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
Fight Isis By Thinking Inside the Bot
What if we told you that fighting ISIS could be done cheaply, relatively easily, in a manner that would not escalate or put any in harm’s way?
From ACM Opinion
Convicted By Code
Secret code is everywhere—in elevators, airplanes, medical devices.
From ACM Opinion
How to Make a Rubber Ducky Comet: Smash Two Comets Together! Carefully.
It was a bit of a surprise when the Rosetta probe, after a decade of travel around the Sun, approached the comet and sent the first decently resolved pictures of...
From ACM Opinion
The Government Needs to Work with Silicon Valley to Create Our Military Future
In 1931, the city fathers of Sunnyvale, California, came up with a unique plan to rescue their town from the doldrums of the Great Depression.
From ACM News
What a Comet Looks Like … From 9 Meters Away!
The European Space Agency has just released some fantastic close-up images taken by the Philae lander of the comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko.
From ACM Opinion
The Social Security Number's Insecurities
In both the Anthem insurance hack and the two Office of Personnel Management hacks this year, attackers gained access to Social Security numbers, affecting 80 million...
From ACM Opinion
Is Star Trek Tech Possible?
My friend Veronica Belmont is pretty cool. Nerd, writer, TV host… and now she’s doing an online video series with Engadget called "Dear Veronica," where she answers...
From ACM Opinion
Meet the Bots
The day that science fiction writers have feared for so long has finally come—the machines have risen up.
From ACM Opinion
Mathematicians of the Future?
Herbert Simon, the Nobel-prize winning economist, was a techno-enthusiast. In 1956 he predicted that, "within 10 years, computers would beat the world chess champion...
From ACM Opinion
So Sayeth Google
Search for "vaccines." At least within our filter bubble, the top item in Google's "In the news" section earlier this week was an anti-vax column about the "feds'...
From ACM Opinion
The Sony Hackers Are Terrorists
The Sony Pictures hack is important, and the Sony Pictures hack is terrifying.
From ACM Opinion
William Gibson Sees the Future
"The thing to keep in mind," William Gibson tells me when we meet in the quiet lounge of a Victorian-style hotel in Chicago, "is that I’m not actually predicting...
From ACM Opinion
Dumbing It Down in the Cockpit
Long gone are the leather jackets, goggles, and silk scarves flung over the shoulders of aviators who wrestled with flight controls, furiously scanned instruments...
From ACM Opinion
We Might Be Able to 3-D-Print an Artificial Mind One Day
I'm an artificial-intelligence skeptic.
From ACM Opinion
You Should Be Terrified of Superintelligent Machines
In the recent discussion over the risks of developing superintelligent machines—that is, machines with general intelligence greater than that of humans—two narratives...
From ACM Opinion
Singularity or Transhumanism: What Word Should We se to Discuss the Future?
Singularity. Posthuman. Techno-Optimism, Cyborgism. Humanity+. Immortalist. Machine intelligence. Biohacker. Robotopia. Life extension. Transhumanism.
From ACM Opinion
Little Green Men Might Not Be So 'green'
Humans are affecting the Earth’s systems on a global scale. Industrial pollutants are accumulating in our atmosphere with the potential for long-term impact on...
From ACM Opinion
How to Terraform the Moon
Space fans were startled—and perhaps a little skeptical—in May when the Russians announced that they intend to build a manned moon base.
From ACM Opinion
How Not to Build a Brain
Building a brain sounds like a worthy goal, one that makes it seem as though the future is within reach.
From ACM Opinion