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
China Bankrolls R&d While India Plays the Miser
Did Prime Minister Manmohan Singh underplay China's superiority over India in the field of science, research, and technology? Analysis of new data shared at the...
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
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
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
Expanding Internet Domains
Come January, the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers plans to allow businesses, nonprofits and others to apply for their own "top-level domain"...
From ACM TechNews
FCC Commissioner Delivers Warning on Threat to 'internet Freedom'
The United States is not ready for the battle over whether the Internet will remain free from government regulations or fall under the control of emerging global...
From ACM TechNews
FCC Commissioner Delivers Warning on Threat to 'internet Freedom'
The United States is not ready for the battle over whether the Internet will remain free from government regulations or fall under the control of emerging global...
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
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
Miracle Pill or Cheap Gimmick?
Aakash, the world's cheapest tablet computer, has the potential of being a game-changer that empowers India's poor. But its introduction raises important questions...
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
How to Fix Our Math Education
There is widespread alarm in the United States about the state of our math education. The anxiety can be traced to the poor performance of American students on...
From ACM Opinion
Education Needs a Digital-Age pgrade
If you have a child entering grade school this fall, file away just one number with all those back-to-school forms: 65 percent. Chances are just that good that...
From ACM Opinion