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
Sneaky Apps That Track Cellphones
A perversion of smartphone technology called "stalking apps"—precise, secretive trackings of the movements of cellphone users—is increasingly a matter of national...
From ACM Opinion
Red Pill, Blue Pill: Is the niverse Just a Giant Computer Simulation?
I've started making my way (skeptically) through Ray Kurzweil’s How to Create a Mind, and at the recommendation of a friend, I've also started keeping tabs on ...
From ACM Opinion
I Am Not Big Brother
I've grown accustomed to reading inaccurate accounts of my day job. I'm in political data.
From ACM Opinion
Planning His Legacy, Cisco Chief Maps an Expansion
John T. Chambers has readied his last great act as the leader of Cisco Systems, fearing major changes in the technology business that could doom his company.
From ACM Opinion
At Dawn We Sleep
If you read the newspapers on the morning of Dec. 7, 1941, you would have been led to believe that Japan was poised to attack—but in Southeast Asia, not Pearl Harbor...
From ACM Opinion
9 Wishes For Microsoft's Next Xbox, Whatever It's Called
Citing the usual sources-who-shall-remain-nameless, Bloomberg reports what everyone's been assuming all year—that Microsoft's going to launch its next game system...
From ACM Opinion
A Touch Literate World: The Global Tablet Craze
I haven't been shy about expressing my belief that tablets represent the reinvention of the personal computer.
From ACM Opinion
Eye Am a Camera: Surveillance and Sousveillance in the Glassage
Digital eye glasses like Google’s Project Glass, and my earlier Digital Eye Glass, will transform society because they introduce a two-sided surveillance and sousveillance...
From ACM Opinion
How to Devise Passwords That Drive Hackers Away
Not long after I began writing about cybersecurity, I became a paranoid caricature of my former self.
From ACM Opinion
Inside the Secret World of the Data Crunchers Who Helped Obama Win
In late spring, the backroom number crunchers who powered Barack Obama's campaign to victory noticed that George Clooney had an almost gravitational tug on West...
From ACM Opinion
Killing the Computer to Save It
Many people cite Albert Einstein's aphorism "Everything should be made as simple as possible, but no simpler." Only a handful, however, have had the opportunity...
From ACM Opinion
Few Winners in Heated Cellphone Wars
If you are wondering who will be your cellphone provider next year, so are the cellphone companies.
From ACM Opinion
Fresh Windows, but Where’s the Start Button?
Over the years, Keith McCarthy has become used to a certain way of doing things on his personal computers, which, like most others on the planet, have long run...
From ACM Opinion
And the Firewalls Came Tumbling Down
There's much to like about "This Machine Kills Secrets," Andy Greenberg's well-reported history of WikiLeaks and the many projects it has inspired, but one unintentionally...
From ACM Opinion
Where's the Discussion of Trojan Horses?
The Mykonos Vase, discovered in 1961 in the Cyclades, is one of the earliest accounts of the Trojan Horse, used as a subterfuge by the Greeks to enter the city...
From ACM Opinion
What Makes Google's Maps So Good
Wow. Nothing makes you appreciate something like losing it.
From ACM Opinion
The Internet? We Built That
Who created the Internet and why should we care? These questions, so often raised during the Bush-Gore election in 2000, have found their way back into the political...
From ACM Opinion
Why Wi-Fi Is Often So Slow
A number of Internet service providers, including Comcast Corp. and Verizon Communications Inc., have recently upped the maximum speeds of broadband they offer...
From ACM Opinion
When Gps Tracking Violates Privacy Rights
For the right to personal privacy to survive in America in this digital age, courts must be meticulous in applying longstanding privacy protections to new technology...
From ACM Opinion