acm-header
Sign In

Communications of the ACM

Recent Opinion


bg-corner

The Simple Question Nobody's Asking About Net Neutrality
From ACM Opinion

The Simple Question Nobody's Asking About Net Neutrality

President Obama rattled the internet this week when he unloaded his opinion on net neutrality, the notion that all internet traffic should be treated equally.

A Sad Fact of Life: It's Actually Smart to Be Mean Online
From ACM Opinion

A Sad Fact of Life: It's Actually Smart to Be Mean Online

I'm generally upbeat on Twitter. Many of my posts are enthusiastic blurts about science or research in which I use way too many exclamation points!!

The Three Breakthroughs That Have Finally ­nleashed AI on the World
From ACM Opinion

The Three Breakthroughs That Have Finally ­nleashed AI on the World

A few months ago I made the trek to the sylvan campus of the IBM research labs in Yorktown Heights, New York, to catch an early glimpse of the fast-arriving, long...

Alibaba's Founder on Why His Company Is Killing It in China
From ACM Opinion

Alibaba's Founder on Why His Company Is Killing It in China

Alibaba founder Jack Ma and the Notorious BIG may seem like two very different people—OK, fine, they're polar opposites—but on stage at the Clinton Global Initiative’s...

Is Apple Watch's Pressure-Sensitive Screen a Bigger Deal Than the Gadget Itself?
From ACM Opinion

Is Apple Watch's Pressure-Sensitive Screen a Bigger Deal Than the Gadget Itself?

Forget about the iPhone 6 Plus, Apple Pay and even the company's bold step into wearables.

On Death and Ipods: A Requiem
From ACM Opinion

On Death and Ipods: A Requiem

Have you ever loved a car? Maybe it was an old truck you drove for hundreds of thousands of miles, or maybe it was your very first car: where you had your very...

The Man Who Will Build Google's Elusive Quantum Computer
From ACM Opinion

The Man Who Will Build Google's Elusive Quantum Computer

John Martinis is one of the world's foremost experts on quantum computing, a growing field of science that aims to process information at super high speeds using...

Robot Servants Are Going to Make Your Life Easy. Then They'll Ruin It
From ACM Opinion

Robot Servants Are Going to Make Your Life Easy. Then They'll Ruin It

Jibo, the "world's first family robot," hit the media hype machine like a bomb.

How to Save the Net: Keep It Open
From ACM Opinion

How to Save the Net: Keep It Open

For all of its history, the Internet has enjoyed the fruits of an openness principle: the idea that anyone can reach any site online and that information and data...

The Engineer of the Original Apple Mouse Talks About His Remarkable Career
From ACM Opinion

The Engineer of the Original Apple Mouse Talks About His Remarkable Career

Jim Yurchenco was responsible for squeezing the guts inside the impossibly slim Palm V.

How to Save the Net: Don’t Give In to Big Isps
From ACM Opinion

How to Save the Net: Don’t Give In to Big Isps

The Internet has already changed how we live and work, and we're only just getting started. Who'd have thought even five years ago that people would be streaming...

I Liked Everything I Saw on Facebook For Two Days. Here's What It Did to Me
From ACM Opinion

I Liked Everything I Saw on Facebook For Two Days. Here's What It Did to Me

There's this great Andy Warhol quote you’ve probably seen before: "I think everybody should like everybody."

This Sci-Fi Author Thinks Amazon Will Cause an Apocalypse
From ACM Opinion

This Sci-Fi Author Thinks Amazon Will Cause an Apocalypse

Charles Stross is an award-winning science fiction author whose books include The Bloodline Feud, about timeline-hopping narco-terrorists, Halting State, a near...

The Data Centers of Tomorrow Will ­se the Same Tech Our Phones Do
From ACM Opinion

The Data Centers of Tomorrow Will ­se the Same Tech Our Phones Do

The mobile revolution has spread beyond the mini supercomputers in our hands all the way to the data center.

The Weird Reasons Why People Make ­p False Identities on the Internet
From ACM Opinion

The Weird Reasons Why People Make ­p False Identities on the Internet

Sockpuppetry—using false identities for deception—is centuries old, but the advent of the web has made creating sockpuppets, and falling for their tricks, easier...

When Robots Come For Our Jobs, Will We Be Ready to Outsmart Them?
From ACM Opinion

When Robots Come For Our Jobs, Will We Be Ready to Outsmart Them?

Non-human employees are filling positions in all sorts of workplaces, and they are proving themselves to be fast, accurate, and reliable—more so than their human...

The Fasinatng … Frustrating … Fascinating History of Autocorrect
From ACM Opinion

The Fasinatng … Frustrating … Fascinating History of Autocorrect

Invoke the word autocorrect and most people will think immediately of its hiccups—the sort of hysterical, impossible errors one finds collected on sites like Damn...

The Moral Hazards and Legal Conundrums of Our Robot-Filled Future
From ACM Opinion

The Moral Hazards and Legal Conundrums of Our Robot-Filled Future

The robots are coming, and they're getting smarter.

The Oculus Rift Game That's So Real It Nearly Destroyed Me
From ACM Opinion

The Oculus Rift Game That's So Real It Nearly Destroyed Me

I can hear the alien breathing.

The Troubling Truth of Why It's Still So Hard to Share Files Directly
From ACM Opinion

The Troubling Truth of Why It's Still So Hard to Share Files Directly

It's not always easy to spot the compromises in the technology we use, where we've allowed corporate interests to trump public ideals like privacy and press freedom...
Sign In for Full Access
» Forgot Password? » Create an ACM Web Account