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
A Future Where Everything Becomes a Computer Is as Creepy as You Feared
More than 40 years ago, Bill Gates and Paul Allen founded Microsoft with a vision for putting a personal computer on every desk.
From ACM Opinion
We Have Reached Peak Screen. Now Revolution Is in the Air.
Smartphones were once the best thing to happen to the tech industry—and for a while, it seemed, to all of us, too.
From ACM Opinion
Getting a Flood of G.D.P.R.-Related Privacy Policy pdates? Read Them.
You have probably noticed a flood of emails and alerts from companies in the past few weeks informing you about changes to their privacy policies.
From ACM Opinion
Europe's Data Protection Law Is a Big, Confusing Mess
There is a growing realization that our data is under attack.
From ACM Opinion
In Washington, a Brighter Spotlight on Technology
How do New York Times journalists use technology in their jobs and in their personal lives? Cecilia Kang, a technology reporter based in Washington, discussed the...
From ACM Opinion
Can Europe Lead on Privacy?
"We have a responsibility to protect your information," Mark Zuckerberg, the chief executive of Facebook, declared recently in a full-page newspaper advertisement...
From ACM Opinion
How Lies Spread Online
The spread of misinformation on social media is an alarming phenomenon that scientists have yet to fully understand.
From ACM Opinion
The Sublime and Scary Future of Cameras With A.I. Brains
Something strange, scary and sublime is happening to cameras, and it's going to complicate everything you knew about pictures. Cameras are getting brains.
From ACM Opinion
How to Monitor Fake News
The indictment of 13 Russians filed on Friday by Robert Mueller, the special counsel investigating Russian efforts to influence the 2016 presidential election,...
From ACM Opinion
Welcome to the Post-Text Future
I'll make this short: The thing you're doing now, reading prose on a screen, is going out of fashion.
From ACM Opinion
Our Hackable Political Future
Imagine it is the spring of 2019. A bottom-feeding website, perhaps tied to Russia, "surfaces" video of a sex scene starring an 18-year-old Kirsten Gillibrand. ...
From ACM Opinion
Apple Can't Resist Playing By China's Rules
Apple is selling out. It's not about the latest version of the iPhone, but the huge cache of personal data that will be going directly to the largest, and one of...
From ACM Opinion
How Technology Is (and Isn't) Changing Our Reading Habits
Given that you write about the books industry, how do you prefer to read books? On a Kindle or iPad or some other device, or printed books?
From ACM Opinion
The Big Tech Trends to Follow at Ces 2018
Imagine this: When you leave the house, your air conditioner and lights turn off automatically. Then when a motion sensor detects a person in the house, like your...
From ACM Opinion
The F.c.c. Wants to Let Telecoms Cash In on the Internet
The chairman of the Federal Communications Commission wants to let Comcast, Verizon and other broadband companies turn the internet into a latter-day version of...
From ACM Opinion
Why the Courts Will Have to Save Net Neutrality
Back in 2005, a small phone company based in North Carolina named Madison River began preventing its subscribers from making phone calls using the internet application...
From ACM Opinion
What Reality Tv Teaches S About Russia's Influence Campaign
In May 2016, a Facebook page called Heart of Texas urged its nearly 254,000 followers to rise up against what it considered to be an urgent cultural menace.
From ACM Opinion
There's No Good Decision in the Next Big Data Privacy Case
In 2013, United States agents served a warrant on Microsoft seeking the emails of a suspect in a drug case.
From ACM Opinion