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
Here's Google's Secret to Hiring the Best People
"You never get a second chance to make a first impression" was the tagline for a Head & Shoulders shampoo ad campaign in the 1980s. It unfortunately encapsulates...
From ACM Opinion
Nsa Doesn't Need to Spy on Your Calls to Learn Your Secrets
Governments and corporations gather, store, and analyze the tremendous amount of data we chuff out as we move through our digitized lives.
From ACM Opinion
FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler: This Is How We Will Ensure Net Neutrality
After more than a decade of debate and a record-setting proceeding that attracted nearly 4 million public comments, the time to settle the Net Neutrality question...
From ACM Opinion
15 Predictions For Tech and Design in 2015
It's our favorite time of year, when frogs from around the world examine the state of technology's future.
From ACM Opinion
How the Home Telephone Sparked the ser-Centered Design Revolution
Have you ever thought about why doorknobs are positioned at around two-fifths of the door's height, instead of right in the middle? Or why a washing machine is...
From ACM Opinion
Why the Silk Road Trial Matters
Ross Ulbricht is finally getting his day in court, 15 months after plainclothes FBI agents grabbed him in the science fiction section of a San Francisco library...
From ACM Opinion
The Biggest Security Threats We'll Face in 2015
As the clock strikes midnight on the new year, so begins the countdown to a new round of security threats and breaches that doubtless will unfold in 2015. But this...
From ACM Opinion
Sure, Artificial Intelligence May End Our World, But That Is Not the Main Problem
The robots will rise, we're told.
From ACM Opinion
Algorithms Are Great and All, But They Can Also Ruin Lives
On April 5, 2011, 41-year-old John Gass received a letter from the Massachusetts Registry of Motor Vehicles.
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.
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!!
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...
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...
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.
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...
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...
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."
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...
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...
From ACM Opinion