Communications of the ACM
Generative AI Degrades Online Communities
How large language models are influencing online communities.
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.
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.
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...
From ACM Opinion
Time and Navigation: How We Found Our Way in the World
Type an address into your phone, and up will pop a step-by-step route from where you are to where you want to be. This is, in its way, magic—magic that has, at...
From ACM Opinion
How Technology Is Slowly Developing Its Sense of Smell
Last week I attended what was, I think it is fair to say, the oddest conference I have been to yet. It was the first world congress of the Digital Olfaction Society...
From ACM Opinion
If You Hate Red-Light Cameras, You'll Really Hate Speeding Ticket Robots
Four academics from West Point and Samford University in Alabama set out to answer a seemingly simple question: how would one write a computer program to issue...
From ACM Opinion
17 of Apple's Favorite Apps
Steve Jobs was a stickler for detail, requiring final approval on everything from ads to wording on his Keynote presentations. It's no surprise then that the company...
From ACM Opinion
The Future of Surveillance Will Turn Society Into a Massive Online Game
No matter what the future may contain, one thing is certain: just about everything in it, including us, will increasingly be under surveillance.
From ACM Opinion
What Big Data Will Never Explain
"She told him that she loves me, which is an important data point."
From ACM Opinion
Save a Soccer Referee. Hire a Machine to Rule on Goals.
Referees are the worst. Anyone who plays, coaches, or watches sports will agree. They call either too little or too much. They're blind, stupid, paid off, or just...
From ACM Opinion
You'll Never Believe the Data 'wiped' Smartphones Store
Few things are more precious, intimate, and personal than the data on your smartphone.
From ACM Opinion
What Next For the 'quantified Self'?
The quantified self movement—the idea that tracking metrics about yourself can lead to self-improvement—appears to be gathering steam.
From ACM Opinion
The Promise and Perils of a Datafied World
In a former life I was a research assistant. After painstaking weeks spent gathering data, I was tasked with putting the numbers into a statistics application that...
From Communications of the ACM
Are the Costs of 'Free' Too High in Online Education?
Considering the economic implications as educational institutions expand online learning initiatives.
From Communications of the ACM
Peacebuilding in a Networked World
Harnessing computing and communication technologies in fragile, conflict-stressed nations.
From Communications of the ACM
The Problem with Hands-Free Dashboard Cellphones
Lawmakers misunderstand user experience of technology interface.
From ACM Opinion
Why It's Time For Our Devices to nderstand What We Mean, Not Just What We Say
It wasn’t just cost and Moore’s law. The graphical user interface—now known as the GUI ("gooey")—is what really made computing widespread, personal and ubiquitous...
From ACM Opinion
Googling You
The settlement last week between a group of state attorneys general and Google over the company’s improper data collection from home wireless networks shows the...
From ACM Careers
10 Companies Chasing Innovations That Really Matter
PayPal co-founder Max Levchin faced some flak recently when he announced he was starting a new company in the already crowded field of digital payments.
From ACM Opinion