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
Internet Access Is Not a Human Right
From the streets of Tunis to Tahrir Square and beyond, protests around the world last year were built on the Internet and the many devices that interact with...
From ACM Opinion
Four Industries Apple Can Disrupt in the Near Future
Over the past 10 years, Apple has done a rather amazing job of disrupting quite a few industries.
From ACM Opinion
Welcome to the 'knowosphere'
Here's my take on what I've begun calling the "knowosphere"—a word intentionally echoing the more allegorical "noosphere," the "planet of the mind" of Vladimir....
From ACM Opinion
Why Books Are Better Than E-Books For Children
Do you read to your children from your iPad or other device, or encourage them to use an e-reader to read to you?
From ACM Opinion
5 Game Stories to Watch in 2012
Goodbye 2011, you tumultuous, fickle, lovely year—hello 2012, another 365-day stretch full of promises, disappointments, and with a little luck, a few pleasant...
From ACM Opinion
The Future of Moral Machines
A robot walks into a bar and says, "I’ll have a screwdriver." A bad joke, indeed. But even less funny if the robot says "Give me what’s in your cash register."...
From ACM Opinion
Patents and the Public Interest
Next week, in a case closely watched both by analysts and retailers, the International Trade Commission will decide whether the handset maker HTC should be allowed...
From ACM Opinion
Walter Isaacson, Biographer of Steve Jobs
I’ve known Steve off and on since 1984. I was at Time magazine and he came to our offices to show us the original Macintosh. He was talking about these icons...
From ACM Opinion
The Last Person
There is a concept in telecommunications called "the last mile," that part of any phone system that is the most difficult to connect—the part that goes from the...
From ACM Opinion
Will Cloud Computing Make Everything (and Everyone) Work Harder?
What do the following have in common: Computers, limousines, empty beds and stay-at-home moms? The cloud keeps them busy. The rest of us are next. Virtualization...
From ACM Opinion
Our High-Tech Health-Care Future
Why can't Americans tap into the ingenuity that put men on the moon, created the Internet, and sequenced the human genome to revitalize our economy?
From ACM Opinion
The Court's Gps Test
There were no GPS tracking devices when the framers wrote the Fourth Amendment’s prohibition against unreasonable searches. But that does not mean this sometimes...
From ACM Opinion
The Genius of Jobs
One of the questions I wrestled with when writing about Steve Jobs was how smart he was. On the surface, this should not have been much of an issue.
From ACM Opinion
Running Out of Bandwidth
At a time of slow economic growth and declining competitiveness, wireless technology remains a shining example of innovation. In the last 10 years, wireless communications...
From ACM Opinion
Prospero's Tempestuous Family
Abdulfattah "John" Jandali is a casino manager outside Reno, so he knows about odds.
From ACM Opinion
The niversity of Wherever
For more than a decade educators have been expecting the Internet to transform that bastion of tradition and authority, the university. Digital utopians have...
From ACM Opinion
Protect Our Right to Anonymity
In November, the Supreme Court will hear arguments in a case that could redefine the scope of privacy in an age of increasingly ubiquitous surveillance technologies...
From ACM News
Bike Crash Wiped Details; Gps Data Filled Them In
After racing and biking back roads on the San Francisco Peninsula for almost half a century without serious incident, on July 3 I crashed while riding downhill...
From ACM Opinion
Internet Memes 101: A Guide to Online Wackiness
In the olden days, it was simple to keep up with pop culture. There were only three channels on TV, and everybody saw the same shows at the same time.
From ACM Opinion