Communications of the ACM
From ACM Opinion
William Gibson on Why Sci-Fi Writers Are (thankfully) Almost Always Wrong
William Gibson, one of science fiction's most visionary and distinctive voices, maintains that he and his fellow writers don't possess some mystical ability to...
From ACM Opinion
Meet the Man Who's Rewiring Google From the Inside Out
It was a tweet that fired the imagination like few others. On May 10, 2011, at 1:35 in the afternoon, Eric Brewer told the world he was redesigning the most important...
From ACM Opinion
Nasa Mohawk Guy Bobak Ferdowsi on Sci-Fi, Legos, and Becoming a Meme
As space geeks watched nervously to see if NASA's Curiosity rover would land safely on Mars, many found themselves wondering, "Hey, who's that cool dude with the...
From ACM Opinion
Robot Master
When you visit Manuela Veloso at Carnegie Mellon University, you're not guided to her office by a security officer or even issued instructions by a secretary at...
From ACM Opinion
Meet the Man Who Put the '@' in Your Email
Who invented email? That's a bit like asking, "Who invented the Internet?" Even those with intimate knowledge of its creation can’t agree on the moment it actually...
From ACM Opinion
Timing Is Everything For the Games' Chief Timer
Timing is everything for Peter Hürzeler, a man for whom "good enough" simply isn't.
From ACM Opinion
Russia's Top Cyber Sleuth Foils S Spies, Helps Kremlin Pals
It's early February in Cancun, Mexico. A group of 60 or so financial analysts, reporters, diplomats, and cybersecurity specialists shake off the previous night's...
From ACM Opinion
Will Wright Wants to Make a Game Out of Life Itself
For almost 30 years, Will Wright’s creations have attracted people who would never have played videogames. He's also managed the trick of developing games that...
From ACM News
Google Shaman Explains Mysteries of 'compute Engine'
Google started work on the Google Compute Engine over a year and a half ago, and it was all Peter Magnusson could do to keep his mouth shut.
From ACM Opinion
Microsoft's Research Boss Celebrates Legacy of Alan Turing
What does Alan Turing mean to Microsoft and the rest of the modern tech world? Rick Rashid can tell you.
From ACM Opinion
Berners-Lee: World Finally Realizes Web Belongs To No One
Sir Tim Berners-Lee is the reason you're reading this story in a web browser, complete with hypertext like this and an internet address that looks like this: ...
From ACM Opinion
Craig Venter Wants to Solve the World's Energy Crisis
There is one version of Craig Venter's life story where he would’ve been a dutiful scientist at the National Institutes of Health, a respected yet anonymous researcher...
From ACM Opinion
Meet the Man Who Invented the Instructions For the Internet
Steve Crocker was there when the Internet was born.
From ACM Opinion
Google's Sebastian Thrun: 3 Visions in the 'age of Disruption'
Today we drive cars, shell out enormous sums for higher education, and navigate the world with electronics that demand the unwavering attention of our ears, eyes...
From ACM News
Vint Cerf: We Knew What We Were nleashing on the World
Vint Cerf invented the protocol that rules them all: TCP/IP.
From ACM Opinion
Vernor Vinge Is Optimistic About the Collapse of Civilization
"I think that [civilization] coming back would actually be a very big surprise," he says. "The difference between us and us 10,000 years ago is … we know it can...
From ACM Opinion
Why William Gibson Distrusts Aging Futurists' Nostalgia
Few things seem more pathetic than a science fiction writer who pines for the "good old days."
From ACM News
Api: Three Letters That Change Life, the niverse, and Even Detroit
Sam Ramji met AT&T chief technology officer John Donovan on a speed date—or at least the tech world equivalent of a speed date.
From ACM Opinion
Android Design Chief Details Google's Mobile Future
By most measures, the Android platform is an enormous success. It dominates the smartphone space in terms of market share, with over a quarter of a billion currently...
From ACM News