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
The Dangerous Logic of the Bradley Manning Case
After 1,000 days in pretrial detention, Private Bradley Manning offered a modified guilty plea for passing classified materials to WikiLeaks. But his case is far...
From ACM Opinion
Nate Silver Presents Forecasting Work as Antidote to 'terrible' Political Pundits
Celebrated political forecaster Nate Silver has shot to fame by letting the data speak loudly about elections.
From ACM Opinion
How the Cloud and Big Data Might Help Win the Hacker Wars
Hewlett-Packard's senior VP and head of its Software Enterprise Security Products, Art Gilliland, is speaking today at the RSA Security conference in San Francisco...
From ACM Opinion
The Next Frontier Is Inside Your Brain
The Obama administration is planning a multiyear research effort to produce an "activity map" that would show in unprecedented detail the workings of the human,...
From ACM Opinion
Inside Google's Ultrabook Gambit
Cloud computing has been around for some time now. But not many people believe they can do all their computing in the cloud. Not many, that is, outside the brainaics...
From Communications of the ACM
A Copyright Challenge to Resales of Digital Music
A currently pending case will have significant implications for secondary markets in digital goods.
From ACM Opinion
When Will the Internet Reach Its Limit (and How Do We Stop It from Happening)?
The number of smartphones, tablets and other network-connected gadgets will outnumber humans by the end of the year.
From ACM Opinion
A Sterling Future for HPC
For the past decade, keynote speakers at the International Supercomputing Conference (ISC) have examined the major accomplishments in HPC during the preceding year...
From ACM Opinion
Can Machines Learn Morality?
When John Brennan, President Obama's choice to be the next head of the CIA, appeared before a Senate committee yesterday, one question supplanted all others at...
From ACM Opinion
Invisible Fences
When European farmers arrived in North America, they claimed it with fences.
From ACM Opinion
The Origins of 'big Data': An Etymological Detective Story
Words and phrases are fundamental building blocks of language and culture, much as genes and cells are to the biology of life.
From ACM Opinion
Geeks Are the New Guardians of Our Civil Liberties
A decade-plus of anthropological fieldwork among hackers and like-minded geeks has led me to the firm conviction that these people are building one of the most...
From ACM Opinion
Meet the Data Brains Behind the Rise of Facebook
Jay Parikh sits at a desk inside Building 16 at Facebook’s headquarters in Menlo Park, California, and his administrative assistant, Genie Samuel, sits next to...
From ACM Opinion
The Increasingly Blurry Line Between Big Data and Big Brother
The potential benefits of "big data" have been well described, both by us and others: the ability to spot flu trends earlier and potentially save lives, for example...
From ACM Opinion
Eric Schmidt nloads on China in New Book
Google executive chairman Eric Schmidt is brutally clear: China is the most dangerous superpower on Earth.
From ACM Opinion
A Fuzzy and Shifting Line Between Hacker and Criminal
In January 2011, I was assigned to cover a hearing in Newark, where Daniel Spitler, then 26, stood accused of breaching AT&T's servers and stealing 114,000 email...
From ACM Opinion
Microsoft's Steve Ballmer Does Not Fear Dropbox or an Office-Less Ipad
When Microsoft Chief Executive Officer Steve Ballmer does his bounding these days, it's often in front of an 82-inch interactive display mounted on the wall of...
From Communications of the ACM
Reflections on Stanford's MOOCs
New possibilities in online education create new challenges.
From ACM Opinion
Don't Divorce Design from Manufacturing
The software company Autodesk doesn't manufacture anything.
From ACM Opinion