp Drive Research Key to Interstellar Travel
From ACM Opinion

Warp Drive Research Key to Interstellar Travel

As any avid Star Trek fan can tell you, the eccentric physicist Zefram Cochrane invented the warp-drive engine in the year 2063.

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.

Habitable Exoplanets Are Bad News For Humanity
From ACM Opinion

Habitable Exoplanets Are Bad News For Humanity

Last week, scientists announced the discovery of Kepler-186f, a planet 492 light years away in the Cygnus constellation.

Goodbye, Net Neutrality; Hello, Net Discrimination
From ACM Opinion

Goodbye, Net Neutrality; Hello, Net Discrimination

In 2007, at a public forum at Coe College, in Iowa, Presidential candidate Barack Obama was asked about net neutrality.

Tom Kilburn
From Communications of the ACM

Tom Kilburn: A Tale of Five Computers

Reflections on a British computer engineer who influenced several important machines, including the first stored-program computer.

What Happened to Video Game Piracy?
From Communications of the ACM

What Happened to Video Game Piracy?

How video games thrive in a world of piracy.

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

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