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 $3.2 Billion Man: Can Google's Newest Star Outsmart Apple?
Lounging poolside in 93-degree July heat as Daft Punk's "Get Lucky" thrums through the patio speakers, Tony Fadell takes a sip of nonalcoholic beer and sinks far...
From ACM Opinion
The Sci-Fi Optimist
Best-selling science-fiction writer Neal Stephenson's works cover everything from cryptography to Sumerian mythology.
From ACM Opinion
The Magic in Apple's Devices? The Heart
During the last seismic Apple announcement, in 2010, I was at the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts in San Francisco as Steve Jobs unveiled the iPad, a device he...
From ACM Opinion
On Death and Ipods: A Requiem
Have you ever loved a car? Maybe it was an old truck you drove for hundreds of thousands of miles, or maybe it was your very first car: where you had your very...
From ACM Opinion
Steve Jobs Was a Low-Tech Parent
When Steve Jobs was running Apple, he was known to call journalists to either pat them on the back for a recent article or, more often than not, explain how they...
From ACM Opinion
You Should Be Terrified of Superintelligent Machines
In the recent discussion over the risks of developing superintelligent machines—that is, machines with general intelligence greater than that of humans—two narratives...
From ACM Opinion
Apple's Watch Will Make People and Computers More Intimate
A fundamental quest of the digital age has been to make our devices more personal.
From ACM Opinion
It’s Tim Cook's Apple Now
The Tim Cook era at Apple emerged onto the public stage today in full force, and it bears subtle differences from Steve Jobs’s Apple.
From ACM Opinion
Why I Just Asked My Students To Put Their Laptops Away
I teach theory and practice of social media at NYU, and am an advocate and activist for the free culture movement, so I’m a pretty unlikely candidate for internet...
From ACM Opinion
Our Cyborg Future
In June 2014, the Supreme Court handed down its decision in Riley v. California, in which the justices unanimously ruled that police officers may not, without a...
From ACM Opinion
The Man Who Will Build Google's Elusive Quantum Computer
John Martinis is one of the world's foremost experts on quantum computing, a growing field of science that aims to process information at super high speeds using...
From ACM Opinion
Want to Reform the Nsa? Give Edward Snowden Immunity
In 1970, Christopher Pyle disclosed in public writing that the U.S. Army was running a domestic intelligence program aimed at anti-war and civil-rights activists...
From ACM Opinion
Robot Servants Are Going to Make Your Life Easy. Then They'll Ruin It
Jibo, the "world's first family robot," hit the media hype machine like a bomb.
From ACM Opinion
The Hazards of Going on Autopilot
At 9:18 P.M. on February 12, 2009, Continental Connection Flight 3407, operated by Colgan Air, took off from Newark International Airport.
From ACM Careers
The Coming Age of the Internet Naturalist
Three years ago, Shaun Winterton was looking at photos of bugs on Flickr.
From ACM Opinion
Why Government Researchers Think We May Be Living in a 2d Hologram
Operating with cutting-edge technology out of a trailer in rural Illinois, government researchers have started on a set of experiments that they say will help them...
From ACM Opinion
The Case For Kill Switches in Military Weaponry
This summer the insurgent group ISIS captured the Iraqi city of Mosul—and along with it, three army divisions' worth of U.S.-supplied equipment from the Iraqi army...
From ACM Opinion
Why Internet Governance Should Be Left to the Engineers
As the Internet and the disruptive innovations it spawns are becoming economically, politically, and culturally vital for the world’s three billion users (and counting)...
From ACM Opinion
The Defenders of Anonymity on the Internet
You may not realise it, but every time you open up your laptop or switch on your phone, you are at the heart of one of the greatest battles now taking place in...
From ACM Opinion