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 Communications of the ACM
Toward a Closer Integration of Law and Computer Science
Seeking better integration of the insights from the fields of law and technology.
From Communications of the ACM
The Legacy of Steve Ballmer
Assessing the positive and negative components of the second Microsoft CEO's tenure.
From ACM Opinion
Google's Robot Army
A couple of weeks ago, shortly after the Amazon C.E.O. Jeff Bezos unveiled, on "60 Minutes," that his company plans to deliver packages to customers with a swarm...
From ACM Opinion
Former FCC Chairman: 'be Careful Not to Let Licensing Become a Tool of Monopoly'
New Federal Communications Commission Chairman Tom Wheeler faces a number of important decisions about the future of the wireless industry.
From ACM Opinion
Meet Kathy Brown, the Internet Society's New Ceo
If you're the kind of person who keeps track of Internet policy and governance debates, you should know that the Internet Society has a new CEO.
From ACM Opinion
Academics Should Not Remain Silent on Hacking
The revelation that U.S. and British spy agencies have undermined a commonly used encryption code should alarm researchers.
From ACM Opinion
Metadata Isn't Going Away. Here's How to Control It.
It's a good bet that, in the next few weeks, President Obama will impose some serious reforms—and ask Congress to enact a few more—on how the National Security...
From ACM Opinion
Tor Is Supposed to Hide You Online. In This Harvard Student's Case, It Did the Opposite.
At 9 a.m. Monday, fire alarms went off in Harvard's Emerson Hall.
From ACM Opinion
The Judge and the Nsa
Federal Judge Richard Leon has become a sudden political celebrity after his remarkable opinion holding that antiterror surveillance is unconstitutional and, even...
From ACM Opinion
Randolph Kirchain on the Spread of Electronic Waste
Randolph Kirchain, a senior research scientist in MIT's Engineering Systems Division, has long specialized in analyzing the raw materials used to manufacture new...
From ACM Opinion
An Nsa Coworker Remembers The Real Edward Snowden: 'a Genius Among Geniuses'
Perhaps Edward Snowden's hoodie should have raised suspicions.
From ACM Opinion
Why Bitcoin Needs Banks
On a mission to convince the world that Bitcoin is enduring and serious, enthusiasts convened at a place that symbolizes the ephemeral and the glitzy: Las Vegas...
From ACM Opinion
For Steve Ballmer, a Lasting Touch on Microsoft
On the eve of his exit as chief executive officer of Microsoft, after more than a decade on the job, Steve Ballmer is more than ever a CEO whose image does not...
From ACM Opinion
Edward Snowden, The Dark Prophet
To avoid surveillance, the first four Americans to visit Edward Snowden in Moscow carried no cell phones or laptops.
From ACM Opinion
Doom's Creator Looks Back on 20 Years of Demonic Mayhem
At the stroke of midnight on December 10, 1993, an executive at id Software uploaded a file to an FTP site on the University of Washington's network.
From ACM Opinion
Singularity: Reading Our Genes Like Computer Code
Raymond McCauley may go blind as he gets older.
From ACM Opinion
Could a $500 Gadget Have Prevented the Metro-North Tragedy?
Investigators are still studying what caused the derailment of a Metro-North commuter train on its way to Grand Central Terminal just over a week ago, killing four...
From ACM Opinion
The Rise and Fall of Blackberry: An Oral History
In 1984, Mike Lazaridis, an engineering student at the University of Waterloo, and Douglas Fregin, an engineering student at the University of Windsor, founded...
From ACM Opinion