Communications of the ACM
From ACM Opinion
Amazon's Bezos: Maybe the Most Second-Guessed Genius in Tech
Jeff Bezos is fond of a line that he wrote in a note to Amazon's shareholders in 1997: "We will make bold rather than timid investment decisions where we see a...
From ACM Opinion
Why Your Cellphone Could Be Called a 'tracker'
Your cellphone is a tracking device collecting a lot more information about you than you may think, says ProPublica investigative reporter Peter Maass.
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
The Jet Propulsion Lab Is Way Weirder (and Awesomer) Than You Even Imagined
For a center of cutting-edge scientific research, Caltech's Jet Propulsion Lab seems to be a pretty wacky place. Luke Johnson, a graphic designer at the lab, set...
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 Opinion
The 'surround Computing' Era Is Just Around the Corner
The 'surround computing' era is coming soon, according to Mark Papermaster, the chief technology officer of chipmaker Advanced Micro Devices.
From ACM Opinion
Apple-Samsung Jury Foreman Recalls 'aha! Moment'
According to Velvin Hogan, the 67-year-old foreman of the jury in the U.S. trial between the Apple and Samsung, one of the turning points in group's journey to came...
From ACM Opinion
Epic Mickey Creator Wants to 'shame' Doom and nreal Makers: Why He's Not Wrong
I never got around to playing Epic Mickey, and that’s a shame, because I’ve played nearly everything else by game design luminary Warren Spector.
From ACM TechNews
Climate Science Triggers Torrent of Big Data Challenges
ORNL supercomputers running models to assess climate change ramifications and mitigation tactics are rapidly generating a wide variety of big data in vast volumes...
From ACM Opinion
Paul Otellini on Intel and the Pc's Evolution
Since taking over as CEO in 2005, Otellini has focused on pushing Intel beyond the PC.
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
His Other Car Is on Mars
On Earth, Scott Maxwell drives his red Prius without paying much attention to the San Gabriel Mountains in the distance.
From ACM Opinion
Far from Silicon Valley, Tech Industry Finds an Oracle
Anand Shimpi is one of the most influential tech industry figures you've never heard of.
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
What a Win or Loss on Mars Will Mean
Anyone who's looked at the "Seven Minutes of Terror" trailer for next month's Mars landing might have wondered whether the planners behind NASA's $2.5 billion Mars...
From ACM News
The Robot of the Future That's About to Explore the Deep Past of Mars
I want to tell you about a special place on the surface of Mars. Back in the solar system's early days, a large object slammed into the red planet, leaving behind...
From ACM Opinion
Steve Jobs on Programming, Craftsmanship, Software, and the Web
In 1995, Steve Jobs gave a rare interview to Robert Cringely for a PBS special called Triumph of the Nerds to talk about the genesis of the personal computer.
From ACM Opinion
Why Learn C?
Though C has been around for decades, it's still consistently ranked at the top of any list of programming languages used and studied today.
From ACM Opinion