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
This One Thing Could Hurt Apple's Case in Washington
Apple's fight with the FBI is widening beyond the courts.
From ACM Opinion
Why Robots and Smart Thermostats Keep America's Spy Chief p at Night
Some people are already used to having their personal information exposed in massive data breaches.
From ACM Opinion
If Killer Robots Arrive, the Terminator Will Be the Least of Our Problems
Autonomous weapons experts sounded the alarm last week at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, cautioning that unless governments act to limit these...
From ACM Opinion
The Case For Looking to the States, Not the Federal Government, to Protect Your Privacy
A year ago, President Obama stood behind a podium at the Federal Trade Commission and called for legislation that would set a single national standard for when...
From ACM Opinion
Why It's So Hard For Washington to Draft Tech Companies Against the Islamic State
Here's the basic problem the government faces when it comes to stopping the Islamic State's Internet propaganda: It needs Silicon Valley's help. But some tech companies—even...
From ACM Opinion
Driverless Cars Are Colliding with the Creepy Trolley Problem
Philosophers have been gnawing on the infamous Trolley Problem for decades, and it’s always been a purely intellectual exercise with no "right" answer.
From ACM Opinion
5 Amazing and Alarming Things That May Be Done with Your Dna
"You're a male, you're 34-years-old and your 5-foot-10 1/2 inches tall." That's a prediction that Craig Venter, long a pioneer on the frontier of genomics, offered...
From ACM Opinion
'the Martian,' Nasa and the Rise of a Science-Entertainment Complex
When Navy flyboy Tom Cruise got too close for missiles and switched to guns in the spring of 1986, what seemed like an entire nation got up to follow him.
From ACM Opinion
How Tetris Explains the Promise of the ltimate Algorithm
Pedro Domingos is a serious guy with big ambitions.
From ACM Opinion
Why the Ftc Is Showing p at Hackers' Biggest Conferences
The Federal Trade Commission, the de facto federal watchdog for consumers' privacy and data security, knows it needs help.
From ACM Opinion
The Very Best Ideas For Preventing Artificial Intelligence from Wrecking the Planet
The Boston-based Future of Life Institute, backed by a $10 million donation from Elon Musk, recently announced its list of 37 winners of research grants in the....
From ACM Opinion
6 Reasons Why We're nderhyping the Internet of Things
Just when you thought the Internet of Things couldn't possibly live up to its hype, along comes a blockbuster, 142-page report from McKinsey Global Institute ("The...
From ACM Opinion
How the Astros Baseball Hack Explains Chinese Cyberespionage
Two major cybersecurity scandals are currently making headlines: One is the hack of an internal network belonging to a Major League Baseball team, allegedly bya...
From ACM News
Facial Recognition Technology Is Everywhere. It May Not Be Legal.
Being anonymous in public might be a thing of the past.
From ACM Opinion
How the Country's Top Privacy Cop Is Trying to Protect Consumers in the Digital Age
As the digital economy has exploded, tech companies are collecting untold amounts of data on everyday Americans.
From ACM Opinion
The Real Winners in the Fight Over Government Surveillance
After the Senate passed legislation aimed at reforming a program that collected data about the phone calls of millions of Americans, Senate Majority Leader Mitch...
From ACM Opinion
How the Battle For the Future of the Web Is Shaped By Economics
There are two stories people are trying to tell right now about the future of the Internet.
From ACM Opinion
The White House Just Snagged One of the Most Valuable Players in the Tech Policy World
The White House is adding one of the tech policy world's most valuable players to its roster: Princeton Professor Ed Felten.
From ACM Opinion
Why the Ruling Against the Nsa's Phone Records Program Could Have Huge Implications
A federal appeals court ruling that the National Security Agency's collection of millions of Americans' phone records is illegal could undercut more than just that...
From ACM Opinion