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
Why Smart Glasses Might Not Make You Smarter
Steve Mann built his first smart eyeglasses when he was still in high school and has continued to improve on his designs ever since—as a graduate student at MIT...
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
Howie Choset, Robot-Snake Charmer
Howie Choset, a professor of robotics at Carnegie Mellon University, has spent years creating mechanical snakes with names such as Uncle Sam, Betsy Ross, Pepperoni...
From ACM News
It's All About the Genes and the Brain Machines
The amount of time and money needed to sequence genomes continued to fall in 2012, perhaps to no one’s surprise.
From ACM Opinion
How to Design a Better World
When I was young, my teachers praised me for being good at math and art, but my father would always tell people, "You know, John is good at math."
From ACM Careers
Move Over Halo: Beautiful, Provocative Indie Games Step Into the Spotlight
If you play video games, then you've probably heard a lot about games like "Halo 4" and "Assassin's Creed III" and "Bordelands 2."
From ACM Opinion
Tony Fadell: From Iphones to Sexing p Thermostats
After you left Apple, you developed a "smart" thermostat. Was that always your plan?
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 TechNews
Google Glass Features and Apps Still in Flux
In an interview, Google Glass project leader Babak Parviz discusses where the wearable device is heading in the near future.
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
What Turned Jaron Lanier Against the Web?
I couldn't help thinking of John Le Carré's spy novels as I awaited my rendezvous with Jaron Lanier in a corner of the lobby of the stylish W Hotel just off Union...
From ACM Opinion
How To Charge Your Laptop
Whether they're in our computers, cell phones, or cars, the only time we think about batteries is when they're almost dead and we need to find some place to charge...
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
Ford Engineers Have 3D Printers on Their Desks. When Will You Get One?
Ford has caught the DIY revolution and now puts 3D printers at workstations for its engineers.
From ACM Opinion
Why Everybody Wants a Slice of Raspberry Pi
In a world where computers are increasingly powerful and are concealed within ever more glossy slabs of aluminum, the Raspberry Pi offers surprising proof for the...
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
Forget Yolo: Why 'big Data' Should Be the Word of the Year
"Big Data" hasn't made any of the words-of-the-year lists I've seen so far. That's probably because it didn't get the wide public exposure given to items like "...
From ACM Opinion