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
Ben Horowitz on the Impact of Software Everywhere
Ben Horowitz may have the skeleton key to the decimation—sorry, transformation—of our economic and political lives.
From ACM Opinion
Make Guns Smart
Voices across the political spectrum are debating how to prevent mass shootings such as the one in Newtown, Connecticut.
From ACM Opinion
Don't Let Math Pull the Wool Over Your Eyes
This column will make the case that many people, including holders of graduate degrees, professional researchers, and even editors of scientific journals, can be...
From ACM Opinion
Vint Cerf: Internet Competition Has 'evaporated' Since Dial-p
Vint Cerf, co-creator of the Internet, said he is troubled by the prospect of companies like AT&T avoiding government regulation after the transition from traditional...
From ACM Opinion
Better Than Human: Why Robots Will—and Must—take Our Jobs
It's hard to believe you'd have an economy at all if you gave pink slips to more than half the labor force.
From ACM Opinion
The Future of Medicine Is Now
In our era of instant gratification, the world of medicine seems like an outlier.
From ACM Opinion
2012: What We Learned
There's a natural inclination for people at the end of each year to look back, take stock and try to draw some grand meaning or life lessons out of the events of...
From ACM Opinion
How Big Data Can Solve America's Gun Problem
Big data might have stopped the massacres in Newtown, Aurora, and Oak Creek.
From ACM Opinion
Looking Back: The Five Most Important Security Stories of 2012
The dance among blackhat, whitehat, and grayhat hackers grew ever more intricate in 2012, thanks to a steady stream of exploits, vulnerability discoveries, and...
From ACM Opinion
Social Media: Five Predictions For 2013
When you think of social media these days, you probably think primarily of Facebook and Twitter, and perhaps Instagram. But while those services have massive—and...
From ACM Opinion
Why China's Homemade Microchips Will Struggle to Displace Western Giants
If China's ultimate aim in the sphere of technology is to become completely self-sufficient, it is well on the way to achieving this ambitious goal.
From ACM Opinion
Sneaky Apps That Track Cellphones
A perversion of smartphone technology called "stalking apps"—precise, secretive trackings of the movements of cellphone users—is increasingly a matter of national...
From ACM Opinion
How Technology Has Restored the Soul of Politics
In 1979, I was an aeronautical-engineering major at San Jose State University, sneaking time in the laser lab to make holograms or running over to the computer...
From ACM Opinion
Who Owns the Content You pload Online?
The outrage over Instagram's announcement that it is changing its terms and conditions has turned the spotlight on the relationship between websites and users who...
From ACM Opinion
The Man Looking to Turn Samsung Into a Silicon Valley Trendsetter
Samsung Electronics is a company at the top of its game, having become the world’s leading smartphone manufacturer in the last year.
From Communications of the ACM
Conference-Journal Hybrids
Considering how to combine the best elements of conferences and journals.
From Communications of the ACM
Five Lessons from Really Good History
Lessons learned from four award-winning books on the history of information technology.
From Communications of the ACM