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
ndersea Cables Transport 99 Percent of International Data
Things at the bottom of the sea: pale fish, manganese nodules, plastic trash and cables. Lots of cables.
From ACM Opinion
Toolkits For the Mind
When the Japanese computer scientist Yukihiro Matsumoto decided to create Ruby, a programming language that has helped build Twitter, Hulu, and much of the modern...
From ACM Opinion
A New Way to Navigate the Streets of Google Maps
Today we're introducing our most ambitious update yet: PAC-Maps.
From ACM Opinion
Germanwings Flight 9525, Technology, and the Question of Trust
Shortly before the dreadful crash of Germanwings Flight 9525, I happened to be reading part of "The Second Machine Age," a book by two academics at M.I.T., Erik...
From ACM Opinion
How Facebook's Chief Geek Will Meld Reality with the Oculus
Facebook chief technology officer Mike Schroepfer turned 40 last month. He (just barely) blew out a row of 40 candles during a mini-celebration at company headquarters...
From ACM Opinion
What If Web Search Results Were Based on Accuracy?
Imagine, for a moment, that every Web search gave only accurate, verified information.
From Communications of the ACM
Who Builds a House Without Drawing Blueprints?
Finding a better solution by thinking about the problem and its solution, rather than just thinking about the code.
From Communications of the ACM
An Interview with Juris Hartmanis
A pioneer in the field of computational complexity theory reflects on his career.
From Communications of the ACM
An Interview with Juris Hartmanis
A pioneer in the field of computational complexity theory reflects on his career.
From Communications of the ACM
Toward More Secure Software
Two proposals intended to reduce flaws in software use two very different approaches for software security.
From ACM Opinion
The Math of March Madness
The N.C.A.A. men's basketball tournament started Thursday, but for most Americans the real action began days before, as they pored over brackets, competing to make...
From ACM Opinion
Reality Check: Comparing Hololens and Magic Leap
I've seen two competing visions for a future in which virtual objects are merged seamlessly with the real world.
From ACM Opinion
Why Some of Google's Coolest Projects Flop Badly
In public, companies try to trot out any hint of a success story—real or imagined. At SXSW this week, Google took a different tack: It talked all about its failures...
From ACM Opinion
Love in the Time of Bots
Convincing people to have a romantic relationship with a computer might be easier than it sounds.
From ACM Opinion
So Sayeth Google
Search for "vaccines." At least within our filter bubble, the top item in Google's "In the news" section earlier this week was an anti-vax column about the "feds'...
From ACM Opinion
'brutal Doom' Makes One of the Best Games Ever Made Even Better
I still measure every first-person shooter that's released today against the two decades-old Doom, or, more accurately, my memory of playing it as a tween.
From ACM Opinion
Teaching Robots to Be Moral
"Chappie," the highest-grossing movie in America last weekend, is, to put it mildly, not a great film; the critics have given it a twenty-nine on Rotten Tomatoes...
From ACM Opinion
Don't Edit the Human Germ Line
It is thought that studies involving the use of genome-editing tools to modify the DNA of human embryos will be published shortly.
From ACM Opinion