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 Young Is Too Young to Learn to Code?
When the American Academy of Pediatrics recommends that children under 2 spend exactly zero time in front of screens, what its members are concerned about is substitution—all...
From ACM Opinion
Nokia's Stephen Elop Speaks
A little more than a year ago, Microsoft veteran Stephen Elop agreed to become CEO of Nokia, the world's largest maker of mobile handsets. Elop's job at the Finnish...
From ACM Opinion
Why Transparent Tracking Needs Its Own App
Amid widespread concern over an obscure piece of smart-phone diagnostic software that some experts say could be used to collect and transmit sensitive information...
From ACM Opinion
Is Personal Data the New Currency?
What if Facebook paid you? Several startups envision an era in which we are all the brokers, and beneficiaries, of our own personal data.
From ACM Opinion
Google and Microsoft Talk Artificial Intelligence
Google and Microsoft don't share a stage often, being increasingly fierce competitors in areas such as Web search, mobile, and cloud computing. But the rivals...
From ACM TechNews
In Love With Android: Q&a With Matias Duarte
Google Android user experience director Matias Duarte notes that games influenced the new design for Android version 4.0, which includes new features such as Face...
From ACM Opinion
Why Microsoft Embraced Gaming
When the original Xbox video-game console went on sale in 2001, it wasn't clear why Microsoft, known for staid workplace software, was branching out into fast...
From ACM Opinion
Don't nderestimate the Singularity
Although Paul Allen paraphrases my 2005 book, The Singularity Is Near, in the title of his essay (cowritten with his colleague Mark Greaves), it appears that he...
From ACM Opinion
The Singularity Isn't Near
Futurists like Vernor Vinge and Ray Kurzweil have argued that the world is rapidly approaching a tipping point, where the accelerating pace of smarter and smarter...
From ACM Opinion
In Profile: Ramesh Raskar
In 2007, Ramesh Raskar was one of the most promising young researchers at the Mitsubishi Electric Research Labs in Cambridge, Mass. Four years earlier, Technology...
From ACM Opinion
All About the Design Genius Who Gestated Facebook's Overhaul
A conversation with Nicholas Felton shows how Facebook's new apps will uncover uncomfortable truths about users—and how the same data could enable entirely new...
From ACM Opinion
Google Searching For New Ideas
If anyone can preview the future of computing, it should be Alfred Spector, Google's director of research. Spector's team focuses on the most challenging areas...
From ACM News
Cryptocurrency
The bitcoin, a virtual medium of exchange, could be a real alternative to government-issued money—but only if it survives hoarding by speculators.
From ACM News
Seeing the Future of the Office Internet
Inside the headquarters of networking giant Cisco in San Jose, California, lies a technology showcase where executives can test out advanced technologies like...
From ACM News
Can We Make Machines Listen More Carefully?
You probably use voice recognition technology already, if in a limited capacity. Maybe you use Google's voice-activated search, or take advantage of its (somewhat...
From ACM Opinion
Was the Space Shuttle a Mistake?
Forty years ago, I wrote an article for Technology Review titled "Shall We Build the Space Shuttle?" Now, with the 135th and final flight of the shuttle at hand...
From ACM News
Making the Case For Security
Major corporations have made serious mistakes with information security recently, resulting in spectacular failures to protect business and customer records....
From ACM Opinion
What Big Data Needs: A Code of Ethical Practices
In this era of Big Data, there is little that cannot be tracked in our online lives—or even in our offline lives. Consider one new Silicon Valley venture, called...
From ACM News