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 News
What Facebook Knows
If Facebook were a country, a conceit that founder Mark Zuckerberg has entertained in public, its 900 million members would make it the third largest in the world...
From ACM Opinion
How a Private Data Market Could Ruin Facebook
To justify its sky-high valuation, Facebook will have to increase its profit per user at rates that seem unlikely, even by the most generous predictions.
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
The Personal Computer Is Dead
Power is fast shifting from end users and software developers to operating system vendors.
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
A Cloud Over Ownership
Online services set content free from the physical world's constraints—including those that have defined the very idea of possession.
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 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 Opinion
Everything You Need to Know About Wikileaks
Two experts lay out the facts surrounding the controversy.
From ACM Opinion