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 Story of Cortana, Microsoft's Siri Killer
Technically, Cortana isn't supposed to exist for at least another 500 years, but that's not stopping Microsoft from bringing her to life this week.
From ACM Opinion
Vint Cerf: CS Changes Needed To Address Iot Security, Privacy
The Internet of Things has tremendous potential but also poses a tremendous risk if the underlying security of Internet of Things devices is not taken into account...
From ACM Opinion
Bots on the Beat
On March 24 at 2:36 p.m., the New York Post reported that the body of former Nets basketball player Quinton Ross had been found in a shallow grave on Long Island...
From ACM Opinion
Hey, Robot: Which Cat Is Cuter?
One recent morning, while contemplating writing this column, I scrolled through thousands and thousands of listings for mundane microgigs on Mechanical Turk, or...
From ACM Opinion
10 Years On, Gmail Has Transformed the Web as We Know It
Google loves to unveil a good gag product on April Fool's Day.
From Communications of the ACM
Small Data, Where N = Me
Seeking personalized data-derived insights from analysis of our digital traces.
From ACM Opinion
When Big Data Marketing Becomes Stalking
Many of us now expect our online activities to be recorded and analyzed, but we assume that the physical spaces we inhabit are different.
From ACM Opinion
Why Google Doesn't Have a Research Lab
Research vice presidents at some computing giants, such as Microsoft and IBM, rule over divisions housed in dedicated facilities carefully insulated from the rat...
From ACM News
The Future of Brain Implants
What would you give for a retinal chip that let you see in the dark or for a next-generation cochlear implant that let you hear any conversation in a noisy restaurant...
From ACM Opinion
The Search For Life Across the niverse
When Jeremy Drake was beginning his career in the late 1980s, the question of whether or not we are alone in the universe still seemed beyond the realm of scienc...
From ACM Opinion
A Close Look at the Nsa's Most Powerful Internet Attack Tool
We already knew that the NSA has weaponized the Internet, enabling it to "shoot" exploits at anyone it desires.
From ACM Opinion
Flight 370 and the Terror of Being Off the Grid
How can a commercial airliner go missing?
From ACM Opinion
The Search For Aliens Is Just Getting Started
Over the past 50 years, several SETI projects have scoured the cosmos but have yet to turn up anything conclusive. What do you make of this cosmic radio-silence...
From ACM Opinion
The Future of Internet Freedom
Over the next decade, approximately five billion people will become connected to the Internet.
From ACM Opinion
Why You Should Embrace Surveillance, Not Fight It
I once worked with Steven Spielberg on the development of Minority Report, derived from the short story by Philip K. Dick featuring a future society that uses surveillance...
From ACM Opinion
Are You Too Paranoid About Digital Privacy, or Not Paranoid Enough?
Let's start with one thing you hear over and over again when interviewing people about privacy: "I've got nothing to hide."
From ACM Opinion
Social Physics
Since 2001, the Human Dynamics Laboratory at the MIT Media Lab has used digital technologies—from home-brewed portable sensors to cellphone call records—to try...
From ACM Opinion
What Do Data Brokers Know About Me?
I once ran into a friend and her husband at the playground in our neighborhood in Manhattan.
From ACM Opinion