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
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
Silicon Valley Needs to End Its Snobbery About Computer Science Degrees
I don't have a computer science degree. There, I said it. At too many companies around Silicon Valley that would make me unemployable.
From ACM Opinion
I (robot) Thee Wed
It's hard to think of a more attention-grabbing title than "Robots, Men, and Sex Tourism"—especially in the academic world.
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
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
Following the Breadcrumbs on the Data-Sharing Trail
Would you like to donate to the Obama campaign? Sign up for a college course? Or maybe subscribe to Architectural Digest?
From ACM TechNews
Bridging the Gender Gap: Why More Women Aren't Computer Scientists, Engineers
Harvey Mudd College president Maria Klawe is seeking to close the gender gap in the hard sciences, which she attributes to young women's perception of such fields...
From ACM Opinion
God and Man in Tennessee
Earlier this month state senators in Tennessee approved an update to our sex-education law that would ban teachers from discussing hand-holding, which it categorizes...
From ACM News
The World's Five Biggest Cyber Threats
Criminals do not stop at stealing someone's personal data.
From ACM Opinion
Cispa, 'national Security,' and the Nsa's Ability to Read Your Emails
This week the House of Representatives is debating the Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act, or CISPA, the dangerous "cybersecurity" bill that threatens...
From ACM Opinion
Don't Be Evil, but Don't Miss the Train
Back in 2004, as Google prepared to go public, Larry Page and Sergey Brin celebrated the maxim that was supposed to define their company: "Don’t be evil."
From ACM News
Vint Cerf: We Knew What We Were nleashing on the World
Vint Cerf invented the protocol that rules them all: TCP/IP.
From ACM Opinion
Nah, Iran Probably Didn't Hack Cia's Stealth Drone
Four months after capturing a crashed U.S. stealth drone near the Iran-Afghanistan border, Tehran claims it has hacked into the ‘bot’s classified mission-control...
From ACM Opinion
How Much Do the Internet Giants Really Know?
To briefly state the obvious, the Internet giants are seriously big: Google is not only the world's largest search engine, it's one of the top three email providers...
From ACM Opinion
University of Florida Eliminates Computer Science Department, Increases Athletic Budgets. Hmm.
In the midst of a technology revolution, with a shortage of engineers and computer scientists, The University of Florida announced this past week that it was dropping...
From ACM Opinion
Neal Stephenson on Science Fiction, Building Towers 20 Kilometers High ... and Insurance
Speaking before a packed lecture theater at MIT earlier this week, Neal Stephenson worried that the gloomy outlook prevalent in modern science fiction may be undermining...
From ACM Opinion
The Troll Toll
When hospitals come upon a technology with a proven track record of saving lives, you'd expect a flood of investment to expand its use, and a race by manufacturers...
From ACM Opinion