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
Russia's Top Cyber Sleuth Foils S Spies, Helps Kremlin Pals
It's early February in Cancun, Mexico. A group of 60 or so financial analysts, reporters, diplomats, and cybersecurity specialists shake off the previous night's...
From ACM Opinion
What's p With Skype?
Is the government listening to our Skype conversations? If so, it's not a bad thing. Here's why.
From ACM Opinion
Can Data Mining Stop the Killing?
Would Total Information Awareness have stopped James Eagan Holmes?
From ACM TechNews
One Course, 150,000 Students
MIT professor Anant Agarwal recently completed teaching Circuits and Electronics, the first course in MITx, a massive open online learning platform from MIT, which...
From ACM Opinion
So, Who Really Did Invent the Internet?
Gordon Crovitz of the Wall Street Journal's editorial page reopens the ancient debate over who invented the Internet with a column Monday calling out the notion...
From ACM Opinion
Wsj Mangles History to Argue Government Didn't Launch the Internet
"It's an urban legend that the government launched the Internet," writes L. Gordon Crovitz in Monday's Wall Street Journal, launching into just one of a myriad...
From ACM Opinion
Who Really Invented the Internet?
A telling moment in the presidential race came recently when Barack Obama said: "If you've got a business, you didn't build that. Somebody else made that happen...
From ACM Opinion
Will Wright Wants to Make a Game Out of Life Itself
For almost 30 years, Will Wright’s creations have attracted people who would never have played videogames. He's also managed the trick of developing games that...
From ACM Opinion
Taking the Cyberattack Threat Seriously
Last month I convened an emergency meeting of my cabinet and top homeland security, intelligence and defense officials. Across the country trains had derailed,...
From ACM Opinion
The Trouble With Online Education
"Ah, you're a professor. You must learn so much from your students."
From ACM Opinion
Stuxnet Shifts the Cyber Arms Race p a Gear
Over the last 25 years we've seen a massive change in how we think about information.
From ACM Opinion
Why Did Reddit Succeed Where Digg Failed?
In August 2006, less than two years after its launch, the social content aggregation site Digg was an Internet darling. That month, founder Kevin Rose grinned from...
From ACM Opinion
Technology Can Be Harnessed to Fight Drug Cartels in Mexico
A couple of months ago we visited Juarez, Mexico, a city right across our border—yet so far away.
From ACM Opinion
Western Media Seeking to Play Down Iran's Cyber Capability By New Virus Story
The western media sought to play down Iran's cyber and computer software capability by releasing hundreds of reports on the discovery of a new computer virus and...
From ACM Opinion
How Google Is Becoming an Extension of Your Mind
It's time to think of Google as much more than just a search engine, and that should both excite and spook you.
From ACM TechNews
Interview With Alan Kay
A.M. Turing Award winner Alan Kay says many programmers who code for money have a lack of awareness of the roots of their culture. He contends that "the Web . ....
From ACM Opinion
The End of Privacy?
Cellphones, email, and online social networking have come to rule daily life, but Congress has done nothing to update federal privacy laws to better protect digital...
From ACM Opinion
Why There Are Too Many Patents in America
Recently, while sitting as a trial judge, I dismissed a case in which Apple and Motorola had sued each other for alleged infringement of patents for components...
From ACM Opinion
Why We Need a Standard for the Internet of Things
The Internet of things is supposed to connect every aspect of our lives from our homes and cars to the objects we wear and the goods we consume. It's even connecting...
From ACM Opinion