Communications of the ACM
Innovation Is Overrated: A Provocation
Digital innovation is not working in the interest of the whole of society. It is time to radically rethink its purpose without…
From ACM Opinion
How Programmable Calculators and a Sci-Fi Story Brought Soviet Teens Into the Digital Age
Despite the ubiquity of computers in modern society, the vast majority of today's students never study computer science or computer programming.
From ACM Opinion
To Illustrate the Dangers of Cyberwarfare, the Army Is Turning to Sci-Fi
At first glance, Dark Hammer looks a lot like any other science fiction comic book: On the front cover, a drone flies over a river dividing a city with damaged...
From ACM Opinion
How to Design a New Chip on a Budget
We recently had an interesting exchange with bunnie Huang, hardware guru and creator of Chumby, NetTV, and the Novena laptop, among other things. He's also theHacking...
From ACM Opinion
How We Won Gold in the Cyborg Olympics' Brain Race
In October 2016, inside a sold-out arena in Zurich, a man named Numa Poujouly steered his wheelchair up to the central podium.
From ACM Opinion
Blossom: A Handmade Approach to Social Robotics from Cornell and Google
As excited as we are about the forthcoming generation of social home robots (including Jibo, Kuri, and many others), it's hard to ignore the fact that most of them...
From ACM Opinion
Beyond Touch: Tomorrow's Devices Will se Mems ltrasound to Hear Your Gestures
Today, we control our electronic world by touch—we tap, we swipe, we pinch and zoom.
From ACM Opinion
A Radical Proposal: Replace Hard Disks with Dram
When it comes to computer storage, the magnetic disk has been top dog for almost half a century.
From ACM Opinion
Openbci: Control An Air Shark With Your Mind
Le's be clear: This is a parlor trick, not neuroscience. Nonetheless, with the help of some friends, I was able to make a toy shark fly through the air using brain...
From ACM Opinion
Steve Mann: My 'augmediated' Life
Back in 2004, I was awakened early one morning by a loud clatter. I ran outside, only to discover that a car had smashed into the corner of my house.
From ACM Opinion
Why Smart Glasses Might Not Make You Smarter
Steve Mann built his first smart eyeglasses when he was still in high school and has continued to improve on his designs ever since—as a graduate student at MIT...
From ACM TechNews