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
Good Data Are Not Enough
This summer, I visited the Mayan city of Chichén Itzá in the Yucatán Peninsula, Mexico.
From ACM Opinion
Inside Microsoft's Quest For a Topological Quantum Computer
The race is on build a "universal" quantum computer. Such a device could be programmed to speedily solve problems that classical computers cannot crack, potentially...
From ACM Opinion
There Is a Blind Spot in AI Research
This week, the White House published its report on the future of artificial intelligence (AI)—a product of four workshops held between May and July 2016 in Seattle...
From ACM Opinion
Why Big Pharma Wants to Collect 2 Million Genomes
Five months after announcing its intentions to gather genome sequences from 2 million people, pharmaceutical giant AstraZeneca has selected geneticist David Goldstein...
From ACM Opinion
Why Scientists Must Share Their Research Code
Many scientists worry over the reproducibility of wet-lab experiments, but data scientist Victoria Stodden's focus is on how to validate computational research:...
From ACM Opinion
Obama's Science Legacy: Betting Big on Biomedical Science
When president-elect Barack Obama chose physicist John Holdren as his top science adviser in December 2008, some biomedical researchers worried that the pick signalled...
From ACM Opinion
Take Responsibility For Electronic-Waste Disposal
The world is producing ever more electrical and electronic waste.
From ACM Opinion
The Science That Fed Frankenstein
In 1816, a teenager began to compose what many view as the first true work of science fiction—and unleashed one of the most subversive attacks on modern science...
From ACM Opinion
Validate Personal Air-Pollution Sensors
The public is increasingly aware of the health and economic costs of air pollution.
From ACM Opinion
The Physicist Who Studies Isis Communities Online
Neil Johnson, a physicist at the University of Miami in Florida, studies patterns that emerge in complex systems.
From ACM Opinion
nite to Build a Quantum Internet
Almost 25 years ago, physicists discovered a way of 'teleporting' a quantum system from one place to another without moving it.
From ACM Opinion
se or Lose Our Navigation Skills
In 1984, I was part of a team that was developing a receiver for a satellite-navigation system. After weeks of debugging, the blur of random digits settled on a...
From ACM Opinion
Digital Intuition
Napoleon had it and so did Charles Darwin. Tennis champion Roger Federer has it in spades. The dictionary defines intuition as knowledge obtained without conscious...
From ACM Opinion
Go Players React to Computer Defeat
For decades, the ancient game of Go has stood out as the one board game that computers couldn't crack.
From ACM Opinion
China's Quantum Space Pioneer: We Need to Explore the nknown
Physicist Pan Jian-Wei is the architect of the world's first attempt to set up a quantum communications link between Earth and space—an experiment that is set to...
From ACM Opinion
Genome-Editing Revolution: My Whirlwind Year with Crispr
Some 20 months ago, I started having trouble sleeping.
From ACM Opinion
The Science to Look Out For in 2016
A Swiss company is set to become the first firm to capture carbon dioxide from the air and sell it on a commercial scale, a stepping stone to larger facilities...
From ACM Opinion
Crispr: A Path Through the Thicket
The ease of use, accuracy and efficiency of the genome-editing tool CRISPR/Cas9 has led to its broad adoption in research, as well as to preliminary applications...
From ACM Opinion
Informatics: Make Sense of Health Data
If you are wondering whether exposure to some chemical could increase your chances of getting colon cancer, you could easily find supportive evidence from animal...
From ACM Opinion