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
Kitchen of the Future: Smart and Fast but Not Much Fun
Wandering among the engineers and strategy directors and managers of something called "connected customer experience" at the Smart Kitchen Summit, one had to wonder...
From ACM Opinion
What Facebook Did to American Democracy
In the media world, as in so many other realms, there is a sharp discontinuity in the timeline: before the 2016 election, and after.
From ACM Opinion
Apple's Tim Cook on Iphones, Augmented Reality, and How He Plans to Change Your World
Earlier this year, video emerged of a new iPhone feature, long before it was released. It showed the phone creating a magical portal in the middle of a city street...
From ACM Opinion
Is Your Bank Data Yours?
Who owns the information in your bank account? Transactions, balance history, every other detail?
From ACM Opinion
China's AI Awakening
On a tropical island that marks the southern tip of China, a computer program called Lengpudashi is playing one-on-one poker against a dozen people at once, and...
From ACM Opinion
Misinformation Is the New Normal of Mass Shootings
On the morning after the deadliest shooting in modern American history, there was a certain predictability in the response to a tragedy that left at least 59 dead...
From ACM Opinion
Red-Pilled: My Bizarre Week sing the Alt-Right's Vision of the Internet
Scroll with me here. Somebody named BeatlesBaby makes "a very badass chicken curry." Look, there's a nice sepia-tinted pencil drawing of Ned Stark from Game of...
From ACM Opinion
What, Exactly, Were Russians Trying to Do With Those Facebook Ads?
Many questions remain about the ads purchased by Russian-linked accounts during the 2016 presidential election.
From ACM Opinion
Facebook's Belated Awakening
Chastened by criticism that Facebook had turned a blind eye to Russia's manipulation of the social network to interfere in the 2016 election, the company's executives...
From ACM Opinion
Facebook's Ad Scandal Isn't a 'fail,' It's a Feature
What does it take to advertise on Facebook to people who openly call themselves "Jew haters" and want to know "how to burn Jews"? About $10 and 15 minutes, according...
From ACM Opinion
I Helped Create Facebook's Ad Machine. Here's How I'd Fix It
This month, two magnificently embarrassing public-relations disasters rocked the Facebook money machine like nothing else in its history.
From ACM Opinion
Is There Any Hope For Facebook's Fact-Checking Efforts?
Facebook's fact-checking efforts are on the rocks.
From ACM Opinion
Software Has a Serious Supply-Chain Security Problem
The warnings consumers hear from information security pros tend to focus on trust: Don't click web links or attachments from an untrusted sender.
From ACM Opinion
Why It's a Real Mistake to Count on a Cellphone When You Go Hiking
Sarah Savage was alone in the woods and didn't know which way to turn.
From ACM Opinion
The Father Of Mobile Computing Is Not Impressed
He influenced Jobs and dreamed up a digital future designed for learning and thinking. Fifty years on, Alan Kay is still waiting for his dream to come true.
From ACM Opinion
Apple's Faceid Could Be a Powerful Tool For Mass Spying
This Tuesday Apple unveiled a new line of phones to much fanfare, but one feature immediately fell under scrutiny:FaceID, a tool that would use facial recognition...
From ACM Opinion
You Are Already Living Inside a Computer
Suddenly, everything is a computer. Phones, of course, and televisions. Also toasters and door locks, baby monitors and juicers, doorbells and gas grills. Even ...
From ACM Opinion
Why the Iphone X's Face Id Is a Terrible Way to Secure Your Data
The new iPhone X puts face recognition front and centre. Why? Because it is the quickest and easiest way to unlock your phone.
From ACM Opinion
The Only Safe Email Is text-Only email
It's troubling to think that at any moment you might open an email that looks like it comes from your employer, a relative or your bank, only to fall for a ...
From ACM Opinion