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How to Invent a Person Online
From ACM Opinion

How to Invent a Person Online

On April 8, 2013, I received an envelope in the mail from a nonexistent return address in Toledo, Ohio.

When Robots Come For Our Jobs, Will We Be Ready to Outsmart Them?
From ACM Opinion

When Robots Come For Our Jobs, Will We Be Ready to Outsmart Them?

Non-human employees are filling positions in all sorts of workplaces, and they are proving themselves to be fast, accurate, and reliable—more so than their human...

How the ­.s. Stumbled Into the Drone Era
From ACM Opinion

How the ­.s. Stumbled Into the Drone Era

On Sept. 7, 2000, in the waning days of the Clinton administration, a U.S. Predator drone flew over Afghanistan for the first time.

The Next Big Thing in Hardware: Smart Garbage
From ACM Opinion

The Next Big Thing in Hardware: Smart Garbage

There's a box on a shelf in my closet stuffed with smart smoke detectors, old smartphones, chargers, battery cases, fitness trackers, a Kindle that I sat on and...

How to Talk About Blowing Things ­p in Cyberspace, According to the Military
From ACM Opinion

How to Talk About Blowing Things ­p in Cyberspace, According to the Military

Bombs are relatively simple, when you boil everything down.

The Fasinatng … Frustrating … Fascinating History of Autocorrect
From ACM Opinion

The Fasinatng … Frustrating … Fascinating History of Autocorrect

Invoke the word autocorrect and most people will think immediately of its hiccups—the sort of hysterical, impossible errors one finds collected on sites like Damn...

Id Shows Off Double-Jumping, Skull-Crushing New Doom at Quakecon
From ACM Opinion

Id Shows Off Double-Jumping, Skull-Crushing New Doom at Quakecon

The bad news is that only people who were actually at Dallas' QuakeCon last night were able to see the world-premiere gameplay footage from the next Doom game,...

Bletchley Park's Rebirth and Why It Matters
From ACM Opinion

Bletchley Park's Rebirth and Why It Matters

Twenty five years ago, the historic World War II codebreaking center Bletchley Park faced demolition.

Calling All Hackers: Help ­S Build an Open Wireless Router
From ACM Opinion

Calling All Hackers: Help ­S Build an Open Wireless Router

EFF is releasing an experimental hacker alpha release of wireless router software specifically designed to support secure, shareable Open Wireless networks.

The Future of Robot Caregivers
From ACM Opinion

The Future of Robot Caregivers

Each time I make a house call, I stay much longer than I should.

Being a Better Online Reader
From ACM Opinion

Being a Better Online Reader

Soon after Maryanne Wolf published "Proust and the Squid," a history of the science and the development of the reading brain from antiquity to the twenty-first...

Three Questions For Robotics Inventor Cynthia Breazeal About Social Robots
From ACM Opinion

Three Questions For Robotics Inventor Cynthia Breazeal About Social Robots

As an academic, Cynthia Breazeal pioneered research into social interaction between humans and robots, developing Kismet, a robot that used facial expressions in...

The Moral Hazards and Legal Conundrums of Our Robot-Filled Future
From ACM Opinion

The Moral Hazards and Legal Conundrums of Our Robot-Filled Future

The robots are coming, and they're getting smarter.

Take a Virtual Voyage Into Darwin's Library
From ACM Opinion

Take a Virtual Voyage Into Darwin's Library

In his celebrated journey around the world on the HMS Beagle from 1831 to 1836, Charles Darwin collected a plethora of information on the geology, animals, plants...

Defending the Grand Vision of the Human Brain Project
From ACM Opinion

Defending the Grand Vision of the Human Brain Project

"A grass roots effort is under way to stop the project... 'Mediocre science, terrible science policy,' begins the spirited letter…"

How to Terraform the Moon
From ACM Opinion

How to Terraform the Moon

Space fans were startled—and perhaps a little skeptical—in May when the Russians announced that they intend to build a manned moon base.

Nsa Implementing Fix to Prevent Snowden-Like Security Breach
From ACM Opinion

Nsa Implementing Fix to Prevent Snowden-Like Security Breach

A year after Edward Snowden's digital heist, the NSA's chief technology officer says steps have been taken to stop future incidents. But he says there's no way...

Harnessing the Speed of Light
From ACM Opinion

Harnessing the Speed of Light

The fields of data communication, fabrication, and ultrasound imaging share a common challenge when it comes to improving speed and efficiency: light's diffraction...

The Trouble With Brain Science
From ACM Opinion

The Trouble With Brain Science

Are we ever going to figure out how the brain works?

How Not to Build a Brain
From ACM Opinion

How Not to Build a Brain

Building a brain sounds like a worthy goal, one that makes it seem as though the future is within reach.
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