Communications of the ACM
From ACM Opinion
A Bold Mission to Touch the Sun
On Sunday, August 12, NASA launched a bold mission to fly directly into the sun's atmosphere, with a spacecraft named the Parker Solar Probe, after solar astrophysicist...
From ACM Opinion
On the Future of Human-Centered Robotics
A major theme in recent political discourse has been the perceived impact of robots and automation on the United States labor economy.
From ACM Opinion
3 Questions: Dara Entekhabi on Nasa's Soil-Moisture Mission
Dara Entekhabi, an MIT professor of civil and environmental engineering and of earth, atmospheric and planetary sciences, is the science team leader of NASA's ...
From ACM Opinion
Harnessing the Speed of Light
The fields of data communication, fabrication, and ultrasound imaging share a common challenge when it comes to improving speed and efficiency: light's diffraction...
From ACM Opinion
The Complexonaut
When he was in elementary school, Scott Aaronson, like many mathematically precocious kids of his generation, dreamed of making his own video games.
From ACM Opinion
Don Boroson on Nasa's Record-Breaking se of Laser Communications
Last week, NASA announced that the Lunar Laser Communication Demonstration (LLCD) on its Lunar Atmosphere and Dust Environment Explorer (LADEE) spacecraft had made...
From ACM Opinion
Professor Emeritus Rodney Brooks Refines the Sequel to Irobot
Professor emeritus Rodney Brooks gained fame in the 1990s for co-founding iRobot, an MIT spinoff that brought the world the Roomba and other innovative, helpful...
From ACM Opinion
Opening Dropbox
If you walk the halls at MIT, you may notice a lot of students wearing T-shirts bearing the Dropbox logo. It's a simple design—an opened box—but one that carries...
From ACM Opinion
Sal Khan: 'i Love Learning'
"If there was a Ph.D. in learning everything, I would do that," the always-enthusiastic Sal Khan '98, MEng '98 said in a talk Wednesday at MIT's Kresge Auditorium...
From ACM Opinion
Nate Silver Presents Forecasting Work as Antidote to 'terrible' Political Pundits
Celebrated political forecaster Nate Silver has shot to fame by letting the data speak loudly about elections.
From ACM Opinion
3 Questions: A Web For Everyone
During the opening ceremonies of this summer’s Olympic games in London, a musical performance culminated with a stage-set house rising into the rafters to reveal...
From ACM Opinion
MIT Alums Recount Their Martian Experiences
Since NASA's Curiosity rover made its extraordinary Aug. 6 touchdown on Mars, it has been roving the Martian landscape, returning startling images.
From ACM Opinion
Connoisseur of Chaos
As a high school student in a Detroit suburb in the 1990s, Russ Tedrake did not fit the standard profile of a future computer science professor.
From ACM News
The Robot Revolution Is Just Beginning
When industrial robots were first introduced in the early 1960s initially on automobile assembly lines—computers were still in their infancy, so the robots were...
From ACM Opinion