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 Joke's on Your Computer: The Latest Humor Coded Into Software
In Google Maps, the distance-measuring tool offers a choice of three unit systems: Metric, English or "I’m Feeling Geeky." If you click the third one, you’re...
From ACM News
You Are Data
Bits and Base Pairs explores the concept that the information encoded in our DNA can be compressed down to just 4MB, the equivalent, for example, of "the three...
From ACM News
Animators Distill Steve Jobs's Bio Into 90 Seconds
Animators from NMA.TV have reached a new high in campy 3D synthesis of real-world events, boiling down all 630 pages of Walter Isaacson’s Steve Jobs bio into...
From Communications of the ACM
Information Seeking: Convergence of Search, Recommendations, and Advertising
How to address user information needs amidst a preponderance of data.
From Communications of the ACM
Gender Demographics Trends and Changes in U.S. CS Departments
Using the past 10 years of Taulbee Survey data to evaluate female student enrollment across varied academic institutions and departments.
From Communications of the ACM
Teaching-Oriented Faculty at Research Universities
Nine teacher-oriented faculty in computer science departments at research universities in the U.S. or Canada describe how their positions work, how they contribute...
From Communications of the ACM
Will Software Engineering Ever Be Engineering?
Considering whether software engineering and engineering can share a profession.
From Communications of the ACM
Why the Google Book Settlement Failed - and What Comes Next?
Assessing the implications of the Google Book Search settlement.
From Communications of the ACM
What Gets Measured Gets Done
"U.S. broadband is terrible" has become a familiar meme. Given the growing importance of broadband Internet connections, a poor broadband infrastructure would...
From Communications of the ACM
Security Risks in Next-Generation Emergency Services
Sounding the alert on emergency calling system deficiencies.
From ACM Opinion
Rise of the Robot Journalists
The New York Times reported recently that artificial intelligence is being used to compose news stories. Advocates argue that the articles created by "robot journalists"...
From ACM Opinion
The Steve Jobs I Knew
That Steve Jobs was a genius, a giant influence on multiple industries and billions of lives, has been written many times since he retired as Apple’s CEO in August...
From ACM Opinion
Steve Jobs: 1955
Steve Jobs is dead. One big question is whether the unbelievably innovative culture he forged will live. Jobs was not a great human being, but he was a great,...
From ACM Opinion
Big Progress on the Little Things
In the trenches of consumer technology, there’s plenty to complain about. Today's cell-phone contracts are exorbitant and illogical (why has the price of a text...
From Communications of the ACM
Rebooting the CS Publication Process
A proposal for a new cost-free open-access publication model for computer science papers.
From Communications of the ACM
Testing: Failing to Succeed
There are two situations in software testing that scare testers: when they see "too many" defects and when they do not see "enough."
From Communications of the ACM
Modernizing the Danish Democratic Process
Examining the socio-technological issues involved in Denmark's decision to pursue the legalization of electronic elections.
From Communications of the ACM
The Platform Leader's Dilemma
Studying the lessons learned from past and present platform leaders.
From ACM Opinion
Neal Stephenson Talks Video Games, the Metaverse, and His New Book, Reamde
Neal Stephenson is known for writing big books about big ideas. In Cryptonomicon, he tackled code breaking and data privacy; the three-volume Baroque Cycle explored...
From ACM Opinion