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 Facebook Fallacy
Facebook is not only on course to go bust, but will take the rest of the ad-supported Web with it.
From ACM Opinion
'barcode Everyone at Birth'
If I were empress of the Universe I would insist on every individual having a unique ID permanently attached—a barcode if you will—an implanted chip to provide...
From ACM Opinion
Why Gm and Others Fail with Facebook Ads
Facebook got a black eye last week when General Motors announced it would cease advertising on the platform, yanking $10 million in annual ad spending away from...
From ACM Opinion
Why the Internet Makes It Impossible to Stop Giant Wall Street Losses
In 1984, Yale sociologist Charles Perrow published his classic book, Normal Accidents: Living with High-Risk Technologies. The odd term, "normal accident," Perrow...
From ACM Opinion
Meet the Man Who Invented the Instructions For the Internet
Steve Crocker was there when the Internet was born.
From ACM Careers
Bre Pettis: 3d Printing's First Celebrity
Bre Pettis looks like a throwback. He’s got an Elvis Presley-meets-Buddy Holly thing going on with his chunky sideburns, thick-rimmed black glasses, and sculpted...
From ACM Opinion
Thomas Sterling: 'i Think We Will Never Reach Zettaflops'
As supercomputing makes its way through the petascale era, the future of the technology has never seemed so uncertain.
From ACM News
The Giants Among S
The patent world is quietly undergoing a change of seismic proportions. In a few short years, a handful of entities have amassed vast treasuries of patents on an...
From ACM Opinion
Now 4 Billion People Know the Joy of Txt
Here's a question: What's bigger and far more important than Facebook? Hint: it's very low-tech and doesn't need a smartphone or even an Internet connection.
From ACM Opinion
.n. Efforts Put Internet Freedom at Risk
A mounting effort to transform a United Nations agency into a global Internet regulator is threatening to undo decades of policymaking that helped the Internet...
From ACM Opinion
The Flight From Conversation
We live in a technological universe in which we are always communicating. And yet we have sacrificed conversation for mere connection.
From ACM Opinion
Why the Death of DRM Would Be Good News for Readers, Writers, and Publishers
At the end of April, Tor Books, the world's largest science fiction publisher, and its UK sister company, Tor UK, announced that they would be eliminating digital...
From ACM Opinion
Google's Sebastian Thrun: 3 Visions in the 'age of Disruption'
Today we drive cars, shell out enormous sums for higher education, and navigate the world with electronics that demand the unwavering attention of our ears, eyes...
From ACM Opinion
Andrew (bunnie) Huang on The End of Chumby, New Adventures
One of my heroes and friends happens to be one in the same person, Andrew (bunnie) Huang. Bunnie tirelessly helps makers, businesses, and the world-at-large with...
From ACM Opinion
How and Why You Should Do Data Journalism
One of the big areas of focus for technology companies over the past year has been "big data"—in other words, the idea that there can be a lot of value in finding...
From ACM Opinion
When Will This Low-Innovation Internet Era End?
It's an age of unprecedented, staggering technological change. Business models are being transformed, lives are being upended, vast new horizons of possibility...
From ACM Opinion
The Call of the Future
In 2009, the United States crossed a digital Rubicon: For the first time, the amount of data sent with mobile devices exceeded the sum of transmitted voice data...
From ACM Opinion
Is It Time To Stop Trusting Google?
Was Google's snooping on home Wi-Fi users the work of a rogue software engineer? Was it a deliberate corporate strategy? Was it simply an honest-to-goodness mistake...
From ACM Opinion