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 Communications of the ACM
Theory Without Experiments: Have We Gone Too Far?
Seeking a better understanding of computing through a mixture of theory and appropriate experimental evidence.
From Communications of the ACM
Experiments as Research Validation: Have We Gone Too Far?
Reconsidering conference paper reviewers' requirements for experimental evidence.
From Communications of the ACM
Automated Education and the Professional
Technology boffins argue the new technologies of intelligent personal learning environments will put universities out of business. Will the purported successor,...
From Communications of the ACM
The Value of Social Theories For Global Computing
Conceptual toolkits for projects that work.
From Communications of the ACM
The Rise of the Robo Notice
Examining the conflicting claims involving the use of automated tools in copyright-related notice-and-takedown procedures.
From Communications of the ACM
Innovators Assemble: Ada Lovelace, Walter Isaacson, and the Superheroines of Computing
Can computing history be both inspiring and accurate?
From ACM Opinion
Move Over, Siri—the Next Generation of Virtual Assistants Is Almost Here
Virtual voice-controlled assistants such as Siri, Cortana and Google Now are magical.
From ACM Opinion
The Amazingly Accurate Futurism of 2001: A Space Odyssey
The Making of Stanley Kubrick’s "2001: A Space Odyssey" documents in nearly scientific detail exactly that: the story of how the iconic science-fiction film came...
From ACM Opinion
The End of the Internet Dream
Twenty years ago I attended my first Def Con. I believed in a free, open, reliable, interoperable Internet: a place where anyone can say anything, and anyone who...
From ACM Opinion
Robot Weapons: What's the Harm?
Last month over a thousand scientists and tech-world luminaries, including Elon Musk, Stephen Hawking and Steve Wozniak, released an open letter calling for a global...
From ACM Opinion
Humans, Not Robots, Are the Real Reason Artificial Intelligence Is Scary
Unfortunately, much of the recent outcry against artificial-intelligence weapons has been confused, conjuring robot takeovers of mankind.
From ACM Opinion
Will Artificial Intelligence Surpass Our Own?
Famed science-fiction writer Fredric Brown (1906–1972) delighted in creating the shortest of short stories. "Answer," published in 1954, encapsulated a prescient...
From ACM Opinion
Let's School the Presidential Hopefuls on Cybersecurity
In the build up to the 2016 U.S. election, both Democratic and Republican presidential hopefuls are talking about cybersecurity—and specifically state-sponsored...
From ACM News
For Virtual-Reality Movies, Old Methods Don't Fit New Medium
I'm standing on the bow of what looks to be a sunken pirate ship.
From ACM TechNews
Algorithms and Bias: Q and A With Cynthia Dwork
In an interview, Microsoft Research scientist Cynthia Dwork describes how algorithms can learn to discriminate because they are programmed by coders who incorporate...
From ACM News
The Backbone of the Internet Could Detect Earthquakes, but No One's sing It
December 26, 2004: It is an idyllic morning at a beachside resort in Indonesia.
From ACM Opinion
When Phone Encryption Blocks Justice
In June, a father of six was shot dead on a Monday afternoon in Evanston, Ill., a suburb 10 miles north of Chicago.
From ACM Opinion
With Google as Alphabet, a Bid to Dream Big Beyond Search
Shortly after its founding, Google posted a document on its site called "Ten things we know to be true," an effort to distill its unusual corporate culture into...
From ACM Opinion
Movies That Predicted the Future—and Some That Didn't
Making fun of how movies screw up the future is one of the main reasons why the Internet was invented.
From ACM Opinion