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What It Means to Receive the Turing Award
From Communications of the ACM

What It Means to Receive the Turing Award

The Turing Award gives us a unique opportunity to become ambassadors of our wonderful field. It increases our outside visibility and enables us to build bridges...

Does the Internet Make Us Stupid?
From Communications of the ACM

Does the Internet Make Us Stupid?

Yes, but this may not be as bad as it sounds…

Wearables
From Communications of the ACM

Wearables: Has the Age of Smartwatches Finally Arrived?

Time will tell if smartwatches will find their niche.

The Tears of Donald Knuth
From Communications of the ACM

The Tears of Donald Knuth

Has the history of computing taken a tragic turn?

A Little Queue Theory
From Communications of the ACM

A Little Queue Theory

When more work means less done.

A Right to Be Forgotten?
From Communications of the ACM

A Right to Be Forgotten?

Searching for an answer to the question of how much responsibility search engine operators should bear for privacy-related issues connected to search engine results...

How Traditional Firms Must Compete in the Sharing Economy
From Communications of the ACM

How Traditional Firms Must Compete in the Sharing Economy

Considering the evolving relationship between established companies and their sharing-economy counterparts.

The Lesson of the Sony Hack: We Should All Jump to the 'erasable Internet'
From ACM Opinion

The Lesson of the Sony Hack: We Should All Jump to the 'erasable Internet'

This month's news provides yet another occasion for a friendly public-service reminder to anyone who uses a digital device to say anything to anyone, ever.

How to Conquer the Galaxy on a Computer
From ACM Opinion

How to Conquer the Galaxy on a Computer

Space is big. Really big. And not just in terms of the mind-boggingly vast distances between the stars and planets out there in the Universe at large.

William Gibson Sees the Future
From ACM Opinion

William Gibson Sees the Future

"The thing to keep in mind," William Gibson tells me when we meet in the quiet lounge of a Victorian-style hotel in Chicago, "is that I’m not actually predicting...

What Are Moocs Good For?
From ACM Opinion

What Are Moocs Good For?

A few years ago, the most enthusiastic advocates of MOOCs believed that these "massive open online courses" stood poised to overturn the century-old model of higher...

Boston Researcher Cynthia Breazeal Is Ready to Bring Robots Into the Home. Are You?
From ACM Opinion

Boston Researcher Cynthia Breazeal Is Ready to Bring Robots Into the Home. Are You?

The MIT Media Lab's Personal Robots Group flanks the soaring atrium on the fourth floor of the Wiesner Building, a wall of metal panels along the southern edge...

Father of Web Tells Russia's Putin: Internet Is Not a 'cia Project'
From ACM Opinion

Father of Web Tells Russia's Putin: Internet Is Not a 'cia Project'

The inventor of the World Wide Web said on Thursday that Russian President Vladimir Putin was incorrect when he alleged the Internet was a project created by U.S...

Ransomware Is the Future of Consumer Cybercrime
From ACM Opinion

Ransomware Is the Future of Consumer Cybercrime

It's 2020, bitter cold outside, you’re running late for work, and the Linux box that controls your car isn't going to start unless you wire $20 worth of Bitcoin...

Baer's Odyssey: Meet the Serial Inventor Who Built the World's First Game Console
From ACM Opinion

Baer's Odyssey: Meet the Serial Inventor Who Built the World's First Game Console

Even if you're a devoted fan of video games, there's a decent chance you're not familiar with the name Ralph H. Baer.

What Could Be Lost as Einstein's Papers Go Online
From ACM Opinion

What Could Be Lost as Einstein's Papers Go Online

When I heard that Albert Einstein's papers were going to be published free online, I was thrilled—at least initially.

Search Gives ­s Superpowers
From ACM News

Search Gives ­s Superpowers

Machine learning—an area of AI focusing on systems that "learn" from data in order to navigate future similar scenarios—is one of the ways we’ve managed to give...

The World Cracks Down on the Internet
From ACM Opinion

The World Cracks Down on the Internet

In September of last year, Chinese authorities announced an unorthodox standard to help them decide whether to punish people for posting online comments that are...

Finding an Image with an Image and Other Feats of Computer Vision
From ACM Opinion

Finding an Image with an Image and Other Feats of Computer Vision

"We found that people were searching for squirrels just to favorite them, just to click 'like.' And the same with buses."

The Princess Trap
From ACM Opinion

The Princess Trap

When my 4-year-old told me the other day that she was "ready for princesses," part of me died.
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