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
Microscopy: Hasten High Resolution
The best electron and scanning probe microscopes today can resolve individual atoms and chemical bonds.
From ACM Opinion
Hacker Mitnick Has a Plan to Help You Stay Safe Online
Even famed hacker Kevin Mitnick—labeled a "computer terrorist" by the FBI in the '90s—worries about getting hacked.
From ACM Opinion
How the Smartphone Killed Typing—but Started an AI Revolution
Steve Jobs often swam against the tide of prevailing opinion.
From ACM Opinion
Algorithms Are Great and All, But They Can Also Ruin Lives
On April 5, 2011, 41-year-old John Gass received a letter from the Massachusetts Registry of Motor Vehicles.
From ACM Opinion
Why the Surveillance State Lives On
Once upon a time, Glenn Greenwald was a lonely voice in the blogging wilderness, and Edward Snowden was an isolated functionary at the heart of the American national...
From ACM Opinion
Baidu's Andrew Ng on Deep Learning and Innovation in Silicon Valley
Six months ago, Chinese Internet-search giant Baidu signaled its ambitions to innovate by opening an artificial-intelligence center in Silicon Valley, in Google's...
From ACM Opinion
The Simple Question Nobody's Asking About Net Neutrality
President Obama rattled the internet this week when he unloaded his opinion on net neutrality, the notion that all internet traffic should be treated equally.
From ACM Opinion
Google Ceo on Moonshots: Find a 'zero Million Dollar' Research Problem
To succeed at a moonshot, you need curiosity, impulse, and a problem that no one seems to be investing in.
From ACM Opinion
Reasons to Land on a Comet: What the Rosetta Mission Can Learn
After a journey that took more than a decade, the world is scheduled to witness a first when the European Space Agency's Rosetta mission attempts to land a small...
From ACM Opinion
Why We're All Beta Testers Now
I taught a class a few years ago at Columbia Business School called "What Makes a Hit a Hit—and a Flop a Flop."
From ACM Opinion
These Are 3 Breakthrough Science Ideas You'll Be Talking About in 2015
For anyone who has ever said that all the STEM professions need is something to make them "cool" in order to attract more young people, look no further than ...
From ACM Opinion
William Gibson: I Never Imagined Facebook
Even if you've never heard of William Gibson, you're probably familiar with his work.
From ACM Careers
For Rosetta Mission's Scientists, the Thrill Is in the Comet Chase
Claudia Alexander has spent the last 15 years of her life waiting for this moment: landing a spacecraft the size of a washing machine on the surface of a speeding...
From ACM Opinion
Space-Time Visionary
Thanks to theoretical physicist Kip Thorne, real science is embedded in Christopher Nolan's film Interstellar, in which explorers seek a new home for humankind.
From ACM Opinion
Will Moocs Be Flukes?
On July 23rd, 1969, Geoffrey Crowther addressed the inaugural meeting of the Open University, a British institution that had just been created to provide an alternative...
From ACM Opinion
North Korea: Surfing the Net in the World's Most Isolated Nation
What's the point of a computer in a hermit country sealed off from the internet?
From ACM Opinion
Artificial Intelligence as a Threat
Ebola sounds like the stuff of nightmares. Bird flu and SARS also send shivers down my spine.
From ACM Opinion
Invasion of the Data Snatchers
New technologies are making it easier for private companies and the government to learn about everything we do—in our homes, in our cars, in stores, and within...
From ACM News