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Maybe Everybody Should Not Learn to Code
From ACM Opinion

Maybe Everybody Should Not Learn to Code

In the past few years, programming has gone mainstream, as celebrities from Chris Bosh to President Obama jump on the "everyone should learn to code" bandwagon.

Why Can't Email Be Secure?
From ACM Opinion

Why Can't Email Be Secure?

Coming on the heels of our announcement that we had shut down our Silent Mail service, we received a comment about securing email communications.

It's Time to Reform the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act
From ACM Opinion

It's Time to Reform the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act

This year the U.S. Congress is considering changes to the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act (CFAA), the primary law that governs cyber crime and fraud on the Internet...

What Does It Really Matter If Companies Are Tracking US Online?
From ACM Opinion

What Does It Really Matter If Companies Are Tracking US Online?

Say you, like me, went to bed a little early last night.

How to Think About Drones
From ACM Opinion

How to Think About Drones

Consider David. The shepherd lad steps up to face in single combat the Philistine giant Goliath.

The New York Times Was Losing $5 Per Second Thanks to Its Web Site Outage
From ACM News

The New York Times Was Losing $5 Per Second Thanks to Its Web Site Outage

The New York Times is still reeling from a massive Web outage that took down its homepage, its corporate Web site, and everything in between.

The Giant Hurdle For the Internet of Things
From ACM Opinion

The Giant Hurdle For the Internet of Things

Everyone's talking about the Internet of Things, a proposed network of intelligent devices that could one day automate much of the world around us. HVAC and lighting...

Lego Mindstorms Ev3 Means Giant Robots, Powerful Computers
From ACM Opinion

Lego Mindstorms Ev3 Means Giant Robots, Powerful Computers

Gummi Bears. That's what playing with Lego bricks reminds me of—sitting cross-legged on the floor in the back room of my parents' house on Saturday mornings, ahere...

How Wearable Technology Could Transform Business
From ACM Opinion

How Wearable Technology Could Transform Business

Once upon a time seeing your life flash before your eyes was something people did their best to avoid. The arrival of Google Glass seems to have changed that.

From ACM Opinion

We Need a Moratorium on 'Brain-Like' Tech Stories

My "aha" moment arrived two decades ago while I was an undergrad student (and dilettante "futurist," though I didn’t know the word then), sitting in the Great Hall...

WikiLeaks' Teenage Benedict Arnold
From ACM Opinion

WikiLeaks' Teenage Benedict Arnold

When he met Julian Assange for the first time, Sigurdur Thordarson admired the WikiLeaks founder's attitude and quickly signed up to the cause.

If We Landed on Europa, What Would We Want to Know?
From ACM Opinion

If We Landed on Europa, What Would We Want to Know?

Most of what scientists know of Jupiter's moon Europa they have gleaned from a dozen or so close flybys from NASA's Voyager 2 spacecraft in 1979 and NASA's Galileo...

From ACM Opinion

The End of Integrated Systems

I always travel with a pair of binoculars and, to the puzzlement of my fellow airline passengers, spend part of every flight gazing through them at whatever happens...

Snowden—Facts, Fictions, and  Fears
From ACM Opinion

Snowden—Facts, Fictions, and Fears

"Any analyst at any time can target anyone. Any selector, anywhere ... I, sitting at my desk, certainly had the authorities to wiretap anyone, from you or your...

From ACM Opinion

Google's Science Fellows Challenge the Company's Fund-Raising For Senator Inhofe

Ten years ago this week, Senator James M. Inhofe, the Republican from Oklahoma, used a two-hour floor speech to launch his campaign on the credibility of climate...

The Public-Private Surveillance Partnership
From ACM Opinion

The Public-Private Surveillance Partnership

Imagine the government passed a law requiring all citizens to carry a tracking device. Such a law would immediately be found unconstitutional. Yet we all carry...

The Machine Zone: This Is Where You Go When You Just Can't Stop Looking at Pictures on Facebook
From ACM Opinion

The Machine Zone: This Is Where You Go When You Just Can't Stop Looking at Pictures on Facebook

"People love Facebook. They really love it," Biz Stone wrote earlier this month. "My mother-in-law looks hypnotized when she decides to put in some Facebook time...

They Know Much More Than You Think
From ACM Opinion

They Know Much More Than You Think

In mid-May, Edward Snowden, an American in his late twenties, walked through the onyx entrance of the Mira Hotel on Nathan Road in Hong Kong and checked in.

A Day in the Life of My Iphone
From ACM Opinion

A Day in the Life of My Iphone

Each morning at 7 a.m., I am awakened by the sound of a spaceship next to my bed.

Mail from the (velvet) Cybercrime ­nderground
From ACM Opinion

Mail from the (velvet) Cybercrime ­nderground

Over the past six months, "fans" of this Web site and its author have shown their affection in some curious ways.
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