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
How Can the U.s. Seize a 'hong Kong Site' Like Megaupload?
The Megaupload takedown, and the arrest of its key employees, might seem to vindicate late 1990s worries about the Internet and jurisdiction. Does putting a site...
From ACM Opinion
It's Time to Stop Talking About the Apple Cult
Thirty-seven million iPhones. Fifteen million iPads. Fifteen million iPods. Five million Macs. A million Apple TVs. No matter how you do the math, that's a boatload...
From ACM Opinion
Time For Robots to Get Real
From robotic slug-killers to dancing humanoids, there's a lot of media buzz around robots.
From ACM Opinion
Warning: This Site Contains Conspiracy Theories
In its early days, the Web was often imagined as a global clearinghouse—a new type of library, with the sum total of human knowledge always at our fingertips.
From ACM News
Sebastian Thrun Resigns from Stanford to Launch dacity
Professor Sebastian Thrun has given up his Stanford position to start Udacity—an online educational venture. Udacity's first two free courses are Building a Search...
From ACM Opinion
Android Design Chief Details Google's Mobile Future
By most measures, the Android platform is an enormous success. It dominates the smartphone space in terms of market share, with over a quarter of a billion currently...
From Communications of the ACM
What Have We Learned About Software Engineering?
Upon closer examination, everything old appears to be new again in the realm of software engineering.
From Communications of the ACM
Incentive Auctions
Reallocating valuable wireless spectrum can generate billions of dollars in revenue to the U.S. federal government while also benefiting consumers.
From ACM Opinion
Did It Work? 'day After' Results of the Sopa, Pipa Blackout
Google dropped its logo-shroud, Wikipedia returned from limbo, normal service in general has been resumed, and all's right with the world… except that SOPA and...
From ACM Opinion
Why The 'check Engine' Light Must Be Banned
It's pretty easy to dismiss the "check engine" light as just stupid, because, well, it is.
From ACM Opinion
Even Woz Thinks the Android Bests the Iphone
Apple CEO Steve Jobs hated the Android smartphone operating system so much that he vowed he would spend his last dying breath and every penny Apple had in the bank...
From ACM Opinion
It's Time to Start 3d Scanning the World
When Microsoft was developing its Kinect 3D sensor, a critical task was to calibrate its algorithms to rapidly and accurately recognize parts of the human body,...
From ACM Opinion
The Rise of the New Groupthink
Solitude is out of fashion. Our companies, our schools and our culture are in thrall to an idea I call the New Groupthink, which holds that creativity and achievement...
From ACM News
Google's Data Center Engineer Shares Secrets of 'warehouse' Computing
Luiz André Barroso doesn't see Google's data centers as data centers. He sees them as computers the size of warehouses.
From ACM Opinion
Looking Backward to Put New Technologies in Focus
More than most of us, the science historian George Dyson spends his days thinking about technologies, old and very new.
From ACM Opinion
Why Windows Phones Are the Most Exciting Handsets at CES
There's a curious thing happening in the smartphone space at this year's CES.
From ACM Opinion
Why America's Spies Struggle To Keep p
Before Sept. 11, 2011, there were 16 intelligence agencies in the United States.
From ACM Opinion
Read My Email? Get a Warrant
Last October the well-known hacking group Chaos Computer Club revealed that the German state police had been monitoring the computers of ordinary citizens using...
From ACM Opinion