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 S Cannot Crush s, Says Huawei Founder
The founder of Huawei has said there is "no way the US can crush" the company, in an exclusive interview with the BBC.
From ACM Opinion
The Two Codes Your Kids Need to Know
A few years ago, the leaders of the College Board, the folks who administer the SAT college entrance exam, asked themselves a radical question: Of all the skills...
From ACM Opinion
What Trump's Executive Order on AI Is Missing
President Trump signed an executive order on February 11 meant to shore up our competitive position in the international race for AI supremacy, but it is short...
From ACM Opinion
This Is Why AI Has Yet to Reshape Most Businesses
The art of making perfumes and colognes hasn't changed much since the 1880s, when synthetic ingredients began to be used.
From ACM Opinion
Trump's Plan to Keep America First in AI
The US leads the world in artificial intelligence technology. Decades of federal research funding, industrial and academic research, and streams of foreign talent...
From ACM Opinion
There's No Good Reason to Trust Blockchain Technology
In his 2008 white paper that first proposed bitcoin, the anonymous Satoshi Nakamoto concluded with: "We have proposed a system for electronic transactions without...
From ACM Opinion
How Silicon Valley Puts the 'Con' in Consent
The average person would have to spend 76 working days reading all of the digital privacy policies they agree to in the span of a year. Reading Amazon's terms and...
From ACM Opinion
Google Assistant Is Getting Sci-Fi Ambitious
From 550 feet in the air, Google's Scott Huffman peers down at the Las Vegas skyline. It's a sunny afternoon in early January and, at the moment, Google owns this...
From ACM Opinion
Trump Pledges Investment, But Is Silent on Key Tech Issues
In his State of the Union address Tuesday, President Trump promised legislation to invest in "the cutting edge industries of the future." But the speech was characteristically...
From ACM Opinion
People Don't Trust Blockchain Systems. Is Regulation a Way to Help?
Blockchain technology isn't as widely used as it could be, largely because blockchain users don't trust each other, as research shows.
From ACM Opinion
How to Land a Journal Cover
Researchers: Felice Frankel will make photographers of you all. Photography—both macro- and microscopic—is an essential tool in science, because pictures are both...
From ACM Opinion
The Roger Stone Indictment Shows a Conspiratorial Comedy of Opsec Errors
Former Trump advisor and self-proclaimed "dirty trickster" Roger Stone—the man with a Richard Nixon tattoo on his back and a penchant for playing the evil genius—was...
From ACM Opinion
Technologies to Watch in 2019
Seven specialists forecast the developments that will push their fields forward in the year ahead.
From ACM Opinion
'The Goal Is to Automate s': Welcome to the Age of Surveillance Capitalism
We're living through the most profound transformation in our information environment since Johannes Gutenberg's invention of printing in circa 1439.
From ACM Opinion
Cinematic and Scientific Techniques Combine to Show How a Long-Extinct Creature Moved
The trolls and orcs in The Lord of the Rings films aren't real. The dragons and dire wolves on the hit television show Game of Thrones are simulated. The dinosaurs...
From ACM Opinion
Have Aliens Found s? A Harvard Astronomer on the Mysterious Interstellar Object 'Oumuamua
On October 19, 2017, astronomers at the University of Hawaii spotted a strange object travelling through our solar system, which they later described as "a red...
From ACM Opinion
Offices Are Too Hot or Too Cold; Is There a Better Way to Control Room Temperature?
In any office, home or other shared space, there's almost always someone who's too cold, someone who's too hot—and someone who doesn't know what the fuss around...
From ACM Opinion
Five Emerging Cyber-Threats to Worry About in 2019
Last year was full of cybersecurity disasters, from the revelation of security flaws in billions of microchips to massive data breaches and attacks using malicious...
From ACM Opinion
What the Future of Work Means for Cities
Two weeks ago, MIT's David Autor gave the prestigious Richard T. Ely lecture at the annual meeting of American economists in Atlanta. Introduced by the former chair...
From ACM Opinion