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
How Startup Culture Is Killing Innovation
Far from being the measure of disgrace it once was, failure now seems to be a sort of badge of honor. Somewhere along the way, it got to be uncool to reduce one's...
From ACM Opinion
How Advanced Is the NSA's Cryptanalysis—And Can We Resist It?
The latest Snowden document is the U.S. intelligence "black budget."
From ACM Opinion
How Steve Jobs Turned Technology — And Apple — Into Religion
The technological values promoted by Apple are part of the Faustian bargain of technology, which both giveth and taketh away.
From ACM Opinion
How Protecting Your Privacy Could Make You the Bad Guy
There's a funny catch-22 when it comes to privacy best practices.
From ACM Opinion
Your Creative, Open Hackathon Is Ripe For Legal Challenges
NASA's Space Apps Challenge recently became the world's largest open hackathon, with over 8,000 participants spanning 44 countries.
From ACM Opinion
Phew, Nsa Is Just Collecting Metadata. (you Should Still Worry)
We now know that every day, U.S. phone companies quietly send the government a list of who called whom and when—"telephony metadata"—for every call made on their...
From ACM Opinion
Connecting the Dots on Prism, Phone Surveillance, and the Nsa's Massive Spy Center
Physically, the NSA has always been well protected by miles of high fences and electrified wire, thousands of cameras, and gun-toting guards.
From ACM Opinion
Senator Rand Paul Talks Tech, Civil Liberties, and Keeping the Government Out of Your Email
Rand Paul is having some problems with the jerks back at the office. So today he's bypassing them on a road trip through Silicon Valley.
From ACM Opinion
Forget Google Glass. These Are the Interfaces of the Future
When we talk about design nowadays, the focus has been on the lures (or dangers) of flat design and skeumorphism; whether there should be (or really are any) ...
From ACM Opinion
Why Moma Is Exhibiting Tetris and Pac-Man
Last November, the Museum of Modern Art said that it had acquired 14 videogames, adding working copies and the source code of games like Tetris and The Sims to...
From ACM Opinion
Hear Ye, Future Deep Throats: This Is How to Leak to the Press
We now live in a world where public servants informing the public about government behavior or wrongdoing must practice the tradecraft of drug dealers and spies...
From ACM Opinion
The Man Behind the Google Brain: Andrew Ng and the Quest For the New AI
There's a theory that human intelligence stems from a single algorithm.
From ACM Opinion
Jaron Lanier on the Cheap Treats and Religious Emotion of Moore's Law
Moore's Law is Silicon Valley’s guiding principle, like all 10 commandments wrapped into one.
From ACM Opinion
Why We Often View Digital Culture Through Insect Metaphors
Swarms. Hive minds. The Web.
From ACM Opinion
Let's Cut Through the Bitcoin Hype: A Hacker-Entrepreneur's Take
Bitcoin. Everybody's talking about it. What's true, and what's hype? Perhaps the only thing that's clear about Bitcoin is that it's not going away anytime soon.
From ACM Opinion
How Ray Kurzweil Will Help Google Make the ltimate AI Brain
Google has always been an artificial intelligence company, so it really shouldn't have been a surprise that Ray Kurzweil, one of the leading scientists in the field...
From ACM Opinion
#freejahar Hashtag Rallies Emerging Cult of Boston Bomb Suspect
Barely two days after cops apprehended Suspect #2 in the Boston Marathon bombings, supporters of Dzhokhar Tsarnaev are rallying online.
From ACM Opinion
How Pixar sed Moore's Law to Predict the Future
Whether you call it a data-driven prediction or think of it as a self-fulfilling prophecy, Moore's Law has been going strong.
From ACM Opinion
A Leader of Obama's New Brain Initiative Explains Why We Need It
Neuroscientist William Newsome of Stanford University is one of two scientists tapped by President Obama to lead a new brain research initiative, which the administration...
From ACM Opinion