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
Should Facebook Manipulate sers?
Should we worry that technology companies can secretly influence our emotions?
From ACM Opinion
The Tech-Savvy Supreme Court
The two major technology-related decisions handed down by the Supreme Court this week have been widely greeted by people in the tech industry as one win and one...
From ACM Opinion
New N.s.a. Chief Calls Damage From Snowden Leaks Manageable
The newly installed director of the National Security Agency says that while he has seen some terrorist groups alter their communications to avoid surveillance...
From ACM Opinion
Larry Page on Google's Many Arms
One way to think of Google is as an extremely helpful, all-knowing, hyper-intelligent executive assistant.
From ACM Opinion
Ordering Google to Forget
In a ruling that could undermine press freedoms and free speech, the highest court of the European Union said on Tuesday that Google must comply with requests from...
From ACM Opinion
The Peril of Knowledge Everywhere
Thanks to advances in technology, we may soon revisit a question raised four centuries ago: Are there things we should try not to know?
From ACM Opinion
The Cloud Industry Needs Aereo to Win. But Consumers Need Something Better.
The best way to think about Aereo, the company at the center of this week's Supreme Court battle over the future of computing, is as an example of legal performance...
From ACM Opinion
Abstract Ideas Don't Deserve Patents
The Constitution gives Congress the power to grant inventors a temporary monopoly over their creations to "promote the progress of science and useful arts."
From ACM Opinion
A Conversation With Danah Boyd, Author of 'it's Complicated,' About Teenagers Online
Danah Boyd is a principal researcher at Microsoft Research, a research assistant professor in Media, Culture and Communication at New York University, and a fellow...
From ACM Opinion
Flight 370 and the Terror of Being Off the Grid
How can a commercial airliner go missing?
From ACM Opinion
The Future of Internet Freedom
Over the next decade, approximately five billion people will become connected to the Internet.
From ACM Opinion
Waiting For the Black Box
Days after the disappearance of Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370 shortly after midnight on Saturday, investigators considering a range of possible causes—mechanical...
From ACM Opinion
How I Quit Google
I think it was the search for "pink glitter tiny toms" that finally prompted me to quit Google.
From ACM Opinion
How to Get a Job at Google
Last June, in an interview with Adam Bryant of The Times, Laszlo Bock, the senior vice president of people operations for Google—i.e., the guy in charge of hiring...
From ACM Opinion
Social Media, a Trove of Clues and Confessions
It seems as if every week there's a news story about someone committing a crime and confessing to it on Facebook, bragging about it on Twitter or sharing photos...
From ACM Opinion
Satya Nadella, Chief of Microsoft, on His New Role
Q. What leadership lessons have you learned from your predecessor, Steve Ballmer?
From ACM Opinion
Bitcoin and the Fictions of Money
How should we think about a currency like Bitcoin?
From ACM Opinion
Why Bitcoin Matters
A mysterious new technology emerges, seemingly out of nowhere, but actually the result of two decades of intense research and development by nearly anonymous researchers...
From ACM Opinion
Ann Cavoukian
Ann Cavoukian is the information and privacy commissioner in Ontario, Canada, and a longtime advocate of default online confidentiality.
From ACM Opinion