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
Graphic Designers Are Ruining the Web
What happens when you click on a Weblink? Here's one answer: A request goes from your computer to a server identified by the URL of the desired link. The server...
From ACM Opinion
Harvard Mapping My Dna Turns Scary as Threatening Gene Emerges
Four months after I walked into a lab at Harvard University and gave a vial of blood to have my genome sequenced, my search to understand my DNA led me to Mark...
From ACM Opinion
The Internet Is Broken; We Need to Start Over
Last year, the level and ferocity of cyberattacks on the Internet reached such a horrendous level that some are now thinking the unthinkable: let the Internet wither...
From ACM Opinion
Apple's Mountain Lion Makes the Mac More Like the Ipad
Apple's iPhones and iPads get most of the attention, but Apple is now directing the spotlight on the Mac.
From ACM Opinion
Lightsquared Blew It, and Here's Why
LightSquared may have had a great case for building its wireless network, but the fledgling company lacked the political tact to see it through.
From ACM Opinion
A High-Tech War on Leaks
Back in 2006, before the Obama administration made leak prosecutions routine, a panel of three federal appeals court judges in New York struggled to decide whether...
From ACM Opinion
Researchers Detail Flaw in Online Cryptography, but Don't Panic
First, the bad news: A small number of active RSA public encryption keys, a popular type of encryption protocol that secures billions of online transactions, offer...
From ACM Opinion
The Delivery Guy Who Saw Jeremy Lin Coming
The morning after Jeremy Lin sank a thrilling, last-second three-pointer that lifted the New York Knicks over the Toronto Raptors and gave "Linsanity" its latest...
From ACM Opinion
Rudy Rucker: 'all These Years, and I'm Still Looking For the Big Aha'
"When I see an old movie, like from the '40s or '50s or '60s, the people look so calm. They don't have smart phones, they're not looking at computer screens, they're...
From ACM Opinion
What Dropbox Can Teach S About Cloud Computing
Dropbox is the most deceptively simple of services.
From ACM Opinion
Inside Google's Bet on 'consumerization'
Here's Google's strategy for selling to the enterprise: Take a popular consumer product, make a few small enhancements and tack the words "for business" on the...
From ACM Opinion
The Mathematical Equation that Caused the Banks to Crash
It was the holy grail of investors. The Black-Scholes equation, brainchild of economists Fischer Black and Myron Scholes, provided a rational way to price a financial...
From ACM Opinion
Cyberwar Is the New Yellowcake, Fueling a Cybersecurity-Industrial Complex
In last month's State of the Union address, President Obama called on Congress to pass "legislation that will secure our country from the growing dangers of cyber...
From ACM Opinion
A Cyber Risk to the .s.
In a recent briefing to Congress about worldwide threats, FBI Director Robert S. Mueller III said that the danger of cyberattacks will equal or surpass the danger...
From ACM Opinion
Tides Are Changing For Web Surfers
David Weinberger has a new book out entitled Too Big to Know in which he argues that one of the implications of a comprehensively networked society is that the...
From ACM Opinion
Apps For Ipad 3: What Apple Should Demo at the Grand nveiling
All indicators suggest Apple will unveil the iPad 3 during the first week of March. That’s less than a month away, and sources at The Next Web say Apple is in "crunch...
From ACM Opinion
Are Supercomputers Worth Their Super Price Tags?
"Why do we have to aim for the world's No. 1 — what's wrong with being the world's No. 2?" That short question about Japan's vaunted K supercomputer program has...
From ACM Opinion
Google Knows Too Much About You
If you use Google, and I know you do, you may have noticed a little banner popping up at the top of the page announcing: "We're changing our privacy policy and...
From ACM Opinion