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 Careers
Is the Tech Bubble Popping? Ping Pong Offers an Answer
Twitter's gloomy quarterly report last week unsettled investors. They might have anticipated trouble more than a year ago had they noticed one key indicator.
From ACM Opinion
An Ipad Misplaced at the Airport Takes Its Own Vacation
Last month, Shelby Bonnie's iPad vanished from his carry-on bag somewhere at Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International Airport after a red-eye flight from San Francisco...
From ACM Opinion
Left Behind in the Mobile Revolution, Intel Struggles to Innovate
Intel was once known for its success in branding personal computers with microprocessors, a technology that fueled the digital revolution. But the Silicon Valley...
From ACM Opinion
You Can't Escape Data Surveillance In America
In America, surveillance has always played an outsized role in the relationship between creditors and debtors.
From ACM Opinion
Is Predictive Policing the Law-Enforcement Tactic of the Future?
As big data transforms industries ranging from retailing to health care, it’s also becoming a more important tool for police departments, which are turning to data...
From ACM Opinion
This Top Scientist Offers a Solution For the Havoc Driverless Cars May Wreck on Workers
Proponents of autonomous vehicles are in a sticky situation.
From ACM Opinion
Who's Downloading Pirated Papers? Everyone
In increasing numbers, researchers around the world are turning to Sci-Hub, the world's largest pirate website for scholarly literature, to access research papers...
From ACM Opinion
Can Starshot Work?
A couple of weeks ago the world heard about the most seriously funded (and perhaps the most serious) effort yet for starting us on the pathway to interstellar travel...
From ACM Opinion
The Secret Signals That Rule Transport Networks
It is early morning on Brighton beach, and we are sitting on a slope of pebbles, looking out to sea.
From ACM Opinion
Will Smell Ever Come to Smartphones?
Two years ago, at the American Museum of Natural History, in New York, I witnessed David Edwards receive what he claimed was the world's first transatlantic ...
From ACM Opinion
One Easy Way to Make Wikipedia Better
The Pacific Northwest tree octopus existed years before Wikipedia was founded. I’m using "existed" loosely here, of course, because there's no such thing as a Pacific...
From ACM Opinion
Scott Aaronson Answers Every Ridiculously Big Question I Throw at Him
Quantum-computer whiz riffs on simulated universes, the Singularity, unified theories, P/NP, the mind-body problem, free will, why there's something rather than...
From Communications of the ACM
How to Increase the Security of Smart Buildings?
Surveying unresolved security problems for automated buildings.
From Communications of the ACM
Do Patent Commons and Standards-Setting Organizations Help Navigate Patent Thickets?
Examining the institutions underlying the patent system for information and communication technologies.
From Communications of the ACM
Beyond Blocks: Syntax and Semantics
How the future of general-purpose programming tools could include blocks-based structured editing, and how we should study students transitioning to text-based...
From Communications of the ACM
The Internet of Things We Don't Own?
Who will control the 'ordinary pursuits of life' in the digital economy?
From ACM Opinion
Europe's Web Privacy Rules: Bad For Google, Bad For Everyone
It's been a rough few months for Google in Europe.
From ACM Opinion