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 What You Need to Know About the Future of Gesture-Based i Design
Smartphone screens across the globe are embracing clean design in an effort to feature content on high-end pixel real estate.
From ACM News
Among the Nsa's Own Tips For Securing Computers: Remove the Webcam
Seems like everything gets hacked these days. Baby monitors. White House employees' personal email. Toilets.
From ACM Opinion
Why Can't Email Be Secure?
Coming on the heels of our announcement that we had shut down our Silent Mail service, we received a comment about securing email communications.
From ACM Opinion
It's Time to Reform the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act
This year the U.S. Congress is considering changes to the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act (CFAA), the primary law that governs cyber crime and fraud on the Internet...
From ACM Opinion
What Does It Really Matter If Companies Are Tracking US Online?
Say you, like me, went to bed a little early last night.
From ACM Opinion
How to Think About Drones
Consider David. The shepherd lad steps up to face in single combat the Philistine giant Goliath.
From ACM News
The New York Times Was Losing $5 Per Second Thanks to Its Web Site Outage
The New York Times is still reeling from a massive Web outage that took down its homepage, its corporate Web site, and everything in between.
From ACM Opinion
Owner of Snowden's Email Service on Why He Closed Lavabit Rather Than Comply With Gov't
Lavabit, an encrypted email service believed to have been used by National Security Agency leaker Edward Snowden, has abruptly shut down.
From ACM Opinion
The Giant Hurdle For the Internet of Things
Everyone's talking about the Internet of Things, a proposed network of intelligent devices that could one day automate much of the world around us. HVAC and lighting...
From ACM Opinion
How Wearable Technology Could Transform Business
Once upon a time seeing your life flash before your eyes was something people did their best to avoid. The arrival of Google Glass seems to have changed that.
From ACM Opinion
Pgp Inventor and Silent Circle Co-Founder Phil Zimmermann on the Surveillance Society
Phil Zimmermann might be a technologist, but he tends to get philosophical when it comes to the issues of privacy and security and how they intersect with our society...
From ACM Opinion
Professor Emeritus Rodney Brooks Refines the Sequel to Irobot
Professor emeritus Rodney Brooks gained fame in the 1990s for co-founding iRobot, an MIT spinoff that brought the world the Roomba and other innovative, helpful...
From ACM Opinion
WikiLeaks' Teenage Benedict Arnold
When he met Julian Assange for the first time, Sigurdur Thordarson admired the WikiLeaks founder's attitude and quickly signed up to the cause.
From ACM Opinion
Craig Venter on the Hail Mary Genome and Synthetic Meat
Where are we in the hype cycle of synthetic biology?
From ACM Opinion
In Pursuit of Quantum Biology With Birgitta Whaley
As an undergraduate at Oxford University in the mid-1970s, K. Birgitta Whaley struggled to choose between chemistry and physics.
From ACM Opinion
If We Landed on Europa, What Would We Want to Know?
Most of what scientists know of Jupiter's moon Europa they have gleaned from a dozen or so close flybys from NASA's Voyager 2 spacecraft in 1979 and NASA's Galileo...
From ACM Opinion
The End of Integrated Systems
I always travel with a pair of binoculars and, to the puzzlement of my fellow airline passengers, spend part of every flight gazing through them at whatever happens...
From ACM Opinion
Former Nsa Chief on Latest Leaked Dragnet Spy Program: It's Real, and It's Spectacular
Does the NSA really operate a vast database that allows its analysts to sift through millions of records showing nearly everything a user does on the Internet,...
From ACM Opinion
Snowden—Facts, Fictions, and Fears
"Any analyst at any time can target anyone. Any selector, anywhere ... I, sitting at my desk, certainly had the authorities to wiretap anyone, from you or your...
From ACM Opinion