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
Nanotech Pioneer Langer Wins Award By Thinking Small
Bioengineer Robert Langer has spent his career looking for the next not-so-big thing.
From ACM Opinion
A Graphene Discoverer Speculates on the Future of Computing
In 2010 two physicists at Manchester University in the U.K. shared a Nobel Prize in Physics for their work on a new wonder material: graphene, a flat sheet of carbon...
From ACM Opinion
This Mathematician Figured Out How to Solve For Zero
To mathematician Amir Aczel the most important number of all might just be zero.
From ACM News
Search Gives s Superpowers
Machine learning—an area of AI focusing on systems that "learn" from data in order to navigate future similar scenarios—is one of the ways we’ve managed to give...
From ACM Opinion
Why We're All Beta Testers Now
I taught a class a few years ago at Columbia Business School called "What Makes a Hit a Hit—and a Flop a Flop."
From ACM Opinion
What Is It Like to Control a Robotic Arm with a Brain Implant?
Jan Scheuermann is not your average experimental subject.
From ACM Opinion
'glass Brain' Offers Tours of the Space Between Your Ears
Former Grateful Dead percussionist Mickey Hart takes pride in his brain.
From ACM Opinion
A Computer Scientist Tells Mathematicians How To Write Proofs
Believe it or not, I do have friends who would describe themselves as not liking math, and every so often one of them will share this meme on Facebook: And then...
From ACM Opinion
Visualizing 4-Dimensional Asteroids
One of the largest treasure troves of astronomical data comes from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS), an ongoing scan of the firmament that began 15 years ago...
From ACM Opinion
The Case For Kill Switches in Military Weaponry
This summer the insurgent group ISIS captured the Iraqi city of Mosul—and along with it, three army divisions' worth of U.S.-supplied equipment from the Iraqi army...
From ACM Opinion
Beyond Classic Brain Illustrations That Make S Drool
I threw down a bit of a challenge last month at the Association of Medical Illustrators Conference in Minnesota.
From ACM Opinion
Quantum Chaos: After a Failed Speed Test, the D-Wave Debate Continues
How hard can it be to determine whether a computer works as promised?
From ACM Opinion
Time Travel: Installing an Atomic Clock at 15,000 Feet
A few months ago I went to Cambridge, Mass. to check in with the Event Horizon Telescope crew and found Shep Doeleman, the project leader, fresh off the completion...
From ACM Opinion
So Far, Big Data Is Small Potatoes
Is Big Data going to revolutionize science and help us make a better world? Not based on what it's done so far.
From ACM Opinion
Time Machines Would Run Afoul of the Second Law of Thermodynamics
We've all seen those movies where someone goes back in time and tries to change something (the classic "Grandfather Paradox": what happens if you go back in time...
From ACM Opinion
Warp Drive Research Key to Interstellar Travel
As any avid Star Trek fan can tell you, the eccentric physicist Zefram Cochrane invented the warp-drive engine in the year 2063.
From ACM Opinion
Asimov's Predictions from 1964: A Brief Report Card
Predictions about technology's future are almost always doomed.
From ACM Opinion
7 Gadgets to Watch For in 2014
Turn an ordinary table into a touch screen, monitor your kids' whereabouts, and place the power of 3D printing in the palm of your hand—and there’s more.
From ACM Opinion
How Microsoft's 1 Percenters Balance Basic Research with Short-Term Success
When Microsoft launched its research labs in 1991, the personal computer was just beginning to blossom into a worldwide phenomenon, thanks in no small part to Windows...
From ACM Opinion