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 Robot That Knows When to Swipe Right
I have come to think of Tinder as a sort algorithm for the mind.
From ACM Opinion
Televised Football Is Looking More Like a Video Game—in Subtle Ways
It is impossible to consider American football without considering television.
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 Adultery Arms Race
Jay's wife, Ann, was supposed to be out of town on business.
From ACM Opinion
When Everything Works Like Your Cell Phone
Everyone understands what it means to own a plunger.
From ACM Opinion
Want to Reform the Nsa? Give Edward Snowden Immunity
In 1970, Christopher Pyle disclosed in public writing that the U.S. Army was running a domestic intelligence program aimed at anti-war and civil-rights activists...
From ACM Careers
The Coming Age of the Internet Naturalist
Three years ago, Shaun Winterton was looking at photos of bugs on Flickr.
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
Email Is Still the Best Thing on the Internet
All these people are trying to kill email.
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
How to Invent a Person Online
On April 8, 2013, I received an envelope in the mail from a nonexistent return address in Toledo, Ohio.
From ACM Opinion
I Sent All My Text Messages in Calligraphy For a Week
I got my first mobile phone when I was in high school. It was 2005, and the feeling of "cool" overwhelmed me.
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
The Eccentric Genius Whose Time May Have Finally Come (again)
I've been preoccupied lately with thoughts of marauding broomsticks, genies in bottles, and monkey's paws.
From ACM Opinion
How Darpa's Augmented Reality Software Works
Six years ago, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) decided that they had a new dream. The agency wanted a system that would overlay digital tactical...
From ACM Opinion
Should .s. Hackers Fix Cybersecurity Holes or Exploit Them?
There's a debate going on about whether the U.S. government—specifically, the NSA and United States Cyber Command—should stockpile Internet vulnerabilities or disclose...
From ACM Opinion