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William Gibson on Why Sci-Fi Writers Are (thankfully) Almost Always Wrong
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...

Meet the Man Who's Rewiring Google From the Inside Out
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...

Nasa Mohawk Guy Bobak Ferdowsi on Sci-Fi, Legos, and Becoming a Meme
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...

Robot Master
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...

Meet the Man Who Put the '@' in Your Email
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...

Timing Is Everything For the Games' Chief Timer
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.

Russia's Top Cyber Sleuth Foils ­S Spies, Helps Kremlin Pals
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...

Will Wright Wants to Make a Game Out of Life Itself
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...

Google Shaman Explains Mysteries of 'compute Engine'
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.

Microsoft's Research Boss Celebrates Legacy of Alan Turing
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.

Berners-Lee: World Finally Realizes Web Belongs To No One
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: ...

Craig Venter Wants to Solve the World's Energy Crisis
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...

Meet the Man Who Invented the Instructions For the Internet
From ACM Opinion

Meet the Man Who Invented the Instructions For the Internet

Steve Crocker was there when the Internet was born.

Google's Sebastian Thrun: 3 Visions in the 'age of Disruption'
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...

Vint Cerf: We Knew What We Were ­nleashing on the World
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.

Vernor Vinge Is Optimistic About the Collapse of Civilization
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...

Why William Gibson Distrusts Aging Futurists' Nostalgia
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." 

Api: Three Letters That Change Life, the ­niverse, and Even Detroit
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

Google's Data Center Engineer Shares Secrets of 'warehouse' Computing

 Luiz André Barroso doesn't see Google's data centers as data centers. He sees them as computers the size of warehouses.
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