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
Where Tech Is Taking s: A Conversation With Intel's Genevieve Bell
Genevieve Bell grew up among Aboriginal people in Australia, taught anthropology at Stanford and for the past 16 years has worked for Intel.
From ACM Opinion
The Peril of Knowledge Everywhere
Thanks to advances in technology, we may soon revisit a question raised four centuries ago: Are there things we should try not to know?
From ACM Opinion
The Move Toward Computing That Reads Your Mind
Like many people in this modern world, I struggle with the tension between the conveniences offered by the latest technology and the loss of privacy that comes...
From ACM Opinion
The Cloud Industry Needs Aereo to Win. But Consumers Need Something Better.
The best way to think about Aereo, the company at the center of this week's Supreme Court battle over the future of computing, is as an example of legal performance...
From ACM Opinion
If You Like Immersion, You'll Love This Reality
The news that Facebook paid $2 billion for a virtual reality start-up, Oculus VR, might strike you as a bit zany.
From ACM Opinion
Hey, Robot: Which Cat Is Cuter?
One recent morning, while contemplating writing this column, I scrolled through thousands and thousands of listings for mundane microgigs on Mechanical Turk, or...
From ACM Opinion
Abstract Ideas Don't Deserve Patents
The Constitution gives Congress the power to grant inventors a temporary monopoly over their creations to "promote the progress of science and useful arts."
From ACM Opinion
The Future of Internet Freedom
Over the next decade, approximately five billion people will become connected to the Internet.
From ACM Opinion
Waiting For the Black Box
Days after the disappearance of Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370 shortly after midnight on Saturday, investigators considering a range of possible causes—mechanical...
From ACM Opinion
Why Bitcoin Matters
A mysterious new technology emerges, seemingly out of nowhere, but actually the result of two decades of intense research and development by nearly anonymous researchers...
From ACM Opinion
Viewing Where the Internet Goes
Will 2014 be the year that the Internet is reined in?
From ACM Opinion
Civilian Photography, Now Rising to New Level
Five years ago, the DJI Phantom 2 Vision would have seemed like a science fiction film prop or a piece of surveillance hardware flown only by the sexiest of superspies...
From ACM Opinion
I Had My Dna Picture Taken, With Varying Results
I like to plan ahead; that much I knew about myself before I plunged into exploring my genetic code.
From ACM Opinion
An Homage to Douglas Engelbart and a Critique of the State of Tech
Theodor Holm Nelson, who coined the term hypertext, has been a thorn in the side of the computing establishment for more than a half century.
From ACM Opinion
Google Puts Money on Robots, sing the Man Behind Android
In an out-of-the-way Google office, two life-size humanoid robots hang suspended in a corner.
From ACM Opinion
Nest's Tony Fadell on Smart Objects, and the Singularity of Innovation
Tony Fadell is the founder and chief executive of Nest, a company that is trying to bring a high-end technology experience to some of the most prosaic areas of...
From ACM Opinion
The Information-Gathering Paradox
Consumer trust is a vital currency for every big Internet company, which helps to explain why the giants of Silicon Valley have gone to great lengths in recent...
From ACM Opinion
Dina Katabi
Syrian-born Dina Katabi is a professor of electrical engineering and computer science at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. She was awarded a MacArthur last...
From ACM Opinion