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
Obama's Science Legacy: Betting Big on Biomedical Science
When president-elect Barack Obama chose physicist John Holdren as his top science adviser in December 2008, some biomedical researchers worried that the pick signalled...
From ACM Opinion
Space, Climate Change, and the Real Meaning of Theory
I used to be an astronaut, a spacewalker on the International Space Station.
From ACM Opinion
Why Facebook Is Really Blocking the Ad Blockers
Ads can seem like the bane of the Internet.
From ACM Opinion
Mind-Controlled Robo-Skeleton Enables Paraplegics to Regain Some Motion
Patients paralyzed by a spinal cord injury can face a grim and grueling recovery process—one in which regaining function is far from a sure thing. But a new study...
From ACM Opinion
How to Read Between the Lines of Tim Cook's Epic Interview
To celebrate five years as CEO of Apple, Tim Cook has given a very long, exclusive interview to the Washington Post about his experiences so far. But what he didn’t...
From ACM Opinion
Tim Cook: Running Apple 'is Sort of a Lonely Job'
On a sleek white coffee table in Apple CEO Tim Cook's fourth-floor office in late July, beneath framed posters of Robert F. Kennedy, the Rev. Martin Luther King...
From ACM Opinion
The Brave New World of Robots and Lost Jobs
Job insecurity is a central theme of the 2016 campaign, fueling popular anger about trade deals and immigration. But economists warn that much bigger job losses...
From ACM Opinion
What Virtual Reality Is Good For
After years as a punchline, virtual reality is enjoying a renaissance. Venture capitalists plowed $1.2 billion into virtual-reality and augmented-reality startups...
From ACM Opinion
All Alone in No Man's Sky
If reality is a game—a vast, snow-globe-y sort of experiment that plays out according to the hard rules of physics and the loose rules of story—then it is, in contemporary...
From ACM Opinion
Marconi Forged Today's Interconnected World of Communication
At Guglielmo Marconi's grand state funeral in Rome in 1937—orchestrated with military-style pomp by the black-shirted Benito Mussolini—the largest wreath on the...
From ACM Opinion
Hydrogen Molecule Falls to Quantum Computer
We are at the beginning of a revolution. I've been going on about quantum computing for as long as I've been writing, but it has always been in the future tense...
From ACM Opinion
Why Save a Computer Virus?
On average, 82,000 new malware threats are created each day.
From ACM Opinion
Can We Trust Julian Assange and Wikileaks?
The release of a cache of emails from the Democratic National Committee by WikiLeaks last month has raised a great many questions—about the role of the D.N.C. in...
From ACM Opinion
After Fatality, Autonomous Car Development May Speed p
The world has witnessed enormous advances in autonomous passenger vehicle technologies over the last dozen years.
From ACM Opinion
Remembering a Thinker Who Thought About Thinking
The field of educational technology is mourning a visionary whose work was considered 50 years ahead of its time.
From ACM Opinion
The World's Best Cyber Army Doesn't Belong to Russia
National attention is focused on Russian eavesdroppers' possible targeting of U.S. presidential candidates and the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee.
From ACM Opinion
Google's Driverless-Car Czar on Taking the Human Out of the Equation
You devoted your life to human-driven transportation, engineering SUVs at Ford and taking Hyundai (as U.S. CEO and president) to record levels of sales in the U...
From ACM Opinion
How One Journalist ses Social Media to Get Inside the Minds of Isis
Rukmini Callimachi is arguably the best reporter on the most important beat in the world. As a New York Times correspondent covering terrorism, her work explores...
From ACM Opinion
Nsa Director Rogers on DNC Hacking, Cyberwarfare and Isis
When it comes to warfare—the weapons, the budgets, the personnel—America is king. But the United States has not yet conquered cyberwarfare.
From ACM Opinion