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
The Voice-Activated Video Game
When he was in grad school, the roboticist Daniel Wilson installed 150 binary sensors in his house.
From ACM Opinion
The New Editors of the Internet
Bowing to their better civic natures, and the pleas of James Foley's family, Twitter and YouTube have pulled down videos and photos of his murder.
From ACM Opinion
A Tool That Answers 'what's That Typeface?'
The Internet is, from its very core to its most distant peripheries, a vast universe of text.
From ACM Opinion
The Beautiful, Invisible Game
The first goal of the 2014 World Cup was Brazilian, and it was an own goal.
From ACM Opinion
If the Robots Kill s, It's Because It's Their Job
In the movie Transcendence, which opens in theaters on Friday, a sentient computer program embarks on a relentless quest for power, nearly destroying humanity in...
From ACM Opinion
Google Wants to Make 'science Fiction' a Reality—and That's Limiting Their Imagination
Self-driving cars, extreme life extension, and global wifi provided by weather balloons: Google makes projects that sound like science fiction into reality at its...
From ACM Opinion
The Dream of Intelligent Robot Friends
Karotz is an Internet-enabled console in the shape of an abstracted rabbit.
From ACM Opinion
How to Win $1 Billion on Ncaa Basketball: A Mathematician's Tips
Last Thursday, the underground classroom at the National Museum of Mathematics in New York was filled to capacity for a college professor's PowerPoint-aided lecture...
From ACM Opinion
What If Your Autonomous Car Keeps Routing You Past Krispy Kreme?
On a future road trip, your robot car decides to take a new route, driving you past a Krispy Kreme Doughnut shop.
From ACM Opinion
8 Hypotheses About Tech in 2014
If there was a feeling that defined the cultural backdrop for 2013, it was technoanxiety.
From ACM Opinion
Stanford Researchers: It Is Trivially Easy to Match Metadata to Real People
In defending the NSA's telephony metadata collection efforts, government officials have repeatedly resorted to one seemingly significant detail: This is just metadata—numbers...
From ACM Opinion
2013: The Year 'the Stream' Crested
The Stream has been the organizing metaphor for the web for the past several years.
From ACM Opinion
Playing War: How the Military ses Video Games
According to popular discourse, video games are either the divine instrument of education’s future or the software of Satan himself, provoking young men to carry...
From ACM Careers
Students Are 'hacking' Their School-Issued Ipads: Good For Them
Almost immediately after receiving their new school-issued iPads this fall, students in Indiana and in California (and probably elsewhere) managed to bypass the...
From ACM Opinion
Why Today's Inventors Need to Read More Science Fiction
How will police use a gun that immobilizes its target but does not kill? What would people do with a device that could provide them with any mood they desire? What...
From ACM Opinion
Go Ahead, Mess With Texas Instruments
Last year, while cleaning out the basement of my childhood home, I discovered a plastic storage bin marked "Calcusoft." Inside were piles of notebooks filled with...
From ACM Opinion
What Does It Really Matter If Companies Are Tracking US Online?
Say you, like me, went to bed a little early last night.
From ACM Opinion
The Machine Zone: This Is Where You Go When You Just Can't Stop Looking at Pictures on Facebook
"People love Facebook. They really love it," Biz Stone wrote earlier this month. "My mother-in-law looks hypnotized when she decides to put in some Facebook time...
From ACM Opinion