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
When Reporting on Defcon, Avoid Stereotypes and A.T.M.s
As one of The New York Times's three Surfacing residents, I've grown accustomed to entering unfamiliar places.
From ACM Opinion
Paper-Based Electronics Could Fold, Biodegrade and Be the Basis for the Next Generation of Devices
It seems like every few months there's a new cellphone, laptop or tablet that is so exciting people line up around the block to get their hands on it.
From ACM Opinion
Former Google CEO Predicts the Internet Will Split in Two by 2028, and One Part Will Be Led by China
Eric Schmidt, who has been the CEO of Google and executive chairman of its parent company, Alphabet, predicts that within the next decade there will be two distinct...
From ACM Opinion
How America Could Lose the Quantum-Computing Race
There's an arms race underway to develop the next generation of computers—known as "quantum" computers—and there's no guarantee that the United States is going...
From ACM Opinion
David Patterson Says It's Time for New Computer Architectures and Software Languages
David Patterson—University of California professor, Google engineer, and RISC pioneer—says there's no better time than now to be a computer architect.
From ACM Opinion
In 1968, Computers Got Personal: How the 'Mother of All Demos' Changed the World
On a crisp California afternoon in early December 1968, a square-jawed, mild-mannered Stanford researcher named Douglas Engelbart took the stage at San Francisco's...
From ACM Opinion
Ten Years of Large Hadron Collider Discoveries Are Just the Start of Decoding the niverse
Ten years! Ten years since the start of operations for the Large Hadron Collider (LHC), one of the most complex machines ever created.
From ACM Opinion
What is Cyberwar?
At its core, cyberwarfare refers the use of digital attacks by one country or nation to disrupt the computer systems of another with the aim of create significant...
From ACM Opinion
For Safety's Sake, We Must Slow Innovation in Internet-Connected Things
Smart gadgets are everywhere.
From ACM Opinion
Are We Ready for the Future of Warfare?
Warfare has always been about exerting political will.
From ACM Opinion
3-D Printed Gun Blueprints Are Back, and Only New Laws Can Stop Them
Attorneys general from 20 states celebrated on Monday when a district court judge in Seattle extended an injunction against the sharing of 3-D printed gun blueprints...
From ACM Opinion
Math Shows How DNA Twists, Turns and nzips
If you've ever seen a picture of a DNA molecule, you probably saw it in its famous B-form: two strands coiling around each other in a right-handed fashion to form...
From ACM Opinion
Why the Future of Data Storage is (Still) Magnetic Tape
It should come as no surprise that recent advances in big-data analytics and artificial intelligence have created strong incentives for enterprises to amass information...
From ACM Opinion
It's Not Technology That's Disrupting Our Jobs
When we learn about the Industrial Revolution in school, we hear a lot about factories, steam engines, maybe the power loom.
From ACM Opinion
How D-Wave's Quantum Machine Could Help Exotic Physics
Picture a computer. Now I'm going to go out on a limb and say that you were probably thinking of your laptop, or maybe even your smartphone if you're being smart...
From ACM Opinion
I Just Hacked a State Election. I'm 17. And I'm Not Even a Very Good Hacker.
It took me around 10 minutes to crash the upcoming midterm elections.
From ACM Opinion
What Went Wrong With IBM's Watson
What if artificial intelligence can't cure cancer after all?
From ACM Opinion
Who Needs Democracy When You Have Data?
In 1955, science fiction writer Isaac Asimov published a short story about an experiment in "electronic democracy," in which a single citizen, selected to represent...
From ACM Opinion