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
Let's Get Back to Real Space Exploration
Time to ditch the black armbands and look beyond low Earth orbit again. The shuttle's passing marks the start of an exciting new era.
From ACM Opinion
ltimate Logic: To Infinity and Beyond
The mysteries of infinity could lead us to a fantastic structure above and beyond mathematics as we know it.
From ACM Opinion
Existence: Am I a Hologram?
Take a look around you. The walls, the chair you're sitting in, your own body—they all seem real and solid. Yet there is a possibility that everything we see...
From ACM News
Welcome to the Age of the Splinternet
Openness is the Internet's great strength—and weakness. With powerful forces carving it up, is its golden age coming to an end?
From ACM News
Interview with Key Lulzsec Hacker
It was early May when LulzSec's profile skyrocketed after a hack on the giant Sony corporation. LulzSec's name comes from Lulz, a corruption of LOL, often denoting...
From ACM News
Intel Anthropologist: Fieldwork with the Silicon Tribe
Anthropologist Genevieve Bell gives the chip maker insight into how people experience new technologies.
From ACM Opinion
The Internet Is a Tyrant's Friend
As recent events in Egypt and Tunisia so aptly demonstrate, technology is a double-edged sword: while pro-democracy protesters used sites like Facebook to organise...
From ACM Opinion
2011 Preview: Million-Dollar Mathematics Problem
A draft solution to the so-called "P versus NP" problem generated excitement in 2010; will 2011 bring a correct proof?
From ACM Opinion
Why Graphene Is the Stuff of the Future
Everything in our three-dimensional world has a width, length and height. That was what we thought, at least. But this picture overlooks a whole class of materials...
From ACM Opinion
Will Someone Leak the Leaker's Secrets?
Who has the right to decide what information should be kept secret? That's the vexatious question raised by WikiLeaks and its founder Julian Assange, who masterminded...
From ACM Opinion
Apple, Trackpads, and the Long Death of the Mouse
Another day, another envelope-pushing design from Apple intended to make us rethink the way we interact with our computers. Welcome to the Magic Trackpad.
From ACM Opinion
Google Should Answer Some Searching Questions
Google woos people with its "don't be evil" slogan and assures us that everything it does is meant to enhance our online experience. But a new study by U.S. advocacy...
From ACM Opinion
How E-Maps Curtail Our Freedom
Electronic maps are arguably the quintessential innovation of 20th-century cartography. Although a few academic cartographers accord the map mystical powers, it...
From ACM Opinion
Venter: The Implications of Our Synthetic Cell
We did not create life from scratch: we transformed existing life into new life. Nor did we design and build a new chromosome from scratch. Rather, using only digitised...
From ACM TechNews
Frank Moss: Tech to Help Those Who Can't Help Themselves
Frank Moss, head of the Media Lab at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, says there are real opportunities in developing technology for disabled or disadvantaged...
From ACM Opinion
Scientists Should Be on Tap, Not on Top
Should scientists have a special voice when it comes to deciding government policy? On Tuesday (February 16) Robert May, the U.K. government's former chief scientific...
From ACM Opinion
Don't Let Politicians Forget the E Word
Hugh Griffiths is chair of the executive committee of the Campaign for Science & Engineering (CaSE) and chair in intelligent radar systems at University College...
From ACM Opinion
Berners-Lee: We No Longer Fully nderstand the Web
World Wide Web inventor Tim Berners-Lee wants to put the Web under the microscope to investigate how it changes our behavior. He discusses the Web Science Research...
From ACM Opinion